This study examined bias reduction in the eight nonequivalent comparison group designs (NECGDs) that result from combining (a) choice of a local versus non-local comparison group, and analytic use or not of (b) a pretest measure of the study outcome and (c) a rich set of other covariates. Bias was estimated as the difference in causal estimate…

Background: It is widely acknowledged that children with developmental language disorder (DLD) predominantly have difficulties in the areas of grammar and vocabulary, with preserved pragmatic skills. Consequently, few studies focus on the pragmatic skills of children with DLD, and there is a distinct lack of studies examining the effectiveness of…

This article summarizes findings from a two-year randomized control trial, focusing on a subset of 194 fourth graders with reading comprehension scores at or below the 15th percentile. Students in the treatment condition received an average of 94 daily 30-min sessions of small group intervention implemented with fidelity by well-trained research…

To plan cluster-randomized trials with sufficient statistical power to detect intervention effects on student achievement, researchers need multilevel design parameters, including measures of between-classroom and between-school differences and the amounts of variance explained by covariates at the student, classroom, and school level. Previous…

This article assesses the likely generalizability of educational treatment-effect estimates from regression discontinuity designs (RDDs) when treatment assignment is based on academic pretest scores. Our assessment uses data on outcome and pretest measures from six educational experiments, ranging from preschool through high school, to estimate…

Objective: Mindfulness-based interventions have been shown to have psychological benefits in college students. We explored the effects of an academic Seminar on Compassion on student psychological health. Participants: Forty-one participants (14 male, 27 female, mean age 19.8 ± 1.4 years) were assessed pre- and post- spring semesters 2013 and…

Background: This study aimed to compare the effectiveness of a hopping and jumping training programme (HJP) versus a sensorimotor rehabilitation programme (SRP) on postural performances in children with intellectual disability. Methods: Three groups of children with intellectual disability participated in the study: the HJP group, the SRP group…

An impediment to conducting high-quality quantitative research studies in education is the paucity of valid measures of learning gains. Studies often seek to investigate students' deep, conceptual understanding yet many measures assess only surface, procedural understanding. One reason is that the development of validated measures of conceptual…

We designed a serious game, MolWorlds, to facilitate conceptual change about molecular emergence by using game mechanics (resource management, immersed 3rd person character, sequential level progression, and 3-star scoring system) to encourage cycles of productive negativity. We tested the value-added effect of game design by comparing and…

Objective: The purpose of this pilot study was to evaluate the Resilience and Coping Intervention (RCI) with college students. Participants: College students (aged 18-23) from a large Midwest US university who volunteered for a randomized controlled trial during the 2015 spring semester. Methods: College students were randomly assigned to an…

Objective: There is substantial evidence that poorly designed and reported research can mislead decision making in clinical care. This review investigates the methodological quality of Swedish trials of a wide array of psychological and social interventions. Method: The review includes 302 articles published in peer-reviewed journals during…

Purpose: To investigate the efficiency of a single-session character-strength-based cognitive intervention on enhancing freshmen's adaptability. Method: A randomized trial, pretest, posttest, follow-up intervention was employed using repeated-measures analyses to evaluate the effect. This 90-min intervention contained four activities with 52…

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether off-task multitasking activities with mobile technologies, specifically social networking sites and short messaging services, used during real-time lectures have an effect on grade performance in higher education students. Two experimental groups and one control group were used in this research.…

The main purpose of the present study was to examine the effect of an activity with an educational electronic book (e-book) on language retention among children at risk for learning disabilities (LD) (seven weeks after the intervention). Two modes of the educational e-book were investigated: with and without metacognitive guidance. Seventy seven…

Background: Early language skills are critical for later academic success. Lower socioeconomic status (SES) children tend to start school with limited language skills compared to advantaged peers. We test the hypothesis that this is due in part to differences in caregiver contingent talk during infancy (how often the caregiver talks about what is…