Although integrating technology into education has been found to be effective means in helping students, it may fail to produce impacts because of poor implementation. A recent cluster-random controlled trial study conducted by Mo and colleagues investigated the effect of a computer-assisted learning (CAL) program on English achievement and compared the differences in implementation of the program between institutions. The CAL program was designed to provide remedial tutoring for learning English during computer class sessions organized by a computer teacher. A balanced cohort of 120 primary schools in one of China's poorest provinces was randomized into three groups: CAL implemented by a government agency, the same program implemented by a non-government organization (NGO), and no CAL program (control schools). A total of 5,253 Grade 4 students completed the program. Both treatment groups adopted the same software packages for the tutoring, and both the government agency and the NGO conducted implementation,...

A recent randomized evaluation conducted by researchers at Rutgers University investigated the effects of Classroom Strategies Coaching Mode (CSC) on teacher outcomes and student engagement. CSC is a coaching program for teachers with the aim to increase the use of evidence-based practices in teaching and classroom management. After the identification of practice needs the coaches provide teachers with formative assessments and feedback to support implementation of practices useful to respond to their needs. The study involved 106 elementary school teachers in 14 high-poverty schools in United States. Teachers were randomly assigned to receive the intervention over 12 weeks or to a waiting list. The authors evaluated the effects of CSC on teacher outcomes, quality of instruction, and behavioral management strategies. This summary does not report teacher outcomes because they were evaluated using measures made by the researchers, which can lead to inflated results. However, student engagement in academic activities is...

Interventions that focus on the reduction of problem behaviors and support of emotional well-being and social relationships have become increasingly popular around the globe over the past two decades. One such program, School Wide Positive Behavior Supports (SWPBS) has a solid base of evidence for improving social, emotional, and academic outcomes in the short-term. However, there is still little evidence regarding the long-term effects of this popular intervention. Borgen and colleagues examined the long-term effects of SWPBS on students’ academic failure and marginalization. Specifically, they examined short-term test scores and long-term academic grades, high school dropout, school behavior, and youth crime using population-wide Norwegian register data (N = 964,924). All Norwegian primary schools (grades 1–7) were included in the study (N = 2,366), where 216 of the schools in our sample (9%) had implemented SWPBS. The authors compared these individual-level variables between students who had attended SWPBS schools with those...

While much attention centers around the impact of science instruction on achievement in middle and high school, less research focuses on early elementary exposure to inquiry science and its long-term impact on academic outcomes. As such, Kaderavek and colleagues at the University of Toledo embarked on a longitudinal investigation of one science framework-aligned intervention targeted towards students in grades 1-3. The NURTURES program covers two distinct aspects of a child’s early science experience: classroom-based science inquiry instruction and informal science practice at home. NURTURES teachers take part in a summer institute as well as academic-year professional development to better facilitate inquiry-based science practice and discussion with students. Additionally, to engage students’ families, NURTURES teachers give grade-specific family packs to students four times throughout the academic year. These packs further develop students’ use of science practices (such as hypothesis forming, experimental design, and data collection) while at home.  As a final...

Evidence has indicated that children’s early interest in specific activities is related to later achievement in the corresponding skills. A recent study published in Contemporary Education Psychology explored the role children’s interest in spatial activities played in their spatial ability development. A total of 197 children (mean age = 52.7 months at baseline) from middle-class families was recruited from 4 local non-profit preschools in Hong Kong. Children’s spatial ability was measured 4 times (T1 to T4) over a two-year period (autumn and spring in preschool years 2 and 3) using a 16-item visual-spatial skill task which requires preschoolers to identify a target figure presented in a partly or totally different orientation from four other figures. The children’s interest in spatial and art activities was reported by their mothers who ranked the interest of their children in a list of 13 activities from the Brief Reading Interest Scale (BRISC). The parents...

Children’s home reading under parental supervision can supplement in-class reading. A paper published in the Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness investigated the effects of a one-year parental involvement intervention on the development of primary school children’s reading skills. The researchers adopted school-level cluster randomization and recruited 600 grade 2 students from Tanzania (12 experimental schools, 264 students; 12 control schools, 336 students). Groups were similar in terms of child’s gender, parent’s gender, parental educational level, and parental income. The intervention incorporated four parts: training sessions for teachers and parents; parents’ and children’s shared reading at home; partnership between parents and teachers; and parental involvement in children’s homework. Outcomes of interest included three dimensions of reading achievement: word decoding, reading fluency, and reading comprehension. Results showed significant enhancement in word decoding, reading fluency, and reading comprehension at the end of the one-year intervention. A follow-up assessment 8 months after the...

SPARK (now renamed Future Forward), developed by the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee (BGCGM) in 2005, is an early grade literacy intervention for students in high-poverty schools. As a school-community-family partnership strategy, this program seeks to improve K-3 students’ literacy skills through in-school one-on-one tutoring provided by AmeriCorps volunteers or college students with family engagement. Jones and Christian evaluated the effect of SPARK in 7 public schools in Milwaukee serving primarily low-income students of color. They randomly assigned 576 participating students in grades K-2 into either the intervention or the comparison groups. Most students were African American (79.7 %), and 95.3% qualified for free or reduced-price lunch. For those eligible to participate, most of them (85%) were not proficient in reading at baseline. After 2 years of implementation, the results indicated that: SPARK was found to have significantly positive effect on foundational literacy skills (PALS: ES = +0.23)...

A recent meta-analysis performed by Sinha and Kapur utilized 53 studies from around the world comparing the order of instruction for a range of learners, primarily focused on 2nd graders through undergraduate students.  The focus of the meta-analysis was to investigate outcomes for students exposed to learning that introduces problem solving prior to instruction (PS-I) compared with students exposed to learning that introduces instruction prior to problem solving (I-PS).  Arguments in favor of PS-I designs emphasize the acquisition of higher-order thinking skills developed by allowing students to grapple with concepts they have not yet formally studied, while arguments supporting I-PS designs suggest that direct instruction is needed to enable students to focus on the most important aspects of the material.  Within the broader category of PS-I designs, the authors focused on the effects of productive failure (PF), where the problem-solving portion of the lesson is specifically designed to result in...

Previous studies have demonstrated that participation in structured extracurricular activities (EA) promotes educational outcomes in a western context. A new research study published in the Journal of Youth Studies investigated the mechanism of the impact of participating in structured EA on educational outcomes of youth in China. The authors examined whether family SES predicted students’ participation in EA which in turn related to academic performance. In addition, they explored whether participating in EA may promote supportive social networks, which contribute to learning outcomes. Two-wave data of about 8,000 7th grade students from the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS) were collected. A baseline survey was conducted in 2014 and a follow-up survey was taken in 2015. Students reported whether they joined any extracurricular activities (e.g., sports, chess, painting) after school at baseline. Academic achievement was assessed by total scores on Chinese reading, Mathematics, and English reading.  Using students’ reported survey items,...