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

variables. An effect code for classroom assignment (full- or half-day classroom) and
children‘s total Head Start attendance during intervention implementation were added to
regression analyses, and children‘s pre-intervention TOPEL, AKT, and MPAC scores
were added to ANCOVA and MANCOVA analyses. Results revealed only minor
revisions to findings reported in this study; thus, these new analyses were not reported.
Rather than including different control variables, these opposing findings were
likely due to a fundamental difference between ANOVA- and regression-based analytic
approaches: Whereas ANOVA-based analyses ignored the magnitude of differences
among the categorical independent variables classroom and experimental group
assignment, regression-based analyses utilized the magnitude of experimental group
assignment (see Kirk, 1995). In the hierarchical regression analyses included in this
study, effect codes reflecting experimental group assignment were included as
independent variables, thus allowing an examination of each experimental group mean to
the mean of the total sample (Cohen et al., 2003).
Like previous research, these findings support the effectiveness of dialogic
reading techniques in enhancing children‘s emergent literacy skills. Variations of dialogic
reading methodologies used in previous research have been shown effective when
implemented within a number of contexts (e.g., children‘s homes and preschool
classrooms, Lonigan & Whitehurst, 1998), within varied time frames (e.g., 1 month,
Whitehurst et al., 1988; 7 months, Whitehurst et al., 1994, 1999), and within low-income
(Lonigan & Whitehurst, 1998; Whitehurst et al., 1994, 1999) and language-delayed
children (Crain-Thoreson & Dale, 1999). Collectively, these findings support the use of
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