Sample A: Cover Page of Thesis, Project, or Dissertation Proposal

added to individual pages and explaining ways to implement each part of the PEER
sequence while reading a few book pages) would have been helpful. A demonstration,
along with an opportunity for hands-on practice in reading altered storybooks, were
included in the training meeting agenda for the teachers assigned to the intervention
group, but there was not enough time during the meeting to complete these tasks.
Teachers reported that questions added to individual storybook pages did not distract
children from the story participation during readings. Finally, teachers also agreed that
having volunteers in the classroom would help them to implement intervention methods.
Research Hypotheses Testing
Intervention Effects on Emergent Literacy Skills, Emotion Knowledge, and Social Skills
In order to determine whether and to what extent participation in the intervention
was associated with change in children‘s literacy skills, emotion knowledge, and social
skills, a series of hierarchical regression analyses were conducted. All independent
variables were centered before interaction terms were calculated, and centered
independent variables and interaction terms including centered independent variables
were included in all analyses. Centering continuous variables in regression analyses
including an interaction term does not affect the estimate of the highest order interaction
in the regression equation. Rather, centering creates two interpretations of each first-order
regression coefficient: effects of each variable at the sample‘s mean and average effects
of each variable across the range of the other variables. Centering continuous variables
also eliminates nonessential multicollinearity between first-order regression coefficients
and their interactions (Cohen, Cohen, West, & Aiken, 2003). For reading ease, centered
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