The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that quality improvements in early childhood centers experience diminishing returns as the quality of the classroom rises with regards to concurrent socio-emotional outcomes. This hypothesis lies at the core of Scarr's argument that public policy should concentrate on improving low quality…

Objective: A synthesis was conducted to assess outcome findings and methodological characteristics of controlled evaluations of adolescent substance abuse treatments. Method: Extensive computerized and manual bibliographic searches were employed to identify controlled evaluations of adolescent substance abuse treatment. Meta-analytic techniques…

This article considers the relationship between distributed leadership and school improvement. Drawing upon empirical evidence from two contemporary studies of successful school leadership and recent studies of school improvement, it explores the extent to which distributed forms of leadership can contribute to school improvement. The article…

This article is a response to "Mapping educational research and its impact on Australian schools," Chapter 2 of The Impact of Educational Research, in which researchers Allyson Holbrook, John Ainley, Sid Bourke, John Owen, Philip McKenzie, Sebastian Mission and Trevor Johnson report on their Commonwealth Education Department commissioned…

This paper examines research studies, which focus on interventions commonly used with students who are learning disabled and identifies effective methods that produce substantial benefits concerning reading comprehension. This paper synthesizes previous observation studies by conducting a meta-analysis of strategies used to improve the reading…

A meta-analysis of the group intervention research for parents of children with developmental disabilities was conducted in order to characterize the efficacy of treatments in reducing depressive symptoms and other forms of psychological distress associated with stress in parents of children with developmental disabilities. An extensive search led…

This review examines empirically based studies of school-based mental health interventions. The review identified 64 out of more than 2,000 articles published between 1990 and 2006 that met methodologically rigorous criteria for inclusion. Of these 64 articles, only 24 examined both mental health "and" educational outcomes. The majority of…

This project consisted of a meta-analysis of U.S. research published from 1980 to 2004 on the effect of specific science teaching strategies on student achievement. The six phases of the project included study acquisition, study coding, determination of intercoder objectivity, establishing criteria for inclusion of studies, computation of effect…

Objective: The purpose of the current study was to investigate the independent effects of different treatment elements on a number of secondary problems related to childhood and adolescent sexual abuse, as well as investigate a number of different moderators of treatment effectiveness. Method: Twenty-eight studies that provided treatment outcome…

This literature review is an essential resource for anyone involved in the research, theories, or methods and practices of arts integration. It covers what has been written between 1995 and 2007 in the U.S. and abroad and includes an historical overview, definitions and theoretical frameworks for arts integration, research and evaluation studies…

There is considerable concern that the majority of adolescents do not develop the competence in writing they need to be successful in school, the workplace, or their personal lives. A common explanation for why youngsters do not write well is that schools do not do a good job of teaching this complex skill. In an effort to identify effective…

This article is a response to the critique by Joseph Maxwell on the article written by these authors entitled "Scholars Before Researchers: On the Centrality of the Dissertation Literature Review in Research Preparation". Maxwell argues that dissertations should emulate research articles and include a conceptual framework that only discusses…

This article is the first of a 2-part synthesis of an international seminar on the classification of children with disabilities. It synthesizes 6 papers that address broad questions relating to disability classification and categorization, cross-national comparisons on disability in education, the World Health Organization's "International…

The authors evaluate the actual contribution to classroom practice of recent research in citizenship education conducted by two major international organizations: the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) and the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER). The paper adopts Egan's (2002) critical…

Putative ethnic group differences in various forms of psychopathology may have important theoretical, clinical, and policy implications. Recently, it has been argued that individuals of African descent are more likely to be psychopathic than those of European descent (R. Lynn, 2002). Preliminary evidence from the Psychopathy Checklist: Youth…