We performed an empirical study of the perceived quality of scientific graphics produced by beginning R users in two plotting systems: the base graphics package ("base R") and the ggplot2 add-on package. In our experiment, students taking a data science course on the Coursera platform were randomized to complete identical plotting…

A prior cluster randomized controlled trial (RCT) compared outcomes for a comprehensive school intervention (schoolMAX) to typical educational programming (services-as-usual [SAU]) for 103 children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) without intellectual disability. The schoolMAX intervention was superior to SAU in improving social-cognitive…

Many public and private initiatives have focused on improving prekindergarten (PK) through Grade 12 mathematics education, given that the mathematics content learned before college is foundational for later learning and college success across STEM subjects. Although decades of educational research have studied PK-12 mathematics interventions, the…

This secondary analysis of data from a randomized control trial of an early mathematics intervention, ROOTS, explored whether patterns of intervention response were best categorized by the typical response/non-response binary or a more complex framework with additional response profiles. Participants included kindergarten students at risk for…

We consider situations in which public charter school lotteries are neither universally conducted nor consistently documented. Such lotteries produce "broken" Randomized Control Trials, but provide opportunities to assess the internal validity of quasi-experimental research designs. Here, we present the results of a statewide charter…

In response to the increasing emphasis on 'evidence-based teaching', this article examines the privileging of randomised controlled trials and their statistical synthesis (meta-analysis). It also pays particular attention to two third-level statistical syntheses: John Hattie's "Visible learning" project and the EEF's "Teaching and…

In school settings, nurses lead efforts to improve the student health and well-being to support academic success. Nurses are guided by evidenced-based practice and data to inform care decisions. The randomized controlled trial (RCT) is considered the gold standard of scientific rigor for clinical trials. RCTs are critical to the development of…

There has been increased interest in recent years regarding the utility of imported universal prevention and promotion (P&P) programmes in UK schools, many of which have a coaching model attached. However, there have been relatively few studies exploring the cultural transferability and social validity of these models, even though evidence…

A non-inferiority design accepts the possibility of some efficacy loss, as part of a "successful", statistically significant result. That loss may be excessive when the non-inferiority threshold is lenient. However, even stringent significance thresholds and safety monitoring may fail to adequately protect study participants when the…

This study was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of a brief Alcohol Expectancy Challenge, with the aim of reducing the prevalence of alcohol consumption amongst Maltese teenagers.119 students were randomly allocated to a control or a 3-hour expectancy challenge session. Alcohol consumption and alcohol expectancies were investigated via a…

This paper presents findings from a systematic literature review that explored the delivery arrangements of school-based reading interventions for struggling readers aged 5-8 years. Databases were searched for published and unpublished studies from 1970 to 2017, which employed a randomised controlled trial or quasi-experimental design. Sixty-four…

Ainsworth et al.'s paper "Sources of Bias in Outcome Assessment in Randomised Controlled Trials: A Case Study" examines alternative accounts for a large difference in effect size between 2 outcomes in the same intervention evaluation. It argues that the probable explanation relates to masking: Only one outcome measure was administered by…

The efficacy of attention training paradigms is influenced by many factors, including the specificity of targeted cognitive processes, accuracy of outcome measures, accessibility to specialized populations, and adaptability to user capability. These issues are increasingly significant when working with children diagnosed with neurodevelopmental…

The field of educational research encompasses a vast array of paradigmatic and methodological perspectives. Arguably, this range has both expanded and limited our achievements in the name of educational research. In Australia, the ascendancy of certain research perspectives has profoundly shaped the field and its likely future. We (are expected…

Recent studies show cluster randomized trials may be well powered to detect mediation or indirect effects in multilevel settings. However, literature has rarely provided guidance on designing cluster-randomized trials aim to assess indirect effects. In this study, we developed closed-form expression to estimate the variance of and the statistical…