Randomized experiments are commonly used to evaluate the effectiveness of educational interventions. The goal of the present investigation is to develop small-sample corrections for multiple contrast hypothesis tests (i.e., F-tests) such as the omnibus test of meta-regression fit or a test for equality of three or more levels of a categorical…

Background: Methods need to be further developed to include non-randomised studies (NRS) in systematic reviews of the effects of health care interventions. NRS are often required to answer questions about harms and interventions for which evidence from randomised controlled trials (RCTs) is not available. Methods used to review randomised…

The use of meta-analysis in medicine and epidemiology really took off in the 1970s. However, in high-energy physics, the Particle Data Group has been carrying out meta-analyses of measurements of particle masses and other properties since 1957. Curiously, there has been virtually no interaction between those working inside and outside particle…

The current paper describes and illustrates a Bayesian approach to the meta-analysis of coefficient alpha. Alpha is the most commonly used estimate of the reliability or consistency (freedom from measurement error) for educational and psychological measures. The conventional approach to meta-analysis uses inverse variance weights to combine…

Meta-analysis of time-to-event data has proved difficult in the past because consistent summary statistics often cannot be extracted from published results. The use of individual patient data allows for the re-analysis of each study in a consistent fashion and thus makes meta-analysis of time-to-event data feasible. Time-to-event data can be…

Context: Meta-analyses are regularly used to inform healthcare decisions. Concerns have been expressed about the quality of meta-analyses and, in particular, about those supported by the pharmaceutical industry. Objective: The objective of this study is to compare the quality of pharmaceutical-industry-supported meta-analyses with academic…

Starting with the premise that better assessment leads to more informed decisions about student learning, we investigated the factors that lead to assessment improvement. We used "meta-assessment" (i.e., evaluating the assessment process) to identify academic programs in which the assessment process had improved over a two-year period.…

Identifying evidence-based practices for individuals with disabilities requires specification of procedural implementation. Video-based modeling (VBM), consisting of both video self-modeling and video modeling with others as model (VMO), is one class of interventions that has frequently been explored in the literature. However, current information…

This feature is designed to point "CBE-Life Sciences Education" readers to current articles of interest in life sciences education, as well as more general and noteworthy publications in education research. URLs are provided for the abstracts or full text of articles. This themed issue focuses on recent studies of concepts and…

This dissertation details the use of the Program Evaluations Metaevaluation Checklist (PEMC), Stufflebeam, 1999, which is for performing final, summative metaevaluations. It is organized according to the Joint Committee Program Evaluation Standards. For each of the 30 standards the checklist includes 6 checkpoints drawn from the substance of the…

Various standards have demanded that teachers improve "mathematical thinking," but definitions are vague--if present at all. What little research on the subject exists is disjointed and dissenting, leading some researchers to lament the possibility of ever coming to an agreement on how to define "mathematical thinking" as a…

Single-case design (SCD) research focuses on finding powerful effects, but the influence of this methodology on the evidence-based practice (EBP) movement is questionable. Meta-analytic procedures may help facilitate the role of SCD research in the EBP movement, but meta-analyses of SCDs are controversial. The current article provides an…

Teachers and paraprofessionals need effective training to improve their implementation of interventions for students with disabilities. Reviews of the single-case design literature have identified some features associated with effective training for these educators, but the group-design literature has received little attention. This meta-analysis…

This research synthesis collected, compiled, and analyzed 29 academic research articles that were published in China in recent years. It addressed and explored the issues in Chinese undergraduate students' English writing and the possible reasons causing and/or explaining the issues. It was discovered that many Chinese undergraduate students have…

When classifying the evidence base of practices, special education scholars typically appraise study quality to identify and exclude from consideration in their reviews unacceptable-quality studies that are likely biased and might bias review findings if included. However, study quality appraisals used in the process of identifying evidence-based…