Strategies that teach self-regulated learning in the context of other academic domains have been found to support academic achievement. In response to these findings, Nuñez and colleagues conducted an experimental study to evaluate the effectiveness of the paired reading and writing activities for “Yellow’s Trials and Tribulations,” a story from The Rainbow Program. The intervention consisted of guiding students to work through activities about characters who must use self-regulated learning strategies to progress through the story and meet their goals. Study participants were children in grades 3 and 4 in state-funded and charter schools in Spain. Eighteen classes were assigned to the treatment (N=403), and 16 were assigned to a business-as-usual control condition (N=355). Treatment teachers attended four 3-hour professional development sessions focused on embedding self-regulated learning strategies in reading comprehension instruction. Researchers randomly audited lessons to evaluate the implementation fidelity and found that teachers implemented the intervention according to...

Friendships play an important role in shaping children’s developmental outcomes. For instance, research has shown that children who have friends and those have no friend differ in various aspects, such as peer group status and academic performance. Chen, along with collaborators, conducted a one-year longitudinal study using an action-partner interdependence model (APIM) to explore the role of friendship in the development of academic achievement and depression for same-domain as well as cross-domain effects, i.e., the associations between academic performance and depression in one member of a friendship dyad and later the academic performance and level of depression of the partner member. Academic achievement and depression are considered as two domains, thus, an association between antecedent academic results and later academic achievement indicates same-domain effect, while cross-domain refers to an association between academic achievement and depression. The effect within the same individual from Time 1 (T1) to Time 2 (T2) is...

Almost three years since the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a growing number of studies examining the learning loss of school-aged children during the pandemic. The first meta-analysis of global learning loss has been published in Nature Human Behavior, and reviews the existing evidence on the extent to which learning progress has slowed down since the onset of the pandemic, and how it varies across different groups of students, subject domains and country contexts. To be eligible for inclusion, studies had to: (1) measure learning progress using test scores that could be standardized across studies using Cohen’s d, (2) base their estimates on empirical data collected since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, rather than making projections based on pre-COVID-19 data, and (3) be written in English, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Norwegian, Spanish or Swedish. A total of 42 studies (including 291 estimates) across 15 countries met these inclusion criteria, conducted...

Previous evidence has consistently revealed that students in Teach For America (TFA) classrooms score higher on math assessments in the short run than otherwise similar students in the same schools. In a recent working paper released by American Institutes for Research, the authors extended the existing body of evidence on TFA by researching the relationship between being in a TFA classroom in a given year on both test and non-test academic outcomes in that year and in the following year. Based on the student-level longitudinal data from Miami-Dade County Public Schools, authors found that while students taught by TFA teachers scored higher on math and ELA assessments in a given year, these test score gains faded out by the following year. In addition, students taught by TFA teachers were less likely to miss school due to absences and suspensions both in the year of exposure and the year following. The...

Digital monitoring tools are instruments that support teachers in obtaining, organizing, and analyzing student data from test assessments. Through these tools teachers are also provided with feedback on the data they receive. A recent review studied the effects of digital monitoring tools on student academic achievement. Studies included had to compare an experimental group in which teachers used digital monitoring tools with a control group. Each group had to include at least 20 teachers and the intervention had to last a minimum of 12 weeks. Only independent measures, such as standardized tests, were included in the meta-analysis. A total of 14 studies were included in the review. Most of the studies evaluated the effects of the intervention on mathematics or reading. Studies were carried out more frequently in primary school than secondary school. Overall, the results showed positive effects of digital monitoring tools on student academic achievement (ES =+ 0.12)....

A study conducted by Fuchs and colleagues looked at the effectiveness of interventions that combine training on working memory (WM) and word-problem solving (WPS). The four interventions were as follows: Intervention 1 – general training on WM Intervention 2 – training on WPS without WM training Intervention 3 – training on WPS with math-specific WM training Control group – no intervention General WM training consisted of sessions using verbal and visuospatial modalities, to which the authors added 5 minutes on mathematics practice. The WPS intervention used in the study was Pirate Math that consists of four phases in each session: arithmetic problems, word-problem solving with a tutor, games, and practice. Finally, math-specific WM training was developed by the authors to support students in applying their working memory capacity in mathematics. A randomized study evaluated the effects of the interventions on academic outcomes of students with math difficulties in second grade....

Research shows that using formative assessment data to tailor instruction to student needs can improve student achievement. However, a recent research brief published by the Center for Urban Education Leadership at the University of Illinois at Chicago argues that testing corporations may not produce data that helps educators make the best decisions for their students. The brief notes that evaluations of the relationship between using large-scale formative assessments and standardized assessment scores have produced negative or null effect sizes. Furthermore, formative assessment data tends to provide information about discrete skills students must master to improve their assessment scores. Didactic instruction that addresses one skill at a time has been found ineffective in engaging students and can exacerbate race or class-based opportunity gaps. Thus, the brief concludes that school leaders and classroom teachers should exercise caution when analyzing formative data provided by assessment corporations. Instead, they should focus on higher order...

Academic achievement is closely related to students’ development in numerous aspects. One of the important factors associated with academic achievement is socioeconomic status (SES), which often refers to the status or prestige of an individual or an individual’s family owing to the possession of certain social resources, capabilities, or wealth. Two meta-analyses conducted by Liu and colleagues investigated the relations between SES and academic achievement among primary and secondary education with a focus on macro-level and micro-level moderators. The first meta-analysis was based on 326 empirical studies and 838 effect sizes from 47 countries and areas, while the second was based on three international large-scale assessments (PISA, TIMSS, and PIRLS) with 9883 effect sizes from 105 countries and areas. All studies were conducted from 1990 to 2021. Overall, small to moderate correlations were found between SES and academic achievement around the world (r = 0.22 ~ 0.28). In terms of...

A recent study published in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis addresses the perennial question in education if resources matter and, if so, which ones. To respond to this question, during a period of cutbacks in teacher assistants (TAs) induced by recession, the authors examined whether teacher assistants and other non-teacher staffing influence the outcomes of elementary school students. After using panel data and regression analysis statistical techniques, the authors found evidence that TAs have positive effects: across core curriculum subjects like reading and math, with the most robust effects on reading, including cost-effectiveness in reading; on the academic performance of students of color, particularly in high-poverty districts; and on school-level proficiency rates, particularly among non-White students and those in high-poverty districts. Specifically, a 10% increase in the use of TAs increased non-White students’ exam performance in reading and arithmetic by 0.01 SDs and 0.008 SDs respectively, as opposed to 0.003...