Evaluators widely agree that the involvement of key actors is a central aspect of quality practice. However, a scoping review of to what extent and how youth are included has not been explored. This is an important omission because many evaluations are done on programs that directly serve youth. We examined 159 evaluation reports in a publicly…

Purpose: Participatory extension programmes are widely used to promote change in the agricultural sector, and an important question is how best to measure the effectiveness of such programmes after implementation. This study seeks to understand the current state of practice through a review of ex post evaluations of participatory extension…

With the push for evidence-informed policy and practice, schools and policy makers are now increasingly encouraged and supported to use and enagage with research evidence. This means that consumers of research will now need to be discerning in judging the quality of research evidence that will inform their decisions. This paper evaluates the…

Three-tiered models of prevention are increasingly being adopted by schools to address the behavioral needs of students. A critical component of multitiered systems are secondary interventions used with students in need of behavioral support but who are not candidates for individualized interventions. Despite the importance of secondary…

The aim of this systematic review was to examine research studies which focus on effective student support practices and show evidence of credible assessment. To identify effective student support practices, and also to provide a contemporary picture of effective support practices at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, 24 studies which met the…

This review of the literature was conducted to explore the evidence base for functional assessment-based interventions (FABIs) for one systematic approach developed by Umbreit, Ferro, Liaupsin, and Lane (2007). Specifically, this review examined the evidence base for this systematic approach to FABI for young students by applying quality…

Much is known about short-term--but very little about the long-term--effects of reading interventions. To rectify this, a detailed analysis of follow-up effects as a function of intervention, sample, and methodological variables was conducted. A total of 71 intervention-control groups were selected (N = 8,161 at posttest) from studies reporting…

In 2004, the Aspen Institute Roundtable on Community Change emphasized the need for a comprehensive base of information on the effectiveness of community collaborations for youth--an accessible, evidence-rich resource that could guide local efforts to bring about meaningful change. Nearly 10 years later, this need remains largely unmet. In…

Special education in Saudi Arabia was formally established in 1962. The earliest cited literature on special education written in English was a 1970 government report. This article presents results from the first synthesis of internationally published Saudi special education literature over a 44-year period. This synthesis yielded information…

The practice of homeschooling still receives contrasting responses on its relevancy and effectiveness. The current study is aimed to map the trends in the selected eleven studies from various educational journals. The analysis focuses on mapping the trends on: a) research settings, b) target sample, c) method or instrument used, d) common focus or…

In mixed methods research (MMR), integrating the quantitative and the qualitative components of a study is assumed to result in additional knowledge (or "yield"). This narrative review examines the extent to which MMR is used in the field of childhood trauma and provides directions for improving mixed methods studies in this field. A…

This review summarizes published studies on undergraduate mentoring programs from 2008 to 2012. Twenty studies met the inclusion criteria, which included empirical research on formal mentoring programs with undergraduate students as mentees or mentors. Each study was assessed based on limitations identified in two earlier reviews of the mentoring…

HIV/AIDS is one of the most important public health challenges facing Nigeria today. Recent evidence has revealed that the adolescent population make up a large proportion of the 3.7% reported prevalence rate among Nigerians aged 15-49 years. School-based sexual health education has therefore become an important tool towards fighting this problem.…

Treatment fidelity reporting practices are described for journals that published general and special education intervention research with high impact factors from 2005 through 2009. The authors reviewed research articles, reported the proportion of intervention studies that described fidelity measurement, detailed the components of fidelity…

Foster parents have special needs which must be addressed to retain them in the child welfare system. Several of these needs may be addressed within their foster parent training experience; however, little research is available to determine the effectiveness of these training programs. What little research is available is fraught with…