Tools for evaluating the quality and rigor of single case research designs (SCD) are often used when conducting SCD syntheses. Preferred components include evaluations of design features related to the internal validity of SCD to obtain quality and/or rigor ratings. Three tools for evaluating the quality and rigor of SCD (Council for Exceptional…

Background and purpose: Studies of education and learning that were described as experiments have been carried out in the USA by educational psychologists since about 1900. In this paper, we discuss the history of randomised trials in education in the USA in terms of five historical periods. In each period, the use of randomised trials was…

U.S. education generally portrays science from the Western perspective. As a result, students from different cultures, also referred to as nonmajority students, often struggle to relate material learned in class to their own cultures and lived experiences. Cultural relevance is gaining momentum in broader education reform movements to relate…

This article argues for a citizen social science methodology in which residents from the sites of inquiry play a central role in key activities of the research process and beyond: research design and data collection, presentation and publication of findings, and design and implementation of urban interventions that address challenges to quality of…

Head Start is a national program that helps young children from families with low income get ready to succeed in school. It does this by working to promote their early learning and health and their families' well-being. The Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) provides national information about Head Start programs and…

In 2020, the Foundation for Child Development released "Getting it Right: Using Implementation Research to Improve Outcomes in Early Care and Education." The publication provides insights into the value of including implementation research in the study of early care and education (ECE) and its potential to improve programs and policies…

Literacy intervention research tests our best ideas about instruction and forges a pathway forward toward deeper and more nuanced understandings of how children think, communicate, and learn. This chapter describes the components of the development of literacy interventions, explaining how to construct and evaluate each component in sequence to…

This essay defines and critiques "methodocentrism", the belief that predetermined research methods are the determining factor in the validity and importance of educational research. By examining research in science studies and posthumanism, the authors explain how this methodocentrism disenables research from taking account of problems…

Field experiments, which are a powerful research technique, are common in some fields, but they have not been widely used in studying the effect of financial and counseling planning interventions. Financial services can benefit from the expanded use of field experiments to explore potential causal mechanisms for the effects of financial planning…

The effectiveness of behavior reduction strategies is likely affected by any number of ancillary variables. The purpose of this study was to provide a quantitative review of school-based behavior reduction interventions and some ancillary variables that may modulate the effectiveness of those interventions. Tau-U, an effect size statistic for…

Based on their experiences from their work with two national initiatives designed to reform educational practice in U.S., the authors present seven guiding principles of evidence-based/informed educational policy and research to lay the foundation for making rigorous and comprehensive judgments about what evidence and scientific research designs…

Single-case researchers frequently adopt a form of response-guided experimentation where decisions about the design of the study are made based on an ongoing visual analysis. For example, multiple-baseline researchers may delay the start of intervention until data document a stable baseline pattern so that baseline trends can be reliably extended,…

Recent studies have suggested single case design (SCD) intervention research is subject to publication bias, wherein studies are more likely to be published if they possess large or statistically significant effects and use rigorous experimental methods. The nature of SCD and the purposes for which it might be used could suggest that large effects…

The aim of this article is to provide practitioners and other nonresearchers a basic understanding of research designs to aid in appropriately interpreting and applying research findings in special education. Research design provides the blueprint for conducting a research study and shapes what kind of knowledge is generated by the study. We…

Multilevel modeling (MLM) is a term that encompasses many terms for statistical analyses that include variables at different levels. In education it is generally referred to as hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), linear mixed modeling (LMM), or growth curve modeling, but also includes terms such as: random-coefficient regression modeling,…