What constitutes quality in early childhood settings, and how can it best be measured with today's widely used tools and promising new approaches? Find authoritative answers in this book, a must-have for high-level administrators and policymakers as more and more states adopt early childhood Quality Rating and Improvement Systems. The most…

To respond to Congress' interest in student outcomes at different types of schools, this report addresses the following questions: (1) What does research show about graduation rates, employment outcomes, student loan debts, and default rates for students at for-profit schools compared to those at nonprofit and public schools, taking differences in…

This article reports a synthesis of intervention studies conducted between 1994 and 2004 with older students (Grades 6-12) with reading difficulties. Interventions addressing decoding, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension were included if they measured the effects on reading comprehension. Twenty-nine studies were located and synthesized.…

The dominant literature on research synthesis methods has positivist and neo-positivist origins. In recent years, the landscape of research synthesis methods has changed rapidly to become inclusive. This article highlights methodologically inclusive advancements in research synthesis methods. Attention is drawn to insights from interpretive,…

The relationship between social and communicative interventions and transition-related outcomes for secondary-aged youth with disabilities is explored in this systematic review. In all, 30 studies intervening with 316 youth with a broad range of disability labels (both high- and low-incidence disabilities) were reviewed. Subgroup analyses were…

Students with disabilities are significantly underrepresented in the nation's community college population for multiple reasons. These include low expectations, poor high school preparation and transition planning, lack of communication or support services, and ineffective or poor support from school services personnel and faculty. This paper…

The transition from school services to adulthood can be particularly difficult for many adolescents with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Although some individuals with ASD are able to successfully transition, most are faced with significant obstacles in multiple areas as they attempt to negotiate their way into college, work, community…

Based on extensive literature review, this study reports the result of a meta analysis of learning outcome studies and presents an integrated typology of content types and learning outcomes. Examining the ERIC database for learning studies conducted from 1992 until 2006 shows that most empirical studies have assessed the learning outcome at lower…

Relapse and recurrence following response to acute-phase treatment for major depressive disorder (MDD) are prevalent and costly. In a meta-analysis of 28 studies including 1,880 adults, the authors reviewed the world's published literature on cognitive-behavioral therapies (CT) aimed at preventing relapse-recurrence in MDD. Results indicate that…

The Safe Schools/Healthy Students (SS/HS) Initiative is an ambitious and comprehensive prevention initiative to promote evidence-based practice to address school safety and the reduction of substance abuse. This article describes the history of the SS/HS initiative and the national evaluation efforts to monitor the success of the initiative. To…

This article aims to clarify some of our pre-conceived assumptions when we address issues of learning in practice. It argues that we need to develop an understanding of practice based on its own premises. For this purpose the German philosopher Martin Heidegger's (1889-1976) understanding of practice and learning is introduced. Heidegger…

As qualitative research has become a more familiar form of inquiry in gifted education, judging its quality and value remains obscure and problematic to the field. This article analyzes and critiques published studies for the purpose of understanding the state of qualitative research in gifted education. Data for this study are from the major…

The originally proposed multivariate meta-analysis approach for correlation matrices--analyze Pearson correlations, with each study's observed correlations replacing their population counterparts in its conditional-covariance matrix--performs poorly. Two refinements are considered: Analyze Fisher Z-transformed correlations, and substitute better…

Transitioning between activities can pose difficulties when working with students with autism. Individuals with autism may resist transitions by exhibiting a host of problem behaviors such as aggression and tantrums. Although scant, there is available research that provides sound recommendations for assessing and intervening for problem behaviors…

This meta-analysis of 58 resting baseline studies, 25 startle studies, 17 standardized trauma cue studies, and 22 idiographic trauma cue studies compared adults with and without posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on psychophysiological variables: facial electromyography (EMG), heart rate (HR), skin conductance (SC), and blood pressure.…