We searched the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials to provide an overview of evidence from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of therapeutic interventions for autism spectrum disorders. From the final survey (529 RCTs), the mean size was 49 participants (standard deviation 50, range 1-479, median 36, mode 40), with a sharp increase in…

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: The purpose of this study was to investigate the patterns of objectively measured sedentary behaviour in adults with intellectual disabilities. Methods: Baseline accelerometer data were pooled from two randomized controlled trials of lifestyle behaviour change programmes for adults with intellectual disabilities. Patterns of sedentary…

Nudge is an approach to public policy that changes the decision-making environment to encourage citizens to make a particular choice. The approach has been eagerly adopted by administrations around the world, with some governments establishing dedicated nudge units to advance their use. One reason proposed for nudge's popularity is that it…

In this study, we used a randomized control trial (N = 84) to evaluate the effects of a classroom-based motivational interviewing intervention on undergraduate psychology students' test performance. Results indicated that students in the treatment group (n = 38) demonstrated significant increases in their exam grades following the intervention (d…

Theories regarding the long-term effects of educational interventions are often assumed, but rarely tested using experimental methods. In the following commentary, we argue that the shortage of randomized control trials with long-term follow-up presents serious problems for the field, as it hampers our ability to develop educational programs that…

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…

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…

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…