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

This inclusion of a covariate adjusts the dependent variables to remove the effects
of the uncontrolled source of variation represented by children‘s attendance rates during
intervention implementation. ANCOVA and MANCOVA analyses, then, reduce error
variance (and thus increase power) and reduce bias caused by differences among Head
Start classrooms not attributable to the manipulation of the independent variables (Kirk,
1995).
Literacy skills. To determine whether there are statistically significant differences
in vocabulary skills between children in half- and full-day classrooms assigned to the
intervention and book reading control groups, an ANCOVA included classroom and
experimental group assignment as the independent variables, children‘s Head Start
attendance rates during the implementation of the intervention as the covariate, and post-
intervention TOPEL Definitional Vocabulary scores as the dependent variable.
Results are presented in Table 33 and revealed no statistically significant
differences for the interaction of classroom and experimental group assignment (F (1,
109) = 0.03, ns), nor for the main effect of classroom assignment (F (1, 109) = 0.07, ns).
Results did reveal a main effect for experimental group assignment. Children assigned to
the intervention group (M = 53.88) had significantly higher post-intervention TOPEL
Definitional Vocabulary scores than children assigned to the book reading control group
(M = 51.42, p < .05) after adjusting for Head Start attendance rates during the
implementation of intervention methods (F (1, 109) = 4.06, η 2 = .04, p < .05).
Emotion knowledge. To determine whether there were statistically significant
differences in emotion knowledge between children in half- and full-day classrooms
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