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This paper covers different types of research designs, like, longitudinal, cross-section and sequential design, experimental design (including factorial experimental design), and correlational design, with illustrative examples. This paper will help a scholar to know how choice of research design depends on a number of parameters, highlighted by author.

Existing experimental and quasi-experimental results have demonstrated that both anticorruption initiatives that provide information and/or authority to the recipients of government programs – so-called “bottom-up” interventions – and initiatives that rely on government agencies for enforcement – “top-down” interventions – can be effective in some settings. Yet, in other instances, both forms of intervention have been found to be ineffective in combating corruption. These contrasting results strongly suggest that the effectiveness of both “top-down” and “bottom-up” anticorruption interventions is conditional on other factors. Unfortunately, the existing literature says little regarding the conditions conducive to the success of either forms of intervention. Assessing the conditional effects of anticorruption treatments poses substantial challenges for researchers – particularly for those employing experimental or quasi-experimental approaches. This chapter (1) discusses factors that may condition the effectiveness of both top-down and bottom-up interventions; (2) illustrates the difficulties in assessing these conditional relationships, with particular reference to experimental and quasi-experimental settings; and (3) suggests approaches that might mitigate these problems.

This chapter analyzes a geographic quasi-experiment embedded in a cluster-randomized experiment in Honduras. In the experiment, average treatment effects of conditional cash transfers on school enrollment and child labor were large – especially in the poorest experimental blocks – and could be generalized to a policy-relevant population given the original sample selection criteria. In contrast, the geographic quasi-experiment yielded point estimates that, for two of three dependent variables, were attenuated. A judicious policy analyst without access to the experimental results might have provided misleading advice based on the magnitude of point estimates. We assessed two main explanations for the difference in point estimates, related to external and internal validity.

In this chapter, we examined issues related to research design and research management as applied to scientific research conducted in applied school settings. In terms of research design, randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have an important role to play in advancing a scientific agenda for school-based research. However, given their enormous cost and complexity, it is important to carefully time their implementation in the development cycle. We suggested that the use of RCTs is most appropriate in the later stages of the development cycle when the focus is on demonstrating the efficacy and/or effectiveness of an intervention and establishing its generalizability under the real world conditions of schooling. We also recommended establishing a hierarchy of evidence for an intervention that involves implementing a cost-efficient mix of single case, quasi-experimental, and true experimental designs where appropriate and feasible. In examining issues related to the management of research and the implementation of a knowledge development agenda for schools, it has become apparent that treatment integrity is a keystone variable. We discussed the importance of treatment integrity, with attention to the impact on internal and external validity. Finally, we offered practical considerations to support high-quality, respectful school-based inquiry.

This chapter discusses the role of intervention research in bioethical inquiry. Although many ethical questions of interest are not appropriate for intervention research, some questions can only be answered using experimental or quasi-experimental designs. The critical characteristics of intervention research are identified and strengths of this method are described. Threats to internal validity and external validity are discussed and applied to a case example in bioethical research. Several recent intervention studies that were federally funded in the area of informed consent are discussed, and recommendations for future intervention research are presented.

This chapter presents empirical evidence on the effects of attributional retraining (AR), a motivation-enhancing treatment that can offset maladaptive explanatory mind-sets arising from adverse learning experiences. The evidence shows that AR is effective for assisting college students to adapt to competitive and challenging achievement settings.

This chapter describes the characteristics of AR protocols and details three primary advances in studying AR efficacy in terms of achievement performance, psychosocial outcomes, and processes that mediate AR-performance linkages. The psychological mechanisms that underpin AR effects on motivation and performance are outlined from the perspective of Weiner’s (1974, 1986, 2012) attribution theory.

Laboratory and field studies show that AR treatments are potent interventions that have short-term and long-lasting psychosocial, motivation, and performance benefits in achievement settings. Students who participate in AR programs are better off than their no-AR counterparts not just in their cognitive and affective prospects, but they also outperform their no-AR peers in class tests, course grades, and grade-point-averages, and are more persistent in terms of course credits and graduation rates.

This paper contributes to the emerging literature on treatment interventions in achievement settings by documenting key advances in the development of AR protocols and by identifying the next steps critical to moving the literature forward. Further progress in understanding AR efficacy will rest on examining the analysis of complex attributional thinking, the mediation of AR treatment effects, and the boundary conditions that moderate AR treatment efficacy.

This chapter describes methodological issues that are relevant for research on recovery. We aim to provide an overview of methodological approaches that have been or can be used in recovery research, and to provide methodological guidelines that researchers may use in assessing the process of recovery. We argue that studies on recovery must be explicit about recovery settings, recovery processes (i.e., activities and experiences) and recovery outcomes. We describe typical operationalizations of these three perspectives and focus in more detail on potential measures of recovery outcomes. We give an overview of research designs including experiments and quasi-experiments, diary studies, and longitudinal field studies. We conclude by pointing to remaining challenges for researchers in the area of recovery.

More than ever before, researchers and policymakers expect general education classroom to be the first line of defense in efforts to prevent reading difficulties. Preventing reading difficulties through evidence-based beginning reading instruction research features prominently in the 2002 No Child Left Behind legislation (NCLB; P. L. 107-110) and in the 2004 amendments to the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA). The purpose of this chapter is to describe the experimental and quasi-experimental methodological approaches that have been used to examine the effects of professional development in reading on teachers’ instructional practices and students’ reading outcomes and to evaluate the chain of causal linkage in the more recent studies. The first section of the chapter provides a brief history of relevant research. The second section summarizes findings of the National Reading Panel (NRP, 2000) Report and those of a recent review of the literature (Clancy-Menchetti & Al Otaiba, 2006). The final section synthesizes what we have learned from the research.

With the national emphasis on the use of evidence-based practices in educational settings, intervention research within the field of special education is being scrutinized. No Child Left Behind (NCLB) has defined evidence-based practices primarily by research that is based on quantitative, experimental designs (i.e., RCT). Although the use of appropriate experimental designs has an important place in educational research, defining evidence-based practices based on research design alone is limiting. One critical aspect of research that has not received much attention is the importance of rigorous and precise measurement and systematic replication of research findings. The purpose of this chapter is to review issues surrounding measurement and its effect on validity in intervention research in the field of behavioral disorders. Specifically, we discuss how more rigorous measurement can positively influence the internal, external, construct, and social validity of research findings. A review of current trends in behavioral disorders intervention research is discussed as well as implications for future research.

Quantitative research is based on epistemic beliefs that can be traced back to David Hume. Hume and others who followed in his wake suggested that we can never directly observe cause and effect. Rather we perceive what is called “constant conjunction” or the regularities of relationships among events. Through observing these regularities, we can develop generalizable laws that, once established, describe predictable patterns that can be replicated with reliability. This form of reasoning involves studying groups of individuals and is often called nomothetic and is contrasted with idiographic research that focuses on the uniqueness of the individual. It is clear that large-scale experiments with random assignment to treatment are based on nomothetic models, as are quasi-experimental studies where intact groups of people (e.g., students in a particular classroom) are assigned to treatments.