Empowerment is a core construct in health behavior and an emerging trend in pediatrics. Although it has been suggested as an approach that may promote the person's participation in health care decisions and positive outcomes, little is known about the nature and effectiveness of interventions to support empowerment in families and preschool-age…

Background: It is widely acknowledged that children with developmental language disorder (DLD) predominantly have difficulties in the areas of grammar and vocabulary, with preserved pragmatic skills. Consequently, few studies focus on the pragmatic skills of children with DLD, and there is a distinct lack of studies examining the effectiveness of…

Although several studies have examined the effectiveness of reading fluency interventions, the methodological rigor of these studies remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to examine the quality of randomized controlled trial (RCT) reading fluency intervention studies using the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) standards. Twenty-six…

Randomized clinical trials underpin evidence-based clinical practice, but flaws in their conduct may lead to biased estimates of intervention effects and hence invalid treatment recommendations. The main approach to the empirical study of bias is to collate a number of meta-analyses and, within each, compare the results of trials with and without…

Background: Recent evidence suggests that pre-school children with co-occurring phonological speech sound disorder (SSD) and expressive language difficulties are at a higher risk of ongoing communication and literacy needs in comparison with children with these difficulties in isolation. However, to date there has been no systematic or scoping…

Many public and private initiatives have focused on improving prekindergarten (PK) through Grade 12 mathematics education, given that the mathematics content learned before college is foundational for later learning and college success across STEM subjects. Although decades of educational research have studied PK-12 mathematics interventions, the…

Purpose: This systematic survey evaluates the completeness of reporting in pilot and feasibility randomized controlled trials investigating behavioral interventions based on the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) extension for pilot trials. Methods: The authors searched Medline/Pubmed and randomly selected 100 articles from 2012…

The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) is an initiative of the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences (IES), which was established under the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002. It is an important part of IES's strategy to use rigorous and relevant research, evaluation, and statistics to improve the nation's education system.…

Objective: To examine randomized controlled trials (RCTs) for treatment evidence for Black male adolescents suffering from comorbid mental illness and diabetes mellitus. Method: A review of the studies published in English-language journals was conducted. Results: We found no RCT focused on Black males with diabetes mellitus Type 2 (DMT2).…

The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) systematic review process is the basis of many of its products, enabling the WWC to use consistent, objective, and transparent standards and procedures in its reviews, while also ensuring comprehensive coverage of the relevant literature. The WWC systematic review process consists of five steps: (1) Developing…

Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are increasingly used to evaluate programs and interventions in order to inform education policy and practice. High quality reports of these RCTs are needed for interested readers to understand the rigor of the study, the interventions tested, and the context in which the evaluation took place (Mayo-Wilson et…

Research has shown that teacher effectiveness is the most important school-based factor that influences student outcomes, including student achievement. Studies have also shown that there is substantial variation in teacher effectiveness, such that some teachers improve student outcomes at a much faster rate than others. The strong influence of…

Challenge the Gap (CtG) is a school collaboration programme designed by Challenge Partners that aims to break the link between disadvantage and attainment. The main components of CtG are: (1) after-school workshops drawing on published research and evidenced practice; (2) focused in-school interventions with a selected cohort of disadvantaged…

Background: Selective outcome and analysis reporting (SOR and SAR) occur when only a subset of outcomes measured and analyzed in a study is fully reported, and are an important source of potential bias. Key methodological issues: We describe what is known about the prevalence and effects of SOR and SAR in both randomized controlled trials (RCTs)…

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…