Empowering Educational Consumers to Analyze Educational Assessment Data: The Educational Impact Calculator (EIC)

49 pagesThe body of this Report provides background to help users of the EIC. The first two sections discuss terminology and describe the structure of the EIC. The following five sections give examples of the use of the EIC to answer the queries listed above. Examples use each of the possible types of input data and different types of groups (e.g. classrooms, schools, and districts). A final section discusses ways in which the EIC could potentially help students and schools and provides cautions regarding its use. An extensive appendix explains the underlying research designs and gives the equations used in the statistical analyses. The techniques are identical to those covered in introductory college level statistics courses. While they are not complex, they are fully sufficient for answering the questions that are generally of most concern to educational consumers

Harmful Effects of Academic Early Education? A Look at the Claims and the Evidence

8 pagesTwo on-line publications released in May, 2015 warned of the dangers of early childhood education programs that promote academic skills. A group called “Defending the Early Years” released a short document by Nancy Carlsson-Paige and associates titled Reading Instruction in Kindergarten: Little to Gain and Much to Lose (Carlsson-Paige, McLaughlin, & Almon, 2015). Shortly thereafter Peter Gray used this information for a blog post on the Psychology Today website titled Early Academic Training Produces Long-Term Harm: Research Reveals Negative Effects of Academic Preschools and Kindergartens (Gray, 2015). Both postings contend that academic preschools and kindergartens have no lasting effect on students’ later academic success and can even promote long-term harm to children’s social and psychological development. Given the provocative nature of these conclusions, the NIFDI Office of Research and Evaluation was asked to examine their basis. The first section below summarizes misrepresentations in the publications, and the second section briefly examines theoretical assumptions embodied in the discussions and their implications

Direct Instruction and First Grade Reading Achievement: The Role of Technical Support and Time of Implementation

20 pagesThe purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of two implementation variables (source of technical support and time of implementation) to first grade reading achievement across three naturally occurring conditions over a six-year time span. Two of the conditions involved implementation of Direct Instruction (DI) curriculum programs, one with technical support from a purveyor associated with the curriculum’s developer and the other with a group not associated with the developer. The third condition involved implementation of another highly rated reading curriculum program: Open Court. Increases in the vocabulary and comprehension achievement scores of students across all three conditions were statistically significant. Increases in students’ scores were significantly greater in the DI implementation conditions relative to the Open Court condition. Increases in students’ scores were significantly larger in the DI implementation condition with technical support from the purveyor associated with the curriculum developer relative to the group not associated with the curriculum developer. Differences in achievement across the implementation conditions were both statistically significant and educationally meaningful

Building a More Effective, Equitable, and Compassionate Educational System: The Role of Direct Instruction

21 pagesIn a recent book, Anthony Biglan describes how strong social research can be used to build a compassionate and more caring society that promotes the well-being of all. This article asserts that a strong educational system needs to be part of this transformation and that widespread use of Direct Instruction (DI) could be key in the process. Analysis of the underlying theory, development, and use of DI describes the way it is based on careful developmental research. It promotes effective and efficient learning while embodying respect for students and teachers. The results of a recent large metaanalysis of research on DI’s effectiveness show it is more effective than other educational approaches, with effect sizes that surpass the effect associated with the difference in achievement of students from lower income and other homes. Alternative approaches to educational change are reviewed and it is suggested that DI is a more effective and efficient method of improving student success. Powerful actors within the educational establishment have expressed opposition to DI and have worked to hide evidence of its effectiveness. This paper identifies other social actors who could work together to counter the resistance to DI and build an educational system that promotes the well-being of all

Promoting Early Literacy of Preschool Children: A Study of the Effectiveness of Funnix Beginning Reading

52 pagesThis paper reports the results of a study that employed a pretest-posttest control group design to examine the relationship of instruction in Funnix Beginning Reading to the development of beginning reading skills. Thirty-seven four year old Head Start students in a suburban area of the southern United States were randomly assigned to receive 30 minutes of daily instruction in Funnix or the same amount of time in additional instruction in their regular Language Arts program. Students came from six different classrooms. All instruction for students in the Control group was provided by their classroom teachers and teaching assistants. Instruction for the Experimental group was provided by high school aged tutors who received six hours of training before beginning their work with the students and had on-site supervision from a certified teacher during the tutoring sessions. All students were from low income families. Almost half (n=18) of the students were racial-ethnic minorities, and over a quarter (10/37) were from homes with a language other than English was primarily used

On Women's Aspirations and Equal Opportunity

11 pages. Paper presented in Plenary Session on "The Human Rights Movement: An Assessment in Honor of Martin Luther King, Jr." at the Annual Meeting of the Pacific Sociological Association, Las Vegas.Today I want to comment briefly on the changes in women's position in our society over the last 20 years and the linkages between women's aspirations and the development of equal opportunity. I will first make a few general comments about changes in women's income, occupational aspirations and achievement; then describe preliminary results from my own study of women who "pioneered" in integrating male dominated fields in the last ten years; and, finally, discuss implications of these comments for understanding more about the movement toward greater equality

Analysis of Pre- and Post-Workshop Questionnaires From 2014 Transformational Resiliency Workshops

14 pagesSurveys given to participants in five Transformational Resilience Leaders Self-Care workshops in 2014 show an extremely positive response from participants especially in terms of how much they learned and the usefulness of this information from the workshop. Data on participants in these workshops indicated that they had relatively good self-care and resilience skills and rated themselves as moderately resilient prior to the workshop. However, at the end of the workshop the vast majority (87+%) reported that they had learned a great deal, believed they had obtained skills that will enable them to be much more resilient, and that they would be very likely to use what they had learned in their work. They also gave very high ratings to the way in which the workshop was conducted. In other words, the vast majority of attendees reported that the workshop was very valuable in enhancing their personal resilience skills and their ability to help other people develop resilience skills and practices. Interestingly, those who reported the most positive views of the workshop were those who had higher self-rated skills prior to attendance. There were some differences in results among the five workshops with those in the Portland workshop reporting lower levels of resiliency prior to attending and being somewhat less likely to report that they had learned a great deal or would use what they had learned in their work. However, none of the attendees at the Portland workshop had negative views. Around half of the Portland participants noted that work was their reason for attending the workshop, which is a higher percentage than other workshops and could be part of the reason for these differences. However, it is impossible to tell from the present data set the source of these admittedly very small differences. An additional comparison analysis was completed after the first two Leaders Self- Care Workshops: March 2014 in Eugene, Oregon and June 2014 in Oakland, California. In places as seemingly dissimilar as Eugene and Oakland, the Transformational Resilience Leaders Self-Care Workshop had very similar and very positive responses, which strongly suggests that the methods and skills covered in the workshops are effective in building resilience skills and are applicable to different populations facing very different traumatic stresses

Throwing the Baby Out With the Bathwater? The What Works Clearinghouse Criteria for Group Equivalence

11 pagesThe What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) provides summary reports of the effectiveness of educational programs and practices, but only a small proportion of studies considered for review meet their selection criteria. A common reason for rejecting studies from consideration regards the WWC’s standard for equivalence of the intervention and comparison groups. This paper examines the criteria related to these decisions. Calculations based on the Central Limit Theorem illustrate how the probability of meeting the WWC criteria declines sharply when studies include multiple measures and/or comparisons (which is common in more sophisticated studies) and/or when sample sizes are smaller (which is common in highly controlled experimental designs). Descriptions of two welldesigned studies rejected for inclusion in recent WWC reports illustrate the nature of the problem. Implications and recommendations for policy change are discussed

Changing Mathematics and Reading Achievement with Direct Instruction: Kment Elementary School in Roseville, Michigan

13 pagesThis report examines changes in mathematics and reading skills of students in a Michigan elementary school after instruction with the Direct Instruction programs Connecting Math Concepts: Comprehensive Edition (CMCCE) and Reading Mastery Signature Edition (RMSE). Mathematics skills were measured by the AIMSweb curriculum-based measures and the Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP). Reading skills were measured with MEAP data. Analyses with all measures and grades indicated that students who were exposed to the DI programs had significantly higher scores than those without such exposure. Almost all of the associated effect sizes were substantially larger than the criterion typically used to denote educationally significant results

The Springfield Schools Panel Study: Report to the Springfield School District

50 pagesDuring the academic year 1980-81, Jeanne McGee, an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Oregon, gathered data in the Springfield school district on the occupational and educational attitudes and aspirations of fourth grade students and their mothers. Information was gathered through an hour long interview with each child, a questionnaire given to the children in their classrooms, and a questionnaire mailed to each mother. In addition, information was taken from district records on the child’s attendance and achievement in various areas, and an essay the children had written on their occupational choices was examined. Six hundred and fifty fourth graders participated in the study, about 85% of the students enrolled. Three hundred seventy mothers completed the mailed questionnaire