Publications & ProductsSearch Results: (16-30 of 48 records)
| Pub Number | Title |  Date |
|---|---|---|
| WWC SSR10013 | WWC Review of the Report "Impacts of Comprehensive Teacher Induction: Final Results from a Randomized Controlled Study"
The 2010 study, Impacts of Comprehensive Teacher Induction: Final Results from a Randomized Controlled Study, examined the effects of a comprehensive teacher induction program for beginning teachers on teacher and student outcomes in 17 school districts across 13 states. Researchers randomly assigned 418 elementary schools with a total of 1,009 beginning teachers to either an intervention group that received the program or a business-as-usual comparison group. The program included mentoring, monthly professional development sessions, study groups with other beginning teachers, and opportunities to observe veteran teachers. In the second year of the study, researchers selected a subset of the original districts to receive a second year of the teacher induction program. In these districts, the schools that were originally assigned to receive the intervention continued to offer the intervention services for a second year to beginning teachers. Impacts after the first year of the study were based on data from all participating districts, all of which received the intervention during the first year. Impacts after the second and third years of the study were presented separately for districts receiving 1 or 2 years of the intervention. Study authors assessed the effects of the program on both teacher outcomes and student outcomes over a 3-year period. The study is a well-implemented randomized controlled trial that meets WWC evidence standards for assessing impacts on teacher retention for the entire sample at the end of year 1 of the study, and for the subset of districts that received only 1 year of the intervention at the end of years 2 and 3 of the study. The remaining analyses conducted by this study--including impacts on teacher practices, preparation, satisfaction, some retention outcomes, and student achievement--either do not meet WWC evidence standards or were deemed to be ineligible for review. |
9/4/2013 |
| WWC SSR10055 | WWC Review of the Report "The Impact of Collaborative Strategic Reading on the Reading Comprehension of Grade 5 Students in Linguistically Diverse Schools"
The 2011 study, The Impact of Collaborative Strategic Reading on the Reading Comprehension of Grade 5 Students in Linguistically Diverse Schools, examined the impact of Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR), a set of instructional strategies used to build reading proficiency, on the reading comprehension of fifth-grade students. The analysis included 1,355 students from 74 social studies classrooms within 26 linguistically diverse schools in five districts in Oklahoma and Texas. Researchers randomly assigned social studies classrooms to either an intervention condition, where teachers used CSR instructional strategies for one school year, or a comparison condition, which provided business-as-usual instruction. The study is a well-implemented randomized controlled trial with low attrition at the classroom and student levels, and the research meets WWC evidence standards without reservations. |
7/16/2013 |
| WWC SSR211 | WWC Review of the Report "Better Schools, Less Crime?"
The 2011 study, Better Schools, Less Crime?, examined the effect of school choice on the criminal activity, academic achievement, and high school graduation rate of more than 2,000 male middle and high school students in North Carolina's Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district. For the 2002-03 school year, all district students were given the choice to either attend their neighborhood school or to apply to other schools in the district, where admission was not necessarily guaranteed. The study used a well-implemented random process to form intervention and comparison groups. This research meets WWC evidence standards without reservations. |
7/9/2013 |
| WWC SSR10053 | WWC Review of the Report "Large-scale Randomized Controlled Trial with 4th Graders Using Intelligent Tutoring of the Structure Strategy to Improve Nonfiction Reading Comprehension"
In the 2012 study, Large-scale Randomized Controlled Trial with 4th Graders Using Intelligent Tutoring of the Structure Strategy to Improve Nonfiction Reading Comprehension, researchers examined the effects of the web-based tutoring program, Intelligent Tutoring of the Structure Strategy (ITSS), on the reading comprehension of fourth-grade students in language arts classrooms. ITSS is a one-on-one, web-based intelligent tutoring system which models a "structure strategy" technique, provides practice opportunities, and gives immediate feedback to students. The analysis included 1,875 to 2,371 fourth-grade students from 100 to 117 classrooms in Pennsylvania elementary schools. Study authors assessed the effectiveness of ITSS by comparing the reading comprehension of students in ITSS classrooms with students in comparison classrooms. The study is a well-implemented randomized controlled trial, and the research meets WWC evidence standards without reservations. |
7/2/2013 |
| WWC SSR20001 | WWC Review of the Report "Information and College Access: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment"
In the 2012 study, Information and College Access: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment, researchers examined the impact of offering informational materials about financial aid on the postsecondary expectations of high school students. About 1,600 students from five low-achieving high schools in Ontario, Canada participated in the study and were randomly assigned either to an intervention group that received college cost and financial aid information or to a comparison group that did not. Researchers measured the impact of offering these materials on student postsecondary expectations 3 weeks after the intervention. This study is well-implemented randomized controlled trial and the research meets WWC evidence standards without reservations. |
7/2/2013 |
| WWC SSR20002 | WWC Review of the Report "Can Scholarships Alone Help Students Succeed? Lessons from Two New York City Community Colleges"
The 2012 study, Can Scholarships Alone Help Students Succeed? Lessons from Two New York City Community Colleges, examined the effects of performance-based scholarships on 1,502 low-income, independent, adult community college students in New York City who were required to enroll in remedial courses. The students were targeted because of their elevated risk of having financial difficulties in paying for college. The study authors used student transcript data to evaluate the impact of the scholarships on continued community college enrollment, credits earned, and grade-point average. This study is a well-implemented randomized controlled trial, and the research meets WWC evidence standards without reservations. |
6/4/2013 |
| WWC SSR219 | WWC Review of the Report "Enhancing the Efficacy of Teacher Incentives through Loss Aversion: A Field Experiment"
The study examined whether offering different types of monetary incentives to teachers affected students' math achievement. Researchers analyzed student and teacher data from nine K-8 public schools in Chicago Heights, Illinois in 2010-11. Within each of the nine participating schools, 147 teachers were randomly assigned to one of four intervention groups that represented different incentive strategies (individual loss aversion, team loss aversion, individual gain, and team gain) or a comparison group that received no incentives. Researchers examined the effect of each type of incentive strategy group by comparing the test scores of students whose teachers were in one of the intervention groups to those of students whose teachers were in the comparison group. |
5/14/2013 |
| WWC SSR218 | WWC Review of the Report "The Effects of School Vouchers on College Enrollment: Experimental Evidence from New York City"
The study examined the effects of the New York School Choice Scholarships Foundation Program (SCSF) on college enrollment outcomes. The program provided private school vouchers to public school students from low-income families. Approximately 2,600 first- to fifth-grade New York City public school students from low-income families were randomly assigned either to be offered the SCSF program or not. Students in the intervention group received a school voucher of up to $1,400 annually to attend any private school in New York City. Students in the comparison group did not receive a voucher. Study authors assessed the effectiveness of the SCSF program on encouraging the college enrollment of participants by comparing college enrollment rates of students in the intervention and comparison groups through the fall of 2011 (within 3 years of expected graduation). |
5/14/2013 |
| WWC SSR10051 | WWC Review of the Report "The Effects of POWERSOURCE Intervention on Student Understanding of Basic Mathematical Principles"
The 2009 study, The Effects of POWERSOURCE Intervention on Student Understanding of Basic Mathematical Principles, examined the impact of POWERSOURCE, an intervention designed to help teachers provide individual instruction to their students in Algebra I. The program consists of formative assessments, instructional resources, and professional development for teachers. This study took place in seven districts in Arizona and California during the 2007-08 school year and used two different types of randomization. In three districts, teachers were randomly assigned to either a POWERSOURCE group or a comparison group, and in four districts schools, they were randomly assigned to either a POWERSOURCE group or a comparison group. The randomized controlled trial of the teachers is well-implemented and has low levels of sample attrition. This research meets WWC evidence standards without reservations. The randomized controlled trial of the schools does not meet WWC evidence standards due to high levels of attrition and analytic samples that were not demonstrated to be equivalent at baseline. |
5/1/2013 |
| WWC SSR217 | WWC Review of the Report "Findings from a Randomized Experiment of Playworks: Selected Results from Cohort 1"
The 2012 study, Findings from a Randomized Experiment of Playworks: Selected Results from Cohort 1, examined whether Playworks, a program that utilizes full-time coaches to provide structured play opportunities during recess and class time, reduces the number of disciplinary referrals in 25 low-income elementary schools in five U.S. cities during the 2010–11 school year. The Playworks program includes three main components: structured recess activities, class game time, and the junior coach program. This study is a well-implemented randomized controlled trial with low attrition at the school level, and the research described in the report meets WWC evidence standards without reservations. |
5/1/2013 |
| WWC SSRTLE213 | WWC Review of the Report "An Evaluation of the Chicago Teacher Advancement Program (Chicago TAP) After Four Years"
The 2012 study, An Evaluation of the Chicago Teacher Advancement Program (Chicago TAP) After Four Years, examined whether the Chicago Public Schools’ Teacher Advancement Program (Chicago TAP), which provides mentoring, leadership opportunities, and financial incentives to teachers, improved student academic achievement and teacher retention. Chicago TAP is a local adaptation of the Teacher Advancement Program (TAP), a schoolwide reform that provides annual performance bonuses to teachers based on a combination of their value added to student achievement and observations of their classroom teaching. |
2/12/2013 |
| WWC SSRSB10025 | WWC Review of the Report "Evaluation of a Two-Year Middle-School Physical Education Intervention: M-SPAN"
The 2004 study, Evaluation of a Two-Year Middle-School Physical Education Intervention: M-SPAN, investigated the effect of the Middle School Physical Activity and Nutrition (M-SPAN) intervention on the physical activity level of middle school students in 24 public middle schools from six districts in Southern California. M-SPAN aims to increase physical activity in physical education (PE) classes and reduce students’ fat intake by encouraging healthy eating habits. For this 2-year study, schools were stratified by school district and then randomly assigned to either M-SPAN or a comparison condition. The study assessed the effectiveness of M-SPAN by examining moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), the amount of time students spent either walking or being very active, and other types of activities and PE lesson content across schools that received the M-SPAN training. Study authors reported that the M-SPAN intervention caused a statistically significant improvement in the amount of time students spent in MVPA. The WWC confirmed that the M-SPAN intervention improved the MVPA in schools by an average of 3 minutes per lesson across the 2-year period of the study. This study is a well-implemented randomized controlled trial, and the research described meets WWC evidence standards without reservations. The WWC cautions that the changes in observed MVPA (and other outcomes) may be in part due to (a) changes in MVPA in intervention schools, (b) high-activity students moving into the intervention schools or low-activity students moving out of the comparison schools, or (c) a combination of both effects. This study cannot separate these effects—it can only report on their combined impact. Additionally, because the study analyzed school level data, the magnitude of the effects reported cannot be directly compared to the magnitude of an effect of an intervention that uses student-level data for the analysis. |
2/12/2013 |
| WWC SSRL10032 | WWC Review of the Report "Summer School Effects in a Randomized Field Trial"
The 2012 study, Summer School Effects in a Randomized Field Trial, examined the impact of a summer literacy program on 46 kindergarten and 47 first-grade students who were at moderate risk for reading difficulties in one Pacific Northwest school district. The study took place through a limited expansion of an existing summer program for high-risk students that was modified to include moderate-risk students. Study authors randomly assigned students identified as moderate risk to either an intervention group that was invited to participate in the summer reading program, or a comparison group that did not receive the intervention. The 5-week program was held 4 days per week, for 3.5 hours a day, in the middle of the 3-month summer break. To assess the effectiveness of the program, study authors compared the achievement of the intervention and comparison students. For students in kindergarten, the outcome of interest was an alphabetic assessment. For students in first grade, the outcome of interest was student reading fluency. Researchers found a statistically significant positive effect of the summer school intervention on student outcomes in the fall of the implementation year for students in both kindergarten and first grade. This study is a well-implemented randomized controlled trial with low attrition, and the research described meets WWC evidence standards without reservations. |
2/5/2013 |
| WWC SSR0108 | WWC Review of the Report "Same-Language-Subtitling (SLS): Using Subtitled Music Video for Reading Growth"
The 2009 study, Same-Language-Subtitling (SLS): Using Subtitled Music Video for Reading Growth, examined the impacts of SLS, a karaoke-style subtitling intervention, on the reading comprehension skills of secondary school students in Kaneohe, Hawaii. SLS uses videos with captioned text that changes color in synchronization with the audio. This practice aims to encourage reading and increase reading proficiency. Researchers randomly assigned 198 secondary school students with learning disabilities (ages 14 to 19) to either special education classrooms using the SLS intervention or comparison classrooms (special or general education). The final study sample consisted of 51 students in the intervention condition, who were exposed to SLS for 12 weeks, and 98 students in the comparison condition, who received the school’s regular curriculum. To assess the effects of the program, researchers compared the reading comprehension scores on the achievement tests of students in both groups at the end of the 12-week intervention in June, and again after the summer break in September. Intervention students scored significantly higher on the reading comprehension achievement posttests at both points in time than students in the comparison condition. This study is a well-implemented randomized controlled trial, and the research described meets WWC evidence standards without reservations. |
1/8/2013 |
| WWC SSR209 | WWC Review of the Report "The Long-Term Impacts of Teachers: Teacher Value-Added and Student Outcomes in Adulthood"
Published in 2011, The Long-Term Impacts of Teachers: Teacher Value-Added and Student Outcomes in Adulthood examined differences in student achievement when students were taught by a teacher with high or low value-added, a measure of teacher effectiveness. The study sample included about 3,300 cohorts of math and reading students in grades 4-8 in a large, urban school district from 1991 to 2009. The WWC review focuses on the report's analyses of what happened to students' achievement as a result of the movements of teachers into and out of schools with relatively high or low value-added estimates. Researchers analyzed standardized student math and reading assessment scores and found that when a high value-added teacher started to teach students in a cohort, or a low value-added teacher stopped teaching students in a cohort, the event was associated with a statistically significant increase in reading and math test scores. In addition, when a high value-added teacher stopped teaching students in a cohort, or a low value-added teacher started teaching students in a cohort, the event was associated with a statistically significant decrease in test scores. The cohorts of students being compared were well matched on test scores before an event occurred. However, the analyses for long term outcomes, such as college attendance and employment, had no distinct intervention and comparison groups, making them ineligible for WWC review. Therefore, the research analyzing math and reading scores described in this report meets WWC evidence standards with reservations. |
10/23/2012 |
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