This study investigates the effect of survey order in measuring self-reported cognitive load. Understanding how survey order influences responses is crucial, but it has been largely overlooked in the context of cognitive load. Using a 2 × 2 experimental design with 319 high school students, the study manipulated intrinsic cognitive load (ICL)…

This paper describes a 12-week cluster randomized controlled trial that examined the efficacy of BookNook, a virtual tutoring platform focused on reading. Cohorts of first- through fourth-grade students attending six Rocketship public charter schools in Northern California were randomly assigned within grades to receive BookNook. Intent-to-Treat…

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…

Beginning in 2002, researchers developed, implemented, and evaluated the efficacy of an English reading intervention for first-grade English learners using multiple randomized control trials (RCTs). As a result of this efficacy work, researchers successfully competed for an IES Goal 4 effectiveness study using the same intervention. Unlike the…

An appropriate estimate of statistical power is critical for the design of intervention studies. Although the inclusion of a pretest covariate in the test of the primary outcome can increase statistical power, samples selected on the basis of pretest performance may demonstrate range restriction on the selection measure and other correlated…

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an important cross-national study of 15-year-olds' academic knowledge and skills. Educationalists and public policymakers eagerly await the tri-annual results, with particular interest in whether their country has moved up or slid down the international rankings, as compared to earlier…

In classrooms today, teachers continue to strive to enhance student knowledge and application by designing learning environments which create experiences for students to interact collaboratively, solve problems, think critically, and learn by doing. Research has indicated that teacher knowledge of the experiential learning cycle has become…

The objective of the present study was to evaluate the extent to which students who took a computer adaptive test of reading comprehension accounting for testlet effects were administered fewer passages and had a more precise estimate of their reading comprehension ability compared to students in the control condition. A randomized controlled…

Little is known empirically about intraclass correlations (ICCs) for multisite cluster randomized trial (MSCRT) designs, particularly in science education. In this study, ICCs suitable for science achievement studies using a three-level (students in schools in districts) MSCRT design that block on district are estimated and examined. Estimates of…

In the 21st century, students have access to a plethora of information. As such, the skills required to access and effectively sort through this information (information literacy skills) become ever more important for success in both academic and non-academic settings. This study sought to assess the efficacy of two educational games designed to…

Researchers are increasingly using comparative interrupted time series (CITS) designs to estimate the effects of programs and policies when randomized controlled trials are not feasible. In a simple interrupted time series design, researchers compare the pre-treatment values of a treatment group time series to post-treatment values in order to…

Open Educational Resources (OER) can offer educators the necessary flexibility for tailoring educational resources to better fit their educational goals. Although the number of OER repositories is growing fast, few studies have been conducted to empirically test the effectiveness of OER integration in the classroom. Furthermore, very little is…

Children from low-income and ethnic minority backgrounds have demonstrated substantially lower levels of math achievement than their middle class majority peers for decades. The present study addressed two research questions: (1) when used as a supplement to typical classroom instruction and in isolation from the larger curriculum, does Building…

In 2013-14, the Wake County Public School System (WCPSS) launched Achieve3000 as a randomized controlled trial in 16 elementary schools. Achieve3000 is an early literacy program that differentiates non-fiction reading passages based on individual students' Lexile scores. Twoyear results show that Achieve3000 did not have a significant impact on…

Although evidence of negative associations between early literacy development and children's behavior problems exists, the field still lacks an understanding of the complicated links between these two areas. Children's gender has often not been included in much of the extant research as a potential moderating variable, yet gender differences may…