This report summarizes the complex research literature on quantitative methods for assessing how impacts of educational interventions on instructional practices and student learning differ across students, educators, and schools. It also provides technical guidance about the use and interpretation of these methods. The research topics addressed…

When people make causal judgments from contingency information, a principal aim is to account for occurrences of the outcome. When 2 causes are under consideration, the capacity of either to account for occurrences is judged from how likely the cause is to be present when the outcome occurs and from the rate at which the outcome occurs when that…

"Theory as Method: Small Theories of Treatments," by Mark W. Lipsey, is one of the most influential and highly cited articles to appear in "New Directions for Evaluation." It articulated an approach in which methods for studying causation depend, in large part, on what is known about the theory underlying the program. Lipsey discussed the benefits…

Empirical evidence has shown that several factors influence whether a compound is represented as several independent components or as a configuration. However, most of the previous research focused on data-driven factors (e.g., modality of the stimuli presented in the experimental task). In one experiment, I analyzed the influence of people's…

It is hypothesized that there is a pervasive and fundamental bias in humans' understanding of physical causation: Once the roles of cause and effect are assigned to objects in interactions, people tend to overestimate the strength and importance of the causal object and underestimate that of the effect object in bringing about the outcome. This…