As evidence-based reform becomes increasingly important in educational policy, it is becoming essential to understand how research design might contribute to reported effect sizes in experiments evaluating educational programs. The purpose of this study was to examine how methodological features such as types of publication, sample sizes, and…

Part of a series, this preliminary report is on a meta-analysis study of successful and unsuccessful transition of handicapped youth from secondary education to postsecondary settings. The study had four major objectives: (1) to review annual progress reports of federally funded (Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation) transition projects,…

Student outcomes were assessed by quantitatively combining results of 57 reported evaluations of three major curriculum programs in elementary school science. Thirty-two percent of the comparisons were statistically significant, favoring activity-based programs; six percent favored control groups. (DH)

The paper reports an attempt to evaluate instructional practices in compensatory education by looking at both costs and effects associated with the practices. The study covered some 300 Chapter l projects over a three-year period, focusing on project settings and instructional approaches used in the projects. Results of the study indicated that…

Educational programs and evaluations which were submitted to the Department of Education's Joint Dissemination Review Panel (JDRP), in order to be named validated programs, were studied to identify program characteristics associated with large versus small effect size. Effect size was calculated for 165 out of 232 submittals reviewed by JDRP from…

The effectiveness of an Education Consolidation Improvement Act Chapter 1 program was studied in a large urban school district. A common problem in evaluating remedial programs is that pretest/posttest achievement gains often indicate the effects of the entire curriculum, rather than those specific to the remedial class. In this district, over…