Objective: To assess the impact of treatment foster care (TFC) on psychosocial and behavioral outcomes, delinquency, placement stability, and discharge status for children and adolescents who, for reasons of severe medical, social, psychological and behavioural problems, were placed in out-of-home care in restrictive settings or at risk of…

Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) who cannot speak at all or not intelligibly are frequently taught to use aided augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). The majority of the research on the use of AAC with individuals with ASD has been single-case research studies. This investigation involved a meta-analysis of the…

This article critically analyses how empirical research investigating quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) in the period 1980-2008 has conceptualised "quality". Applying Foucault's notion of "critique" to 338 peer-reviewed journal articles uncovered six interconnected truths: quality is an objective reality; quality enhances…

Nearly half the U.S. population copes with a chronic disease or condition. A chronic disease is "one lasting three months or more that generally cannot be prevented by vaccines or cured by medication." Heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and obesity are the most common chronic diseases in developed countries. By 2030, it is estimated that…

Assessment is currently in the spotlight for its poor ratings in student satisfaction surveys and "under performance" in quality reviews. Consequently, a variety of initiatives and projects are being undertaken aimed at improving assessment. However, many of the concepts and theories underpinning assessment practice are complex and interrelated,…

Objective: To examine the impact of single or dual component incentive schemes on health and social behaviours, in young people. Design: A systematic review. Method: Systematic and comprehensive cross-disciplinary searches were conducted to identify research. Following screening for relevance, included studies were quality assessed and data…

Meta-analysis is considered an acceptable method to evaluate research studies for evidence-based practices. The purpose of this review is to examine the applicability of using meta-analyses in the learning disability field to guide classroom practice. The authors evaluated 15 learning disability meta-analyses in three domains: large-scale…

Recent interest in studying social aspects of leadership has brought attention to the relationship between leadership and social capital. There is also growing interest among stakeholders (researchers, practitioners, funders, and program participants) to improve evaluation methods for leadership development programs (LDPs). The purpose of the…

This meta-analysis (148 studies, k = 197, N = 31,718) examined the relationship between motivation and transfer in professional training. For this purpose, motivation was conceptualized in the following nine dimensions: motivation to learn, motivation to transfer, pre- and post-training self-efficacy, mastery orientation, performance orientation,…

A great deal of developmental research has relied on self-reports solicited using the "some/other" question format (""Some students" think that...but "other students" think that..."). This article reports tests of the assumptions underlying its use: that it conveys to adolescents that socially undesirable…

Assistive technologies are often promoted to schools, parents and educators as tools to assist students with special needs by providing a compensatory value, to remediate learning problems and to promote personal independence. These technologies range from simple spellcheckers to more complex speech recognition systems and educational software.…

We conducted a meta-analysis to examine depressive symptomatology among students with learning disabilities (LD), as reported by their parents and teachers. A 2006 meta-analysis by Maag & Reid of the self-reports of students with LD indicated that this group's higher report of depressive symptoms compared to non-LD students was small in magnitude…

In this paper, the author considers certain aspects of the problem of obtaining unbiased information about the merits of a program or product, whether for purposes of decision making or for accountability. The evaluation of personnel, as well as the evaluation of proposals and evaluations, generally involves a different set of problems than those…

This meta-analysis demonstrates that the video feedback method has a statistically significant effect on the interaction skills of professionals in a range of contact professions. The aggregate effect, calculated on the basis of 217 experimental comparisons from 33 experimental studies involving a total of 1,058 people, was 0.40 standard deviation…

In the past 3 decades, the concept of professional community has gained considerable momentum in the theoretical and empirical studies in this field. At the same time, the concept has faced conceptual and methodological difficulties in that as yet no universal definition has been formulated and that its operationalization differs in the various…