Until now, the conventional approach using two distinct groups, experimental and control, continues to dominate research, especially education research. Researchers, particularly those who are active in this domain, readily recognise this pattern when surveying literature. This article explores the use of the Solomon four-group design as a…

The randomized control trial (RCT) is the primary experimental design in education research due to its strong internal validity for causal inference. However, in situations where RCTs are not feasible or ethical, quasi-experiments are alternatives to establish causal inference. This paper serves as an introduction to several quasi-experimental…

This study examined bias reduction in the eight nonequivalent comparison group designs (NECGDs) that result from combining (a) choice of a local versus non-local comparison group, and analytic use or not of (b) a pretest measure of the study outcome and (c) a rich set of other covariates. Bias was estimated as the difference in causal estimate…

Group design research studies can provide evidence to draw conclusions about "what works," "for whom," and "under what conditions" in special education. The quality indicators introduced by Gersten and colleagues (2005) have contributed to increased rigor in group design research, which has provided substantial…

This article describes our efforts to screen and enrol clinical trial participants conscientiously in the COVID-19 pandemic setting. We present the standard screening and enrolment process prior to, and our process of adapting to, the pandemic. Our goal was to develop a way to screen and enrol people for clinical trials that was both equitable and…

Several branches of the potential outcome causal inference literature have discussed the merits of blocking versus complete randomization. Some have concluded it can never hurt the precision of estimates, and some have concluded it can hurt. In this article, we reconcile these apparently conflicting views, give a more thorough discussion of what…

Existing systems for automating the assessment of risk-of-bias (RoB) in medical studies are supervised approaches that require substantial training data to work well. However, recent revisions to RoB guidelines have resulted in a scarcity of available training data. In this study, we investigate the effectiveness of generative large language…

Objective: Although ADHD is highly heritable, some environmental factors contribute to its development. Given the growing evidence that gut microbiota was involved in psychiatric disorders, we aimed to identify the characteristic composition of the gut microbiota in ADHD. Methods: We recruited 47 medication-naive children and adolescents with…

Pregnancy is a frequently applied exclusion criteria for many forms of research. Common justifications for this exclusion include the potential for teratogenicity, as well as the potential for physiologic changes in pregnancy to impact the research itself. The systematic exclusion of pregnant persons from clinical studies has created a significant…

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,"…

Searching for trials is a key task in systematic reviews and a focus of automation. Previous approaches required knowing examples of relevant trials in advance, and most methods are focused on published trial articles. To complement existing tools, we compared methods for finding relevant trial registrations given a International Prospective…

Stem cell therapy, a cutting-edge technology, aims to replace damaged cells with healthy ones. Stem cells possess the remarkable ability to multiply and differentiate into various cell types, making them ideal candidates for regenerative medicine. This therapy holds promise for treating a wide range of conditions and injuries. In this review, I…

Many interventions in education occur in settings where treatments are applied to groups. For example, a reading intervention may be implemented for all students in some schools and withheld from students in other schools. When such treatments are nonrandomly allocated, outcomes across the treated and control groups may differ due to the treatment…

"Attrition" is the loss of sample during the course of a study. It occurs when individuals initially randomly assigned in a study are not included when researchers examine the outcome of interest. Attrition is a common issue in education research, and it occurs for many reasons. The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) is an initiative of the…

Background/Context: Observational studies often employ regression discontinuity (RD) designs and multiple control-group designs to explore the causal quantities of interest. RD designs assess policy and program effectiveness by assigning subjects to treatment based on whether they exceed a pre-defined cutoff. RD designs are classified into two…