The debate over what counts as credible evidence often occurs on a methodological level (i.e., about what technical applications of systematic inquiry provide believable, justifiable claims about a program). Less often, it occurs on an epistemological level (i.e., about what ways of knowing are appropriate for making claims about a program). Even…

Cost-utility analyses are slowly becoming part of randomized control trials evaluating physical and mental health treatments and (preventive) interventions in child and adolescent development. The British National Institute of Health and Care Excellence, for example, insists on the use of gains in Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) to compute the…

Despite the increase in federal tiered evidence initiatives that require the use of rigorous evaluation designs, such as randomized experiments, there has been limited guidance in the evaluation literature on practical strategies to implement such studies successfully. This paper provides lessons learned in executing experiments in applied…

Background: A total of 68% of pre-school children with cleft palate have speech problems requiring speech therapy. There is a lack of access to regular targeted therapy. Parent training leads to positive outcomes in early communication skills in cleft palate and non-cleft speech disorders. Connected health has been used to address inadequate…

There are many paradigms available to address the unique and complex problems introduced with parallel programming. These complexities have implications for computer science education as ubiquitous multi-core computers drive the need for programmers to understand parallelism. One major obstacle to student learning of parallel programming is that…

Social stories is a widely used intervention for children on the autism spectrum, particularly within an educational context. To date, systematic reviews and meta analyses of the research evaluating social stories has produced mixed results, often due to a lack of methodological rigour and variability in the development and delivery of the social…

Our research team worked with Wake Technical Community College to evaluate an intervention to redesign the delivery of a set of introductory online courses. To obtain unbiased estimates of the treatment effects of the intervention, we conducted a randomized control trial in which students who enrolled in the study courses were assigned randomly to…

Background: Knowing which theoretical constructs work best to design effective interventions is essential for populations with increased disease burden. African American women (AAW) experience a greater prevalence of chronic diseases and fewer benefits from weight loss interventions compared to White women. Purpose: To examine how theoretical…

This paper reviews research on the design and effectiveness of preschools in the United States. Three randomized controlled trials that enrolled roughly 350 total children in demonstration studies during the 1960s and 1970s shape much of the current discussion of preschool. We examine what these studies and more recent ones based on random…

Initiatives during the Bush Administration and the Obama Administration may have set the stage for a"Golden Age of evidence-based policy" (Haskins, 2015). Together these efforts stress the importance of accurate, internally valid evidence that can inform decisions to more efficiently allocate public resources. In 2002, the U.S.…

The current study examined predictors of outcomes across two school clinician-delivered treatments (i.e., treatment as usual [TAU] or modular cognitive-behavioral therapy [M-CBT]) for youth with anxiety disorders. Predictors reflected two broad domains -- therapist factors (i.e., education, years of experience, therapeutic orientation, work…

Principals are the second-largest school-based contributor to K-12 students' academic progress. However, there is little research evaluating whether efforts to develop principals' skills improve school effectiveness. We conducted randomized controlled trial studies of the impacts of a professional development program called the Executive…

The present study examined the content of applied behavior analytic therapy (ABA therapy) on skill acquisition and intelligence test scores of twenty-eight children with autism and related disabilities. Using a randomized controlled trial, we compared (a) traditional ABA consisting of verbal behavior techniques developed by Skinner (Verbal…

Context: Assessments of baseline equivalency of intervention and control groups, "balance," play a critical role in evaluating educational interventions. The highest What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) of the Institute of Educational Studies (IES) standard for educational studies, "Meets WWC Design Standards Without Reservations,"…

Tender Shoots is a randomized controlled trial (RCT) for parents aimed at improving preschool children's oral language skills relevant for later reading. Parents of 72 preschool children (M = 50 months) were randomly assigned to either a Rich Reading and Reminiscing (RRR) condition, a Strengthening Sound Sensitivity (SSS) condition, or an…