Heppner, Witty, and Dixon's review of 2 decades of research on the Problem Solving Inventory (PSI) provides highlights of more than 120 studies relating problem-solving appraisal to psychological adjustment, physical health, coping, and educational and vocational issues. Although clearly an impressive body of literature, the level of data reported…

Background: Adopted children have been said to be difficult children, scarred by their past experiences in maltreating families or neglecting orphanages, or by genetic or pre- and perinatal problems. Is (domestic or international) adoption an effective intervention in the developmental domains of physical growth, attachment security, cognitive…

The field of environmental education research has been moving away from scientistic and positivistic discourses for some time now ("Environmental Education Research," 2000; Hart & Nolan, 1999). However, it has been noted that the meta-discourse about this research continues to draw on their framings, registers, and lexicons (Hart, 2000;…

I encourage the editors of and contributors to "Language Assessment Quarterly" to continue, and to extend, three directions that are integral to the development of the field of language assessment: (a) to broaden the scope of inquiry and contexts that inform knowledge about language assessment; (b) to deepen the theoretical premises and…

The integrative literature review is a distinctive form of research that generates new knowledge about the topic reviewed. Little guidance is available on how to write an integrative literature review. This article discusses how to organize and write an integrative literature review and cites examples of published integrative literature reviews…

An appraisal of recent reviews of the literature on management development demonstrates the existence of a number of perspectives on the topic, and this lack of a uniform approach has contributed to confusion about the subject. This article examines a series of recent and existing literature reviews on the topic of management development. It…

A meta-analysis of 82 recidivism studies (1,620 findings from 29,450 sexual offenders) identified deviant sexual preferences and antisocial orientation as the major predictors of sexual recidivism for both adult and adolescent sexual offenders. Antisocial orientation was the major predictor of violent recidivism and general (any) recidivism. The…

This meta-analysis tested the major theoretical assumptions about behavior change by examining the outcomes and mediating mechanisms of different preventive strategies in a sample of 354 HIV-prevention interventions and 99 control groups, spanning the past 17 years. There were 2 main conclusions from this extensive review. First, the most…

There exist two types of reviews the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is conducting, country reviews and thematic reviews. Although all country reviews are also thematic by nature, the focus lies more on one country and the analysis serves the specific needs of the country under review and the other member states as a…

Studies of memory impairment in humans and experimental animals have been fundamental to learning about the organization of memory and its cellular and molecular substrates. When memory impairment occurs, especially after perturbations of the nervous system, the question inevitably arises whether the impairment reflects impaired information…

A meta-analysis of 105 studies reporting 152 self-concept interventions in school settings was conducted. The aims of the study were twofold: to explore the construct validity approach to self-concept interventions, and to examine aspects of the administration of the interventions, namely treatment setting, administrator type, administrator…

This article provides an integrative review of prevention and intervention studies addressing dropout or school completion described in professional journals. Forty-five intervention studies were coded according to research design, participants, interventions, and outcomes to describe the range of data-based programs and approaches available in…

Research on the treatment of challenging behaviors such as aggression, tantrums, and self-injury expanded significantly over the past two decades. However, despite of the rather impressive numbers of studies, it is still uncertain whether positive behavioral support (PBS) is effective with everyone. To be able to tell family members and…

Multi-site evaluations are becoming increasingly common in federal funding portfolios. Although much thought has been given to multi-site evaluation, there has been little emphasis on how it might interact with participatory evaluation. Therefore, this paper reviews several National Science Foundation educational, multi-site evaluations for the…

The purpose of this concluding chapter has been to stimulate creative thinking about how to use cases for evaluation teaching and training. The preparation of professional evaluators presents special challenges. Imaginative new teaching and training resources are appearing, as evidenced by the special sections on evaluation teaching that now…