Motivational interviewing (MI) is applied in a variety of clinical and coaching models to promote behavior change, with increasing interest in its potential to optimize school-based implementation fidelity. Yet there has been less consideration of fidelity indicators for MI-embedded coaching and links to outcomes. We leveraged secondary data from…

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…

We develop a theoretical and empirical basis for the design of teacher professional development studies. We build on previous work by (a) developing estimates of intraclass correlation coefficients for teacher outcomes using two- and three-level data structures, (b) developing estimates of the variance explained by covariates, and (c) modifying…

The purpose of this paper is to showcase new research that seeks to provide guidance on the heterogeneity of treatment effects by utilizing the variance of demographic differences in state assessments. This study is focused on a simple randomized block design where students are nested within schools, and within each school students are randomized…

Every Classroom, Every Day (ECED) is a set of instructional improvement interventions designed to increase student achievement in math and English/language arts (ELA). ECED includes three primary components: (a) systematic classroom observations by school leaders, (b) intensive professional development and support for math teachers and…

This study investigates, through a cluster randomized trial, the impact of "Math in Focus," a core mathematics program modeled after instructional approaches used in Singapore, on third- through fifth-grade students' achievement in mathematics. The program is currently being used in more than 400 school districts in the United States.…

Motivational interviewing (MI) is a brief client-centred intervention that increases intrinsic motivation for change. Little research has been conducted on MI to promote academic behaviours, but two studies found that one session of MI did improve middle-school students' math grades [Strait, G., Smith, B., McQuillin, S., Terry, J., Swan, S., &…

The authors evaluated the effects of P-SELL, a science curricular and professional development intervention for fifth-grade students with a focus on English language learners (ELLs). Using a randomized controlled trial design with 33 treatment and 33 control schools across three school districts in one state, we found significant and meaningfully…

Growing interest in teaching quality and accountability has focused attention on the need for rigorous studies and evaluations of professional development (PD) programs. However, the study of PD has been hampered by a lack of suitable instruments. The authors present data from the Teacher Knowledge Assessment System (TKAS), which was designed to…

The project reported here is conducting repeated randomized control trials of an approach to high school geometry that utilizes Dynamic Geometry (DG) software to supplement ordinary instructional practices. It compares effects of that intervention with standard instruction that does not make use of computer drawing/exploration tools. The basic…