Intervention Research in Educational Practice


Book Description

Improving learning and teaching at schools or universities may start with choosing evidence-based interventions and practices, but does not end there. To ensure sustainable changes to programs in educational practice, interventions need to address complex issues related to theories, research designs, and measurements. This book presents typical but often overlooked problems in intervention research in educational practice. These problems are embedded in various educational areas such as, amongst others, school effectiveness, instructional design or motivational aspects of teacher trainings.




Evaluating Educational Interventions


Book Description

Introduction to design and analysis for educational intervention -- The nuts and bolts of single-case design -- The classic A-B-A-B design -- Complex single-case designs -- Visual analysis and interpretation strategies for single-case design -- Advanced empirical analyses of single-case data in practice and research -- Brief experimental analysis -- Single-case design for research purposes -- A response-to-intervention model incorporating experimental design.




Intervention Research


Book Description

This book offers a step-by-step guide to intervention research, including the methods and techniques that researchers, higher degree research students and others can use when pursuing intervention research in schools and other settings. Guided by the Intervention Research Framework, it also provides practical information on linking a program developed using a comprehensive, evidence-based approach, to research and evaluation processes. The handbook also illustrates how to select an appropriate research sample for research; how to develop valid and reliable instruments for measuring change, including how to devise appropriate measures for assessing behavioural change; how to recruit and negotiate with schools (and other settings) for research involving young people; how to measure and incorporate measures of fidelity of implementation to understand dose response and behavior change; and how to optimize data collection and dissemination. The development and longitudinal assessment of the multi award-winning School Health and Alcohol Harm Reduction Project (SHAHRP) – the first alcohol harm reduction study to assess the impact of a school-based classroom intervention on alcohol use, alcohol-related behaviors and alcohol-related harm using a harm reduction paradigm – provides a practical example of the intervention research processes described in this handbook.




Intervention Research


Book Description

2012 First Place AJN Book of the Year Award Winner in Nursing Research! "This is a resource for success and should be a part of any researcher's library."--Doody's Medical Reviews This book is a practical, user-friendly guide for health care researchers across multiple disciplines who are involved in intervention research. It provides all of the essential elements needed for understanding how to design, conduct, analyze, and fund intervention studies that are replicable and can withstand the scrutiny of the Institutional Review Board and peer review. Developed from an annual continuing education workshop on intervention studies conducted by Dr. Melnyk, this text is the most comprehensive body of information available on this topic. Contributors address the design of interventions that are ethically considerate and sensitive to culture, race/ethnicity, and gender, minimizing threats to external and internal validity, measurement, and budgeting. The guide explores such implementation issues as subject recruitment and retention, data management, and specialized settings, cost analysis, and explaining intervention effects. The text also guides readers in writing grant applications that fund , and addresses how to move intervention study findings into the real world. A unique addition to the book is the availability of digital examples of progress reports, final reports, and research grant applications that have received funding from the National Institutes of Health and other relevant organizations. This text is a valuable resource for all health care professionals conducting research and for doctoral students in health care studies. Key Features: Presents the essential tools for designing, conducting, analyzing, and funding intervention studies Designed for use by health care professionals conducting intervention research Provides comprehensive, accessible guidelines for doctoral students across all health care disciplines Instructs readers on writing grant applications that fund Includes digital examples of funded research grants, progress reports, and final reports




Relationality and Learning in Oceania


Book Description

"This multi-authored volume draws on the collective experiences of a team of researcher-practitioners, from three Oceanic universities, in an aid-funded intervention program for enhancing literacy learning in Pacific Islands primary education schools. The interventions explored here-in Solomon Islands and Tonga-were implemented via a four-year collaboration which adopted a design-based research approach to bringing about sustainable improvements in teacher and student learning, and in the delivery and evaluation of educational aid. This approach demanded that learning from the context of practice should be determining of both content and process; that all involved in the interventions should see themselves as learners. Essential to the trusting and respectful relationships required for this approach was the program's acknowledgement of relationality as central to indigenous Oceanic societies, and of education as a relational activity. Relationality and Learning in Oceania: Contextualizing Education for Development addresses debates current in both comparative education and international aid. Argued strongly is that relational research-practice approaches (south-south, south-north) which center the importance of context and culture, and the significance of indigenous epistemologies, are required to strengthen education within the post-colonial relational space of Oceania, and to inform the various agencies and actors involved in 'education for development' in Oceania and globally. Maintained is that the development of education structures and processes within the contexts explored through the chapters comprising this volume, continues to be a negotiation between the complexity of historically developed local 'traditions' and understandings and the 'global' imperatives shaped by dominant development discourses"--




Evaluating Educational Interventions


Book Description

This innovative guide is now in a revised and expanded second edition with an even stronger applied focus. It helps educators harness the potential of single-case design (SCD) as a critical element of data-based decision making in a multi-tiered system of support (MTSS). The authors present simple and complex SCDs and demonstrate their use to defensibly document the effects of academic or behavioral interventions. In a convenient large-size format, the book includes reproducible graphs and other tools; appendices provide guides to analyzing and presenting data in Microsoft Excel. Purchasers get access to a Web page where they can download and print the reproducible materials. New to This Edition *Updated to align perfectly with MTSS and current evidence-based practices. *Chapter on using SCD in educational research. *Greater emphasis on day-to-day educational practice throughout. *Significantly revised discussions of brief experimental analysis, complex SCDs, and advanced empirical analyses.




The Promise of Response to Intervention


Book Description

As response to intervention (RTI) is adopted by increasing numbers of schools and districts, knowledge about "what works" continues to grow. This much-needed book analyzes the key components of RTI service delivery and identifies the characteristics of successful implementation. Critically reviewing the available research, leading authorities describe best practices in multi-tier intervention, assessment, and data-based decision making. Clear-cut recommendations are provided for implementing evidence-based interventions to support students' needs in reading, writing, math, and behavior. A state-of-the-art resource for K–12 practitioners and administrators, the book also will fill a unique niche in graduate-level courses.




Single-case Intervention Research


Book Description

Thanks to remarkable methodological and statistical advances in recent years, Single-Case design (SCD) research has become a viable and often essential option for researchers in applied psychology, education, and related fields. This text is a compendium of information and tools for researchers considering SCD research, a methodology in which one or several participants (or other units) comprise a systematically-controlled experimental intervention study. SCD is a highly flexible method of conducting applied intervention research where it is not feasible or practical to collect data from traditional groups of participants. Initial chapters lay out the key components of SCDs, from articulating dependent variables to documenting methods for achieving experimental control and selecting an appropriate design model. Subsequent chapters show when and how to implement SCDs in a variety of contexts and how to analyze and interpret results. Authors emphasize key design and analysis tactics, such as randomization, to help enhance the internal validity and scientific credibility of individual studies. This rich resource also includes in-depth descriptions of large-scale SCD research projects being undertaken at key institutions; practical suggestions from journal editors on how to get SCD research published; and detailed instructions for free, user-friendly, web-based randomization software.




Intervention Research


Book Description

This interdisciplinary book presents a comprehensive conceptual and methodological treatment of intervention research, a developing area of empirical inquiry that aims to make research more directly relevant and applicable to practice. Intervention Research contains original chapters by the most highly regarded scholars in the field. These experts explain how to distinguish intervention research from other modalities, demonstrate a new model of research for the design and development of interventions, and provide guidelines for conducting intervention research in practice with individuals, families, and community organizations. Providing useful observations and a wealth of ideas, authors offer conceptual schemes, results from recent design and development studies, and strategies and methodologies to help professionals make their research more usable and meaningful. Chapters cover such important topics as the acquisition of relevant knowledge, meta-analysis in intervention research, methods and issues in designing and developing interventions, and field testing and evaluating innovative practice interventions. The book depicts intervention research through case illustrations and promotes the use of new technologies for developing innovative practice methods. Intervention Research focuses on Intervention Design and Development--the part of intervention research involving the creation of reliable, practical tools of social intervention in user-ready form. It sets forth systematic procedures for designing, testing, evaluating, and refining needed social technology and for disseminating proven techniques and programs to professionals in the community. Intervention Research has a base in social work, but is highly interdisciplinary. Authors contributing to this text come from a variety of fields, including psychology, sociology, education, information science, and communications. Professors and educators working in schools of public health, education, urban planning, nursing, and public administration, or teaching courses in psychology, sociology, or upper-level social work, will find this book full of comprehensive and practical information that is advantageous for their work.




Implementing Evidence-Based Academic Interventions in School Settings


Book Description

Designed for both researchers and practitioners, this book is a guide to bridging the gap between the knowledge generated by scientific research and application of that knowledge to educational practice. With the emphasis on evidence-based practice in the schools growing exponentially, school practitioners must learn how to understand, judge, and make use of the research being produced to full effect. Conversely, researchers must understand what is being used in "real-world" settings, and what is still needed. The editors of this book have outlined this process as a series of steps, beginning with being a critical consumer of current research literature, followed by concepts to consider in translating research into practice: systems issues at local, district, and state levels; the role of teachers in program implementation; evaluation of implementation effectiveness, and preservice and inservice professional development of teachers and psychologists. Each chapter is written by leaders on the topic, and contributors include both researchers and school-based practitioners. With contributing authors from a variety of disciplines, this book is an invaluable treatise on current understanding of the complexities of translating research into educational practice.