Category: Educational Administration and Leadership

Categories
Educational Administration and Leadership Language Development Primary School Education

Teaching children in the language they understand best improves their reading skills

The Centre of Excellence for Development Impact and Learning recently conducted a systematic review examining the effects of native language-based education policies and Language of Instruction (LoI) transition policies on students’ literacy, biliteracy, and multilingual literacy skill development. The review summarized evidence from 45 high-quality studies carried out in low-and middle-income countries, focusing on education in a range of native languages, as well as post-colonial languages acquired later on, such as English, French and Portuguese.

The results of the review found that 70% of all 10-year-old students in low- and middle-income countries struggled to read simple texts. Moreover, an average of 40% of these students received their education in languages not spoken at home, leading to comprehension difficulties. In addition, nearly all students were required to transition to yet a different language of instruction at the end of primary school.

The systematic review uncovers compelling evidence that teaching children in their “own” language first has multiple benefits. Specifically, the delivery of native-language reading programs leads to significant impacts on native-language reading scores and then later-acquired-language reading scores.

Based on these results, the authors recommend: 1. Continued investment in teaching students in their native language. 2. Performing high-quality studies of how and why native-language education programs impact literacy and other academic outcomes in both the native language and the “later acquired” languages. 3. Implementing cost-effectiveness analyses to provide decision makers with data on how much time and resources should be devoted to teaching in one language versus another.

 

Source: Nakamura, P., Molotsky, A., Castro Zarzur, R., Ranjit, V., Haddad, Y. and de Hoop, T. (2023). Language of instruction in schools in LMICs: A systematic review, CEDIL Evidence Brief 11. London and Oxford: Centre of Excellence for Development Impact and Learning. https://doi.org/10.51744/CEB11… Read the rest

Categories
Educational Administration and Leadership Higher Education Primary School Education Secondary School Education

The role of quizzing in learning: What does the evidence reveal?

While research shows testing effectively strengthens long-term retention and facilitates new learning, policymakers tend not to appropriate these benefits and prefer minimizing classroom tests. A recent meta-analysis by Yang and colleagues investigated testing’s impact on academic performance across 222 classroom studies over 90 years, comparing quizzing to no quizzing. It found quizzing enhanced exam scores by nearly half a standard deviation (g = +0.499), highlighting testing’s power to improve outcomes. Results of moderator analysis is shown below:

  • The control group’s activities significantly moderated the effects. Tests demonstrated the larger impact when comparing quizzes with a no-activity or filler tasks (g=+0.610) but found no significant effect difference when compared to elaborative strategies such as concept mapping, note-taking, or summarizing (g=+0.095).
  • Different testing formats had different effects. Fill-in-the-blanks (g=+0.773), short answers (g=+0.638), and multiple choice (g=+0.567) produced relatively larger effect size and free-recall the smallest (g=+0.238).
  • Matched test format (g=+0.531) between quiz and final assessment yielded higher effects than inconsistent test format (g=+0.399). Tests on similar material (identical, rephrased, or partial) showed stronger effects (g = +0.496 to +0.512), but transfer-ability was also found in untested material in exams (g=+0.321).
  • Providing corrective feedback (g _=+0.537) yielded better results than no feedback (g _ =+0.374).
  • Post-class quizzing (g=+0.536) showed higher benefits than pre-class quizzing (g=+0.186).
  • Lengthier interventions spanning an entire semester or more (g > +0.5) facilitated greater gains than a single class intervention (g=+0.385).

While testing has encountered skepticism, such doubts do not lessen its substantial value when used appropriately. Moreover, a recent meta-analysis by the principal author incorporated 25 studies with the majority in classroom settings demonstrating that quizzing moderately reduces test anxiety (g=-0.52). The authors recommended practitioners consider testing as a learning tool instead of simply an assessment technique. They also provided theoretical explanations of the testing effect in their article.

 

Source: Yang, C., Luo, L., Vadillo, M. A., Yu, R., & Shanks, D. R. (2021). Testing (quizzing) boosts classroom learning: A systematic and meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 147(4), 399–435. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000309… Read the rest

Categories
Educational Administration and Leadership Higher Education Secondary School Education

The long-term impact of KIPP on college enrollment and persistence

The Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) network of public elementary, middle, and high school-level charter schools is the nation’s largest. While there is data on student academic achievement in KIPP schools, there is less research on its impact on longer-term outcomes, such as enrollment, persistence, and attainment at the college level. A recent study by Demers and colleagues seeks to change that.

Using a randomized controlled trial design ensuring that students offered admission to a KIPP middle school were similar to those not receiving an offer on characteristics including prior test scores, motivation levels, and parental support, the researchers sought to examine the impact of KIPP middle schools on student enrollment and persistence in a four-year college during the first three years after high school graduation. Demers and her colleagues tracked 2,066 students who partook in a lottery to enter grade 5 or grade 6 at 21 oversubscribed KIPP middle schools across multiple states during the 2008–2009 to 2011–2012 school years.

The study found that KIPP middle schools had a positive but not statistically significant effect on college enrollment (p = +0.12), when comparing those who received an admission offer to those who did not. In addition, students’ college persistence rate (p = +0.78) and graduation rate (p =+ 0.99) were similar to those who did not receive KIPP middle school admissions offers. However, the authors noted that students who attended both a KIPP middle and high school were 30.5 percentage points more likely to enroll in a four-year college (p < 0.000), almost 20 percentage points more likely to persist in college for at least three years (p < 0.000), and 18.9 percentage points more likely to graduate from a four-year college (p = 0.025). They noted that these college attainment rates exceed the gaps among Black and Hispanic students compared to White students in the United States.

These findings suggest that it is not enough to just receive an admission offer to KIPP middle school, or to just attend a KIPP middle school. The stronger effects of attending a KIPP middle and high school are potentially connected to college preparatory culture development efforts and college-related supports that are focused more centrally at KIPP high schools. These include rigorous coursework for all students, college counselors paired with every KIPP high school student, and financial aid application and precollege summer program identification supports.

 

Source (Open Access): Demers, A., Nichols-Barrer, I., & Steele, E., Bartlett, M., & Gleason, P. (2023). Long-term impacts of KIPP middle and high schools on college enrollment, persistence, and attainment. Cambridge, MA: Mathematica. https://www.mathematica.org/publications/long-term-impacts-of-kipp-middle-and-high-schools-on-college-enrollment-persistence-and-attainment… Read the rest

Categories
Educational Administration and Leadership Higher Education Secondary School Education

Are holistic college admissions more equitable?

During the Covid-19 pandemic, an additional 30% of American 4-year colleges joined the 50% already employing test-optional admission policies. 95% of more selective colleges have long used some holistic admission practices. However, less selective institutions have been more likely to rely on raw high school performance metrics. A new study examined data from 2.3 million students in a midwestern American state, matching their high school performance and college results. Applicants’ GPA, considered in the high school’s context, was overall as correlated with college GPA, graduation within 4 years, and retention beyond the first year as uncontextualized high school GPA. ACT scores and experience taking rigorous college preparatory classes, contextualized by the high school’s available resources, were also associated with college outcomes, but with smaller effect sizes.

The results suggest that colleges across a range of selectivity levels adopting holistic review policies with contextualized high school data may admit students as likely to succeed as those using decontextualized, narrow criteria. American public high schools, whose funding comes in part from local property taxes, are highly segregated by socio-economic status, race, and ethnicity. High schools in affluent districts can offer a greater variety and higher quality of academic and extracurricular programming compared to those in high-poverty districts. College admissions based on holistic, contextualized review may offer a more equitable chance for low-income students to be granted college admission compared to “traditional” decontextualized approaches.

 

Source (Open Access): Bastedo, M. N., Umbricht, M., Bausch, E., Byun, B.-K., & Bai, Y. (2023). Contextualized high school performance: evidence to inform equitable holistic, test-optional, and test-free admissions policies. AERA Open, 9, 23328584231197413. https://doi.org/10.1177/23328584231197413

 … Read the rest

Categories
Educational Administration and Leadership Kindergarten Primary School Education

Self-overestimation in children

Numerous studies show children tend to overestimate their motor and cognitive skills. Self-enhancement, which involves taking a positive view of oneself, is also exhibited among adults who overestimate their ability and traits (e.g., kindness, selflessness). However, theory suggests it can be beneficial for children, encouraging them to tackle new challenges.

To investigate the extent of children’s self-overconfidence, Xia and colleagues conducted a meta-analysis pooling 43 studies from 1968 to 2021 involving preschool and primary students. Measuring both self-estimated and actual objective performance, the analysis incorporated 246 effect sizes. Ratio of means (RoM) was used to assess effect size which was the ratio of self-estimation to actual performance, with value over 1 indicating overestimation, under 1 signifying underestimation. Results of three-level meta-analysis are shown below.

  • Children overestimated their task performance by 35% (ES =+1.35).
  • Sample mean age was a significant moderator. Self-overestimation decreased as sample mean age increased from 4.80 to 12.50 years (B=-0.079).
  • More recent studies saw slightly higher estimates (B=+0.008), though year of data collection was no longer significant when controlling for mean age of the sample (B=+0.005).
  • No significant difference emerged across motor, memory, and other cognitive tasks.
  • With eight studies reporting separated effects for boys and/or girls, no gender difference was observed for self-overestimation.

Age remained the sole prominent factor influencing the degree of inflated self-appraisal in this study. The authors propose that children’s self-overestimation declines with age because they develop metacognitive skills, accumulate task performance experience, and engage in evaluation and social comparison in school settings. These may lead to a more realistic assessment of their abilities.

 

Source (Open Access): Xia, M., Poorthuis, A. M. G., & Thomaes, S. (n.d.). Children’s overestimation of performance across age, task, and historical time: A meta-analysis. Child Development, n/a(n/a). https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.14042… Read the rest

Categories
Achievement Educational Administration and Leadership Secondary School Education

Mobile phones in schools: To ban or not to ban? An investigation in UK schools

The use of mobile phones in schools has ignited debates, with some advocating for a complete ban, and others arguing for their integration as educational tools. Yet there has been an absence of academic research examining the impact of mobile phones on the performance of secondary school students. A 2016 study by Beland and Murphy explored the consequences of schools implementing a ban on mobile phones on student test scores in the UK, where there is no government policy regarding phone use in schools. This autonomy in mobile phone policies has resulted in various approaches to the issue. The researchers leverage these differences using a difference-in-differences (DID) estimation strategy, comparing changes in test scores across and within schools before and after the introduction of mobile phone bans, defined as being in place when a school restricts their use on its premises.

The two researchers were able to create a dataset that tracked students from the end of primary school to the completion of their compulsory educational journey (at 16 years old) between 2001 and 2011. They correlated this dataset with information regarding mobile phone policies, collected through a survey conducted in high schools in four major cities in England (Birmingham, Leicester, London, and Manchester). After receiving feedback from 91 schools, the researchers found that most bans were introduced after 2005, with only one school in the sample not restricting the use of mobile phones, and no school reversing their phone policy during the survey period.

When comparing changes over time, student achievement at age 16 significantly increased post-policy compared to pre-policy. Results showed that, on average, student performance in the General Certificates of Secondary Education test significantly increased after the ban (ES = +0.07, p < 0.1), with varying effects on different types of students. The ban mainly benefitted low-achievers, with no impact on high-achievers, and led to higher results for students with special educational needs and those eligible for free school meals, especially in schools reporting high compliance. This study illustrates that a highly multipurpose technology, such as mobile phones, can have a negative impact on productivity through distraction, especially for low-achievers, suggesting that the consequences of mobile phones in schools should not be underestimated.

 

Source: Beland, L.-P., & Murphy, R. (2016). Ill communication: Technology, distraction and student performance. Labour Economics, 41, 61–76. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2016.04.004… Read the rest