Several studies have explored the determinants of anthropomorphism: the tendency to endow nonhuman agents with human features, goals, and intentions. Less is known of the cognitive benefits that may arise from anthropomorphism. Following research in narrative comprehension, we explored how the attribution of human-like features and intentional…

Intervention approaches to bullying are largely preventive in nature, and even these have been shown to be ineffective, if not iatrogenic, with adolescents. Responses to bullying are limited to traditional punitive approaches or "no-blame" approaches aiming to restore the relationship between the targeted students. Neither of these…

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…

When a multisite randomized trial reveals between-site variation in program impact, methods are needed for further investigating heterogeneous mediation mechanisms across the sites. We conceptualize and identify a joint distribution of site-specific direct and indirect effects under the potential outcomes framework. A method-of-moments procedure…

Wound cleansing remains a corner stone in the management of diabetic foot ulcer. Hydrogen Peroxide (H[subscript 2]O[subscript 2]) and Povidone Iodine are topical antimicrobial agents but known to be toxic to cells involved in the wound healing cascade. The biggest challenge for the physicians and nurses is searching for a safe, noncytotoxic and…

Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and quasi-experimental designs like regression discontinuity (RD) designs, instrumental variable (IV) designs, and matching and propensity score (PS) designs are frequently used for inferring causal effects. It is well known that the features of these designs facilitate the identification of a causal estimand…

Commitments to goals are theorized to affect behavior change outcomes, but competing theories argue for hard to achieve goals and strategic sub-goals as optimum strategies for success. This study aimed to explore whether the nature of the goal affects smoking cessation outcomes. A total of 1043 participants in a randomized controlled trial of…

Background: Children with language comprehension difficulties are at risk of educational and social problems, which in turn impede employment prospects in adulthood. However, few randomized trials have examined how such problems can be ameliorated during the preschool years. Methods: We conducted a cluster randomized trial in 148 preschool…

Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are considered the most methodologically sound methods of conducting empirical research, but a successful RCT is contingent on the recruitment of subjects into the intervention and study. Few research articles and evaluations in education discuss recruitment, and even fewer discuss challenges in recruitment.…

The scientific rigor of education research has improved dramatically since the year 2000. Much of the credit for this improvement is deserved by Institute of Education Sciences (IES) policies that helped create a demand for rigorous research; increased human capital capacity to carry out such work; provided funding for the work itself; and…

There are several widely used Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) implementation fidelity measures, including the Schoolwide Evaluation Tool (SET), but there is limited empirical investigation substantiating the association between specific fidelity cut point scores and student outcomes. This article examined different SET cut…

The purpose of this study is extend previous methods by Raudenbush and Liu (2001) and Spybrook et al. (2011), and provide methods for power analysis of tests of treatment effects in studies of polynomial change with two levels of nesting (e.g., students and schools) where the treatment is either at the third level (e.g., school intervention) or at…

Educational stakeholders are keen to know the magnitude and importance of different interventions. However, the way evidence is communicated to support understanding of the effectiveness of an intervention is controversial. Typically studies in education have used the standardised mean difference as a measure of the impact of interventions. This…

Social-emotional learning (SEL) programs are frequently evaluated using randomized controlled trial (RCT) methodology as a means to assess program impacts. What is often missing in RCT studies is a robust parallel investigation of the multi-level implementation of the program. The field of implementation science bridges the gap between the RCT…

Increasing evidence indicates that individuals with Intellectual Disabilities (ID) might benefit from phonics-based reading instruction. However, research and instruction in this field has predominantly focused on sight word reading. Models for complex interventions recommend that feasibility research be conducted prior to conducting randomised…