Conceptual and methodological advances for understanding contextual, identity, and cultural effects in intervention...

Recent literature has questioned the reproducibility of educational and social behavior scientific findings. Although some aspects of the replication crisis are rooted in questionable research practices, we contend that much of the problem may be attributed to the lack of appropriate theories and methods for capturing the role of contexts in intervention effectiveness research. Although many new methodologies and measures have been developed that can address questions about context, these methods are currently underutilized in school-based research. Moreover, the field lacks coherent theories for guiding study designs and hypotheses for understanding context effects. The special issue introduces a range of methods with examples of applications in school-based research to facilitate their expanded use by school psychology researchers. Additionally, the special issue includes papers that can advance theory and conceptual frameworks to guide research questions about the role of context in intervention evaluations and dissemination. In this overview article, we describe the limitations of current theories, measures, and methodologies for examining context and the effects of these limitations on the development of knowledge. After summarizing papers in the special issue, we present a framework for conceptualizing culture, identity, and context in intervention research.