This innovative guide is now in a revised and expanded second edition with an even stronger applied focus. It helps educators harness the potential of single-case design (SCD) as a critical element of data-based decision making in a multi-tiered system of support (MTSS). The authors present simple and complex SCDs and demonstrate their use to…

Reform efforts in statistics education emphasize the need for students to develop statistical thinking. Critical to this goal is a solid understanding of design in the process of collecting data, evaluating evidence, and drawing conclusions. We collected survey responses from over 700 college students at the start of an introductory statistics…

Single-case design (SCD) methodology, in which data are displayed in a line graph, can be helpful in determining intervention effectiveness in research and practice. Using visual inspection of graphed data, researchers and practitioners can explore the existence of a functional relationship between implementation of the intervention and a…

Group design research studies can provide evidence to draw conclusions about "what works," "for whom," and "under what conditions" in special education. The quality indicators introduced by Gersten and colleagues (2005) have contributed to increased rigor in group design research, which has provided substantial…

Single-case data are frequently used in school psychology. In research, single-case designs allow experimenters to provide rigorous demonstrations of treatment effects on a smaller scale and with more precise measurement than traditional group experimental design. In practice, single-case data are used to evaluate the effects of school-based…

The Occupational Information Network (O*NET) is the primary source of occupational information in the United States (US). In this study, I review O*NET's usage for career guidance in India and conceive a career intervention based on it. In an empirical evaluation adopting a posttest-only experimental design with post-graduate management students…

This article highlights the development process and data-driven decisions that characterized a 5-year iterative process of development and evaluation of a Tier 2 early language curriculum, "Story Friends." This curriculum was specifically designed to be effective and feasible for high fidelity implementation in preschool settings.…

Successful school reform is dependent on the quality of decisions made by educational leaders. In such decision making, educational leaders are charged with using sound research findings as the basis for choosing school reform initiatives. As part of the debate regarding the usability of various evaluative research designs in providing information…

Evidence-based practices (EBPs) are instructional techniques that meet prescribed criteria related to the research design, quality, quantity, and effect size of supporting research, which have the potential to help bridge the research-to-practice gap and improve student outcomes. In this article, the authors (a) discuss the importance of clear…

Default options exert an influence in areas as varied as retirement program design, organ donation policy, and consumer choice. Past research has offered potential reasons why no-action defaults matter: (a) effort, (b) implied endorsement, and (c) reference dependence. The first two of these explanations have been experimentally demonstrated, but…

Evaluation designs for social programs are developed assuming minimal or no disruption from external shocks, such as natural disasters. This is because extremely rare shocks may not make it worthwhile to account for them in the design. Among extreme shocks is the 2010 Chile earthquake. Un Buen Comienzo (UBC), an ongoing early childhood program in…

The primary aim of the Middle School Intervention Project (MSIP) is to evaluate the impact of a multi-component intervention for struggling adolescent readers on reading outcomes. The intervention consists of: (1) targeted, Tier 2 reading and (2) school engagement interventions, and (3) data-based-decision-making (DBDM) teams to review and act on…

This bestselling work provides practitioners with a complete guide to implementing response to intervention (RTI) in schools. The authors are leading experts who explain the main components of RTI--high-quality instruction, frequent assessment, and data-based decision making--and show how to use it to foster positive academic and behavioral…

To provide an overview of the specific components that must be considered when making decisions about research in the field of gifted education, the authors describe and evaluate the three types of evidence--speculative or anecdotal, theoretical, and empirical--commonly offered in the literature of the field. Empirical, or evidence-based, research…