Some 23 journals in educational psychology and related fields, including two organizational "flagship" journals with circulations over 50,000, now "require" effect size reporting. This paper reviews some of the many effect size choices available to researchers. Effect size measures can be grouped into measures of association strength and measures…

Contemporary educational research is marked by diversity, complexity, and richness of purposes, methods, and perspectives. A framework, the Methodologically Inclusive Research Synthesis (MIRS), has been developed to offer a set of guidelines to facilitate informed choices at the critical decision points of any research synthesis process. The MIRS…

This digest makes the case that careful planning of replication can enhance the interpretability of applied research. When results are consistent across several studies, there is a stronger basis for observed relationships than the support that is available within each study by itself, since results that have been replicated are considered more…

This Digest provides a review and applications of the concepts of normal distribution, standard deviation, effect size, and translation of effect size into percentile gain, the foundations for the understanding of meta analytic results. Meta analysis is a statistical technique that enables the results of a number of studies to be combined to…

The reanalysis of data to answer the original research question with better statistical techniques or to answer new questions with old data is not uncommon in quantitative studies. Meta analysis and research syntheses have increased with the increase in research using similar statistical analyses, refinements of analytical techniques, and the…

The appropriate use of exploratory factor analysis (EFA) necessitates thoughtful researcher judgment concerning a number of analytic decisions. This paper reviews some of the fundamental decisions necessary to conduct an EFA and examines reporting practice in published research across four journals. In general, insufficient information was given…

Studies of the reliability and validity of scores on the Religious Orientation Scale (G. Allport and J. Ross, 1967) were reviewed with respect to social desirability. Meta analysis shows that one scale correlates with social desirability, but another does not, suggesting that partialing out this variance is not recommended. (SLD)

Studied the main effects of problem-based learning on knowledge and skills and explored potential moderators of the effect of problem-based learning in a meta-analysis of 43 articles. Findings show a robust positive effect on skills, but a tendency to a negative effect, strongly influenced by two studies, on student knowledge. (SLD)

Conducted a reliability generalization study of five of the most prominent adult attachment style measures. Results from this investigation of 154 previously published stories indicate that the average score reliabilities across studied varied considerably across instruments and subscales. (SLD)

Conducted a reliability generalization study of Kolb's Learning Style Inventory (LSI; D. Kolb, 1976). Results for 34 studies indicate that internal consistency and test-retest reliabilities for LSI scores fluctuate considerably and contribute to deleterious cumulative measurement error. (SLD)

Discusses reliability issues in light of recent studies and debates focused on psychometrics versus datametrics terminology and reliabilities generalization. Discusses the way multiple perspectives on score reliability may affect research practice, editorial policies, and reliability generalization across studies. (SLD)

While meta-analyses of the correctional treatment literature have made significant contributions to understanding "what works" with offenders, they have been the subject of considerable scholarly criticism. This article discusses these critiques by revisiting Gottfredson's (1979) discussion of "treatment destruction techniques," and argues that…

Although prereferral intervention teams (PIT) are common in public schools, there is little and conflicting research to support them. The current article conducted an empirical meta-analysis of research on PITs by reviewing 72 articles. Results revealed a mean effect size of 1.15 for student outcomes and 0.90 for systemic outcomes. Implications…

The impact of scaling changes on the size of conditional relationships in meta-analysis is explored by examining a number of parameters. The most nearly appropriate parameters for researchers to aggregate appear to be unstandardized regression coefficients or partial correlation coefficients. (SLD)

Presents a meta-analysis of spelling-to-sound regularity effects in individuals with reading disabilities and reading-level comparison groups. The clear effect of word regularity for individuals with reading disabilities, which did not differ from the word regularity effects for individuals at reading levels, is discussed relative to classic…