Experimental studies are often employed to test the effectiveness of teaching innovations such as new pedagogy, curriculum, or learning resources. This article offers guidance on good practice in developing research designs, and in drawing conclusions from published reports. Random control trials potentially support the use of statistical…

This article reviews several decades of the author's meta-analytic and experimental research on the conditions under which nonrandomized experiments can approximate the results from randomized experiments (REs). Several studies make clear that we can expect accurate effect estimates from the regression discontinuity design, though its statistical…

This article compares Donald Campbell's and Donald Rubin's work on causal inference in field settings on issues of epistemology, theories of cause and effect, methodology, statistics, generalization, and terminology. The two approaches are quite different but compatible, differing mostly in matters of bandwidth versus fidelity. Campbell's work…

This study compared the effects of a computer-based stimulus equivalence protocol to a traditional lecture format in teaching single-subject experimental design concepts to undergraduate students. Participants were assigned to either an equivalence or a lecture group, and performance on a paper-and-pencil test that targeted relations among the…

This study compared a multiple exemplar approach involving the training of key words and sentence structures to a typical repeated readings procedure for their effects on students' generalized oral reading fluency. The two training approaches were also compared in terms of their relative learning rates (i.e., fluency gain per minute of instruction…

The problems addressed, and solutions devised, by educational ethnographers in selection of and sampling from phenomena for internal representativeness external comparison are examined. The process of sampling is designated as a specialized form of the more general process of focusing and choosing in research, which is called selection. Common…

PhD and EdD dissertations were compared for research design, statistics, target populations, significance of results, age of subjects, and other characteristics. Analysis of 1,007 PhD and 960 EdD dissertations found PhD dissertations had more multivariate statistics and wider generalizability. EdD dissertations were more prevalent in educational…

The author conducted a cross national analysis of sociological research reported in leading journals at two points in time over a ten year period to determine if sociologists' ability to produce valid social generalizations had improved significantly over the recent past. The official journals of the United States (American Sociological Review),…

A meta-analytic study on effectiveness of behavioral and psychotherapeutic treatments for challenging behaviors in individuals with mild mental retardation is reported. Eighty articles were examined. For each comparison, several study variables and two effect sizes (percentage of nonoverlapping data--PND and percentage of zero data--PZD) were…

This report presents the proceedings of a conference for researchers and trainers of researchers, convened to discuss the issues involved in improving knowledge by finding better ways to permit cross-research analyses or longitudinal research analyses. Included are: (1) a description of the history, goals, and activities of the Interagency Panel…