Heterogeneity between and within people necessitates the need for sequential personalized interventions to optimize individual outcomes. Personalized or adaptive interventions (AIs) are relevant for diseases and maladaptive behavioral trajectories when one intervention is not curative and success of a subsequent intervention may depend on…

Use of multivariate analysis (e.g., multivariate analysis of variance) is common when normally distributed outcomes are collected in intervention research. However, when mixed responses--a set of normal and binary outcomes--are collected, standard multivariate analyses are no longer suitable. While mixed responses are often obtained in…

What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) quick reviews (QRs) are designed to provide education practitioners and policymakers with timely, preliminary objective assessments of the quality of the research evidence from recently released research papers and reports that have received coverage in the media. These reviews focus primarily on studies of the…

The present study utilized a short-term longitudinal research design to model the relationship between shyness-anxiousness and receptive language skills. Hypotheses regarding the direction of the causal relationship, mediation, and moderation were evaluated. Subjects included 340 Head Start attendees from primarily English- and Spanish-speaking…

This article examines the power analyses for the first wave of group-randomized trials funded by the Institute of Education Sciences. Specifically, it assesses the precision and technical accuracy of the studies. The authors identified the appropriate experimental design and estimated the minimum detectable standardized effect size (MDES) for each…

Purpose: By examining data from interviews with students in the Upward Bound (UB) Program (a federally sponsored program that provides academic support to students at risk preparing for college entrance), this study seeks to strengthen understanding of the stages of trust in educational organizations that serve urban youth and in so doing provoke…

The National Center for Supported eText (NCSeT) has a research agenda designed to investigate the effects of supported electronic text on the ability of students with disabilities to read and learn from text. This article introduces four studies conducted by research teams who have collaborated with NCSeT to implement that agenda. It describes…

Using evidence-based practices, or those instructional techniques shown by research to improve student outcomes meaningfully, increases the performance of students with disabilities and should therefore be a priority for special educators. But how does a practice come to be considered evidence based? The unique characteristics of group…

A core component of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB, 2001) is the provision of free after-school tutoring services, labeled "supplemental educational services" (SES), to eligible students. Importantly, an explicit NCLB requirement makes each state responsible for evaluating individual SES providers with regard to effectiveness in…

Research in the field of special education often incorporates single-subject designs to investigate the effectiveness of educational practices for students with disabilities. As such, it is important that educators and educational professionals understand the characteristics of single-subject research methodologies and how those characteristics…

Transformation of education into an evidence-based field is a task that will require involvement of federal and state policymakers, local education leaders, administrators, teachers, and parents. Over the past 6 years, a new direction has been set for education research. This report presents the National Board for Education Sciences' evaluation of…

Rigorous research provides information that will allow other schools and districts to select interventions that have a scientifically based track record of effectiveness. All Striving Reader grants include the mandate to evaluate literacy intervention(s) targeted to adolescents who are reading significantly below grade level. Although all studies…

In this article we describe the development and implementation of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's (SAMHSA's) multisite Women, Co-Occurring Disorders and Violence Study (WCDVS), highlighting some of the challenges encountered, decisions made, and lessons learned. Four themes are discussed. First, the unique…

This conference brought together directors of research grants and research-based contracts funded by the Division of Innovation and Development of the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services (OSERS). The proceedings contain copies of three speeches given at the conference, along with transcripts of the question-and-answer sessions…

This monograph summarizes asthma management conclusions developed by five studies funded under a 5-year federal program titled "Interventions for the Control of Asthma among Black and Hispanic Children." The research goals were to develop model, replicable programs to reduce asthma morbidity; decrease inappropriate use of health care…