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…

Undergraduate student retention is considered a critical issue in higher education, due to its impact on student success, degree completion, and the financial health of universities (Cataldi et al., 2018; Cornelius & Cavanaugh, 2016; Hermes, "Community College Journal," 82(4), 26, 2012; Tinto, "NACADA Journal," 19(2), 5-9,…

Physical activity (PA) promotion is an ideal intervention target for public health because it has the potential to help individuals feel better, sleep better, and perform daily tasks more easily, in addition to providing disease prevention benefits. There is strong evidence that individual-level theory-based behavioral interventions are effective…

Recent critiques of physics education research (PER) studies have revoiced the critical issues when drawing causal inferences from observational data where no intervention is present. In response to a call for a "causal reasoning primer" in PER, this paper discusses some of the fundamental issues in statistical causal inference. In…

In science in general and in the context of single-case experimental designs, replication of the effects of the intervention within and/or across participants or experiments is crucial for establishing causality and for assessing the generality of the intervention effect. Specific developments and proposals for assessing whether an effect has been…

Cyberbullying has become increasingly prevalent, particularly on social media. There has also been a steady rise in cyberbullying research across a range of disciplines. Much of the empirical work from computer science has focused on developing machine learning models for cyberbullying detection. Whereas machine learning cyberbullying detection…

Researchers commonly interpret effect sizes by applying benchmarks proposed by Jacob Cohen over a half century ago. However, effects that are small by Cohen's standards are large relative to the impacts of most field-based interventions. These benchmarks also fail to consider important differences in study features, program costs, and scalability.…

This article addresses the gap between what works in research and what works in practice. Currently, research in evidence-based education policy and practice focuses on randomized controlled trials. These can support causal ascriptions ("It worked") but provide little basis for local effectiveness predictions ("It will work…

Judea Pearl won the 2010 Rumelhart Prize in computational cognitive science due to his seminal contributions to the development of Bayes nets and causal Bayes nets, frameworks that are central to multiple domains of the computational study of mind. At the heart of the causal Bayes nets formalism is the notion of a counterfactual, a representation…

Acts of deadly violence give rise to powerful emotions and trigger pre-programmed responses that often cause affected persons, including leaders, media, armed forces, and the general public, to act in ways that aggravate the situation and feed into cycles of violence. In this article, a model of the cycle of violence is presented that facilitates…

We propose a new version of the "theory theory" grounded in the computational framework of probabilistic causal models and Bayesian learning. Probabilistic models allow a constructivist but rigorous and detailed approach to cognitive development. They also explain the learning of both more specific causal hypotheses and more abstract framework…

Mediation is usually assessed by a regression-based or structural equation modeling (SEM) approach that we refer to as the classical approach. This approach relies on the assumption that there are no confounders that influence both the mediator, "M", and the outcome, "Y". This assumption holds if individuals are randomly…

This article presents a systemic, research-based cause analysis model for use in the field of human performance technology (HPT). The model organizes the most prominent barriers to workplace learning and performance into a conceptual framework that explains and illuminates the architecture of these barriers that exist within the fabric of everyday…

In an effort to expand the pool of scientific evidence available for review, the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) assembled a panel of national experts in single-case design (SCD) and analysis to draft SCD Standards. SCDs are adaptations of interrupted time-series designs and can provide a rigorous experimental evaluation of intervention effects.…

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…