This meta-analysis of the experimental literature of distance education (DE) compares different types of interaction treatments (ITs) with other DE instructional treatments. ITs are the instructional and/or media conditions designed into DE courses, which are intended to facilitate student–student (SS), student–teacher (ST), or student–content (SC) interactions. Seventy-four DE versus DE studies that contained at least one IT are included in the meta-analysis, which yield 74 achievement effects. The effect size valences are structured so that the IT or the stronger IT (i.e., in the case of two ITs) serve as the experimental condition and the other treatment, the control condition. Effects are categorized as SS, ST, or SC. After adjustment for methodological quality, the overall weighted average effect size for achievement is 0.38 and is heterogeneous. Overall, the results support the importance of the three types of ITs and strength of ITs is found to be associated with increasing achievement outcomes. A strong association is found between strength and achievement for asynchronous DE courses compared to courses containing mediated synchronous or face-to-face interaction. The results are interpreted in terms of increased cognitive engagement that is presumed to be promoted by strengthening ITs in DE courses.

Critical thinking (CT), or the ability to engage in purposeful, self-regulatory judgment, is widely recognized as an important, even essential, skill. This article describes an ongoing meta-analysis that summarizes the available empirical evidence on the impact of instruction on the development and enhancement of critical thinking skills and dispositions. We found 117 studies based on 20,698 participants, which yielded 161 effects with an average effect size ( g+) of 0.341 and a standard deviation of 0.610. The distribution was highly heterogeneous ( QT = 1,767.86, p < .001). There was, however, little variation due to research design, so we neither separated studies according to their methodological quality nor used any statistical adjustment for the corresponding effect sizes. Type of CT intervention and pedagogical grounding were substantially related to fluctuations in CT effects sizes, together accounting for 32% of the variance. These findings make it clear that improvement in students’ CT skills and dispositions cannot be a matter of implicit expectation. As important as the development of CT skills is considered to be, educators must take steps to make CT objectives explicit in courses and also to include them in both preservice and in-service training and faculty development.

This research study employs a second-order meta-analysis procedure to summarize 40 years of research activity addressing the question, does computer technology use affect student achievement in formal face-to-face classrooms as compared to classrooms that do not use technology? A study-level metaanalytic validation was also conducted for purposes of comparison. An extensive literature search and a systematic review process resulted in the inclusion of 25 meta-analyses with minimal overlap in primary literature, encompassing 1,055 primary studies. The random effects mean effect size of 0.35 was significantly different from zero. The distribution was heterogeneous under the fixed effects model. To validate the second-order metaanalysis, 574 individual independent effect sizes were extracted from 13 out of the 25 meta-analyses. The mean effect size was 0.33 under the random effects model, and the distribution was heterogeneous. Insights about the state of the field, implications for technology use, and prospects for future research are discussed.

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