Single-case design has a long history of use for assessing intervention effectiveness for children with disabilities. Although these designs have been widely employed for more than 50 years, recent years have been especially dynamic in terms of growth in the use of single-case design and application of standards designed to improve the validity…

The field of comparative and international education has followed methodological trends in social science research since the merging of the "twin" field after World War II. With increase in the use of mixed methods research about three decades ago, comparative and international education journals and scholars have worked rigorously to be…

This article draws upon the experiences of four recent efforts to synthesize the findings of quantitative studies in science education research. After establishing the need for research syntheses in advancing generalizable knowledge and causal effects research in our field, we identify a set themes that emerged in the process of conducting these…

Researchers recognize adaptive teaching as a component of effective instruction. Educators adjust their teaching according to the social, linguistic, cultural, and instructional needs of their students. While there is consensus that effective teachers are adaptive, there is no consensus on the language to describe this phenomenon. Diverse…

Overviews, or syntheses of research syntheses, have become a popular approach to synthesizing the rapidly expanding body of research and systematic reviews. Despite their popularity, few guidelines exist and the state of the field in education is unclear. The purpose of this study is to describe the prevalence and current state of overviews of…

Educational researchers and practitioners assert that supportive school and classroom climates can positively influence the academic outcomes of students, thus potentially reducing academic achievement gaps between students and schools of different socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds. Nonetheless, scientific evidence establishing directional…

Historically, the synthesis of single subject design has employed visual inspection to yield significance of results. However, current research is supporting different techniques that will facilitate the interpretation of these intervention outcomes. These methods can provide more reliable data than employing visual inspection in isolation. This…

This article contains a second-order meta-analysis and an exploration of bias in the technology integration literature in higher education. Thirteen meta-analyses, dated from 2000 to 2014 were selected to be included based on the questions asked and the presence of adequate statistical information to conduct a quantitative synthesis. The weighted…

Background: Using meta-analytic review techniques, this study synthesized the results of 79 unpublished studies about the nature of transformational school leadership (TSL) and its impact on the school organization, teachers, and students. This corpus of research associates TSL with 11 specific leadership practices. These practices, as a whole,…

This article examines the nature, role and function of the literature review in academic discourse. Researchers in information systems (IS) are often advised to espouse a neutral viewpoint and adapt the goal of synthesising previous literature when conducting a literature review. However, since research literature in many areas of IS is diverse…

The critical issue in special education today is no longer the assurance of access, but rather, the assurance of effectiveness. Determining which practices and interventions are most effective and efficient for ensuring optimal student achievement is a fundamental concern of special education teachers in this era of accountability. In this…

In this article we give a systematic review of the nature and design of earlier research into the impact of instructional development in higher education. Studies are clustered on the basis of the level of outcome that was measured, meaning that another synthesis technique is used than in prior reviews related to the same topic. In addition, we…

The trends and findings from a descriptive analysis of 25 years of research studies examining the effectiveness of technology to support the compositional writing of students with learning and academic disabilities are presented. A corpus of 85 applied research studies of writing technology effectiveness was identified from among 249 items in the…

The dominant literature on research synthesis methods has positivist and neo-positivist origins. In recent years, the landscape of research synthesis methods has changed rapidly to become inclusive. This article highlights methodologically inclusive advancements in research synthesis methods. Attention is drawn to insights from interpretive,…

Research studies that have focused on the educational effectiveness of "Sesame Street" are reviewed, and a summary and synthesis of research results are presented. Educational effectiveness is defined as effectiveness in areas related to beginning schooling and the early years of the child's formal education. From the more than 100…