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Computation and Analysis of Effect Sizes

 Computation and Analysis of Effect Sizes The effect size calculated is g, the difference between the means of the intervention group and th...




 Computation and Analysis of Effect Sizes The effect size calculated is g, the difference between the means of the intervention group and the control group, or the difference between the pretest and posttest group means, divided by the pooled standard deviation. The sign of the difference was positive when a treatment had a positive effect (thus, those that reduced learning pathologies such as anxiety, surface approaches, and negative attitudes were coded as positive effects). The gs were converted to ds by correcting them for bias (as the gs overestimate the population effect size, particularly in small samples; see Hedges & Olkin, 1985). To determine whether each set of ds shared a common effect size (i.e., was consistent across the studies), 


we calculated a homogeneity statistic Qw, which has an approximate chi-square distribution with k - 1 degrees of freedom, where k is the number of effect sizes (Hedges & Olkin, 1985). Given the large number of effect sizes that are combined into the various categories, and the sensitivity of the chi-square statistic to this number, it is not surprising that nearly all homogeneity statistics are significant. As the most critical comparisons are presented in interaction tables between at least two variables, we are more confident that these means are sufficiently homogeneous to use the means as reasonable estimates of the typical value. We then used categorical models to determine the relation between the study 111 This content downloaded on Sun, 3 Feb 2013 08:00:24 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Hattie, Biggs, and Purdie characteristics and the magnitude of the effect sizes, using the procedures outlined by Hedges and Olkin (1985). These models provide a between-classes effect (analogous to a main effect in an ANOVA design) and a test of homogeneity of the effect sizes within each class. The between-classes effect is estimated by QB' which has an approximate chi-square distribution with p - 

1 degrees of freedom, where p is the number of classes. The statistical significance of this betweenclasses effect can be used to determine whether the average effect size differs over classes. The tables reporting tests of categorical models also include the mean weighted effect size for each class, calculated with each effect size weighted by the reciprocal of its variance, and the 95% confidence interval of this mean. If this confidence interval does not include zero, then the mean weighted effect size can be considered significantly different from zero.

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