This research synthesis was conducted to understand the effectiveness of interventions designed to improve learning from informational text for students with learning disabilities in elementary school (K-5). The authors identified 18 studies through a comprehensive search. The interventions were evaluated to determine treatment effects and to…

The concept of Matthew effects in reading development refers to a longitudinally widening gap between high achievers and low achievers. Various statistical approaches have been proposed to examine this idea. However, little attention has been paid to psychometric issues of scaling. Specifically, interval-level data are required to compare…

Traditional methods of integrating special education research (such as narrative reviews and box score analyses) are described, and the procedures involved in meta-analysis, by which findings from previous studies are systematically synthesized, are detailed. Benefits of this approach are noted. (CL)

Examination of methodological issues in the design and interpretation of studies on the genetics of reading disability suggests three tests of increasing rigor for determining whether reading score distributions are categorical and thus not subject to analyses which assume a continuous normal distribution. Also noted are interactive relationships…

This paper reviews criticism on misinterpretation and overuse of significance testing in the social sciences and examines use of effect size measures to enhance interpretation of significance testing. Review of typical effect size measures and their application is followed by analysis of use of effect size measures in studies reported over 10…

The article examines the concepts of power and control in research design and applies them to a review of the validity of three studies (EC 600 064-066) evaluating the effectiveness of using Irlen tinted lenses with reading-disabled persons. Internal validity, external validity, statistical conclusion validity, and construct validity are…