{"title":"Approaches to Statistical Efficiency When Comparing the Embedded Adaptive Interventions in a SMART.","authors":"Timothy Lycurgus, Amy Kilbourne, Daniel Almirall","doi":"10.3102/10769986241251419","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Sequential, multiple assignment randomized trials (SMARTs), which assist in the optimization of adaptive interventions, are growing in popularity in education and behavioral sciences. This is unsurprising, as adaptive interventions reflect the sequential, tailored nature of learning in a classroom or school. Nonetheless, as is true elsewhere in education research, observed effect sizes in education-based SMARTs are frequently small. As a consequence, statistical efficiency is of paramount importance in their analysis. The contributions of this manuscript are twofold. First, we provide an overview of adaptive interventions and SMART designs for researchers in education science. Second, we propose four techniques that have the potential to improve statistical efficiency in the analysis of SMARTs. We demonstrate the benefits of these techniques in SMART settings both through the analysis of a SMART designed to optimize an adaptive intervention for increasing cognitive behavioral therapy delivery in school settings and through a comprehensive simulation study. Each of the proposed techniques is easily implementable, either with over-the-counter statistical software or through R code provided in Supplemental Material.</p>","PeriodicalId":48001,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics","volume":"50 3","pages":"420-448"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9000,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12594441/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3102/10769986241251419","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2024/5/28 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Sequential, multiple assignment randomized trials (SMARTs), which assist in the optimization of adaptive interventions, are growing in popularity in education and behavioral sciences. This is unsurprising, as adaptive interventions reflect the sequential, tailored nature of learning in a classroom or school. Nonetheless, as is true elsewhere in education research, observed effect sizes in education-based SMARTs are frequently small. As a consequence, statistical efficiency is of paramount importance in their analysis. The contributions of this manuscript are twofold. First, we provide an overview of adaptive interventions and SMART designs for researchers in education science. Second, we propose four techniques that have the potential to improve statistical efficiency in the analysis of SMARTs. We demonstrate the benefits of these techniques in SMART settings both through the analysis of a SMART designed to optimize an adaptive intervention for increasing cognitive behavioral therapy delivery in school settings and through a comprehensive simulation study. Each of the proposed techniques is easily implementable, either with over-the-counter statistical software or through R code provided in Supplemental Material.
期刊介绍：
Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, sponsored jointly by the American Educational Research Association and the American Statistical Association, publishes articles that are original and provide methods that are useful to those studying problems and issues in educational or behavioral research. Typical papers introduce new methods of analysis. Critical reviews of current practice, tutorial presentations of less well known methods, and novel applications of already-known methods are also of interest. Papers discussing statistical techniques without specific educational or behavioral interest or focusing on substantive results without developing new statistical methods or models or making novel use of existing methods have lower priority. Simulation studies, either to demonstrate properties of an existing method or to compare several existing methods (without providing a new method), also have low priority. The Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics provides an outlet for papers that are original and provide methods that are useful to those studying problems and issues in educational or behavioral research. Typical papers introduce new methods of analysis, provide properties of these methods, and an example of use in education or behavioral research. Critical reviews of current practice, tutorial presentations of less well known methods, and novel applications of already-known methods are also sometimes accepted. Papers discussing statistical techniques without specific educational or behavioral interest or focusing on substantive results without developing new statistical methods or models or making novel use of existing methods have lower priority. Simulation studies, either to demonstrate properties of an existing method or to compare several existing methods (without providing a new method), also have low priority.
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