Category: Maths and Science Learning

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Educational Administration and Leadership Maths and Science Learning Primary School Education Secondary School Education

What happens when teachers get more feedback?

A study published by the American Institutes for Research (AIR) and the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) shows that even small amounts of the right kind of feedback to teachers and principals can have an effect on pupil achievement in maths.

A total of 127 schools from eight districts across five US states participated in the study. Schools were assigned to either a treatment or control group. In both the treatment and control group schools, teachers and principals continued to receive the performance feedback they had received in the past. For those in the treatment group schools, additional feedback was also given for classroom practice, pupil achievement and principal leadership. The study focused on principals and teachers of reading/ English and maths in grades 4–8 (Years 5–9).

The findings include:

  • In the first year of the study, the pupils in the treatment schools outperformed pupils in control schools in maths by the equivalent of four weeks of learning.
  • In the second year, while there was a difference of the same size, it was not statistically significant.
  • There was no difference in either year on pupil achievement in reading/ English.

Through exploratory analyses, the study also noted that classroom practice was positively associated with achievement in maths, suggesting that improved classroom practice might be one way of how feedback to teachers influenced student achievement.

 

Garet, M.S., Wayne, A.J., Brown, S., Rickles, J., Song, M., and Manzeske, D. (2017). The impact of providing performance feedback to teachers and principals. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.… Read the rest

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Kindergarten Language Development Maths and Science Learning Programme Evaluation Social and Motivational Outcomes

Self-regulation intervention improves school readiness

Adding a self-regulation intervention to a school readiness programme can improve self-regulation, early academic skills and school readiness in children at higher risk for later school difficulties, according to the results of a study published in Early Childhood Research Quarterly.

Robert J Duncan and colleagues looked at the effect of adding a self-regulation intervention to the Bridge to Kindergarten (B2K) programme – a three-week summer school-readiness programme – in the US state of Oregon. The B2K programme is aimed at children with no prior preschool experience, and therefore considered to be at risk for later school difficulties.

Children from three to five years old were randomly assigned to either a control group (B2K only) or the intervention group (B2K plus intervention). Children in the intervention group received two 20- to 30-minute sessions per week, involving movement and music-based games that encouraged them to practise self-regulation skills.

Results from this randomised controlled trial indicated that

  • Children who received the intervention scored higher on measures of self-regulation than children who participated in the B2K programme alone.
  • There were no significant effects on maths or literacy at the end of the programme.
  • However, four months into kindergarten, children from the intervention group showed increased growth in self-regulation, maths and literacy compared to expected development.

The study concluded that policies and programs aimed at children without schooling experience before attending kindergarten might reduce the school readiness gaps and improve their achievement.

 

Duncan, R. J., Schmitt, S. A., Burke, M., & McClelland, M. M. (2018). Combining a kindergarten readiness summer program with a self-regulation intervention improves school readiness. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 42, 291–300.… Read the rest

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Effective Teaching Approach Kindergarten Maths and Science Learning Primary School Education Secondary School Education

A thirty-year look at studies on computer-assisted maths

During the past 30 years, thousands of articles have been written about technology’s effects on pupil achievement. In order to quantify technology’s effects on maths achievement, Jamaal Young at the University of Texas conducted a meta-analysis of all of the meta-analyses on the topic during the last three decades. His second-order meta-analysis was comprised of 19 meta-analyses representing 663 primary studies, more than 141,000 pupils and 1,263 effect sizes. Each meta-analysis that was included had to address the use of technology as a supplement to instruction, use pupil maths achievement as an outcome measure, report an effect size or enough data to calculate one, have been published after 1985 and be accessible to the public.

The author found that:

  • All technology enhancements positively affected pupil achievement, regardless of the technology’s purpose.
  • However, technology that helped pupils perform computational functions had the greatest effects on pupil achievement, while combinations of enhancements demonstrated the least effects on pupil achievement.
  • Study quality and the type of technology used in the classroom were the main influencers on effect sizes. The highest-quality studies had the lowest effect sizes, which he attributes to their more rigorous analysis procedures. The high-quality reviews gave an overall effect size for the use of technology of +0.16 (compared with +0.38 for low- and +0.46 for medium-quality reviews).

As limited by the availability of effect size, this secondary meta-analysis did not assess meta-cognitive, motivational, and affective outcomes. The author suggested that the accumulation and aggregation of effect sizes must improve and evolve to support policy and praxis, keeping technology integration relevant and valuable in mathematics classrooms.

 

Source: Young, J. (2017). Technology-enhanced mathematics instruction: A second-order meta-analysis of 30 years of research. Educational Research Review, 22, 19–33.… Read the rest

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Achievement Kindergarten Language Development Maths and Science Learning Primary School Education Secondary School Education

The evidence on achievement gaps over time: Contained but not closing

Research has shown that socioeconomic status (SES) is the highest predictor of children’s academic achievement. Moreover, the achievement gap between low- and high-SES pupils begins early in their schooling. How effective have initiatives been at narrowing the achievement gap? Emma Garcia at the Education Policy Institute in the US and Elaine Weiss at the Broader Bolder Approach to Education examined two cohorts of kindergartners (Year 1), those who started in 1998 and those who started in 2010. They were looking at the relationship between socio-economic status and kindergartners’ cognitive and non-cognitive skills at the start of their school years to see if the achievement gap had narrowed in this twelve-year span.

Using data from the National Center for Education Statistics – Early Childhood Longitudinal Studies of the Kindergarten Classes of 1998-99 and 2010-11, Garcia and Weiss found that the achievement gap did not change between 1998 to 2010 among pupils living in the US’s highest and lowest economic strata, a difference of 1.17 standard deviations in reading and 1.25 standard deviations in maths, despite parents’ increased involvement in educating their children across all SES groups and the implementation of programmes designed to narrow these gaps. Interestingly, they did find that the percentage of children living in poverty grew during that time, yet the achievement gap did not grow, nor did it narrow. They found that greater parental involvement and children’s pre-school attendance contained the gap, but did not do enough to eliminate the overall effects of poverty on pupil achievement.

The researchers then reviewed twelve programmes designed to narrow the achievement gap. The most effective programmes addressed not only academics, but ensured the children were getting proper meals and healthcare and provided other supports for children and their families.

 

Sources: García, E. & Weiss, E. (2017). Education Inequalities at the School Starting Gate – Gaps, Trends, and Strategies to Address them. DC: Economic Policy Institute.… Read the rest

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Kindergarten Maths and Science Learning

Does growth rate in spatial perception ability predict early arithmetic competence?

Two researchers respectively from The University of Hong Kong and The Education University of Hong Kong carried out a three-year longitudinal study of Chinese preschoolers to examine the predictability of the growth rate in spatial perception ability on children’s subsequent arithmetic skills.  Spatial perception is the ability to perceive spatial relations.

A total of 106 Chinese children from two non-profit-making preschools in Hong Kong were recruited to participate in the study. All participants were native Cantonese-speaking children and received instruction in Cantonese. Their average age was approximately 45 months (3.75 years old) at the beginning of the study.

The children were tested individually five times across three years of preschool studies. The five-time points were the spring of the first academic year (May, [T1]), the fall of the second academic year (November, [T2]), the spring of the second academic year (May, [T3]), the fall of the third academic year (November, [T4]), and the spring of the third academic year (May, [T5]). A total of seven tests, including spatial perception test and the arithmetic competencies test, were employed as measures, and the reliability of the tests were proved to be good. The purpose of the spatial perception test was to probe into children’s competence to identify spatial relations among task components despite the existences of distracting information.

After controlling for possibly confounding variables such as spatial analogic reasoning, spatial visualization, mental rotation and the level and rate of growth in phonological awareness, the finding indicates that the growth rate in spatial perception during the preschool years had predictive impact on children’s arithmetic competence at the end of preschool but the initial level of spatial perception did not have such predictive function. It also demonstrates that growth rate of spatial perception during preschool years had its unique value in predicting arithmetic competencies, even when other components of spatial ability are considered.

Such findings suggest that it is of significance to assist pre-school students to develop spatial perception which is likely to lead to improvement in their arithmetic competences. Thus, the learning process and progress in spatial ability is worthy of monitoring by teachers and practitioners, and those children whose rate of growth is slower than their fellow students need to be provided with appropriate spatial learning opportunities.

 

Source: Zhang, X. & Lin, D. (2017). Does growth rate in spatial ability matter in predicting early arithmetic competence? Learning and Instruction, 49, 232-241.… Read the rest

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Maths and Science Learning Primary School Education Secondary School Education Uncategorized

Poor literacy skills hold poorer pupils back in science

A report, published by the Education Endowment Foundation and the Royal Society, has reviewed existing studies to identify interventions and teaching approaches that have a positive impact on pupil learning in science, particularly for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The researchers from the University of Oxford analysed data in the National Pupil Database in England to measure the extent of the gap in the performance between economically disadvantaged pupils and pupils from higher socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds on national science tests. This analysis confirmed that disadvantaged pupils (pupils who have been entitled to free school meals at least once in the last six years) had much lower scores and made poorer progress in science, at every stage of their school career, than pupils from higher SES backgrounds. The gap, they suggest, first becomes apparent at Key Stage 1 (ages 5–7) and only gets wider throughout primary and secondary school. The gap for science is as wide as it is in English and maths, and grows particularly strongly between the ages of 5–7 and 11–16.

The study also found that the strongest factor affecting pupils’ science scores was how well they understood written texts. According to the report, poor literacy skills affect how well a pupil is able to understand scientific vocabulary and to prepare scientific reports. This suggests that strategies to boost disadvantaged pupils’ reading comprehension could have a positive impact on their achievement in science too. The authors write: “In correlational studies of science learning, the strongest and most consistent predictor of pupils’ scientific attainment has undoubtedly been how literate they are”. They add that there is a “strong relationship” between pupils’ socioeconomic status and their literacy.

A study, which we covered in a previous edition of Best Evidence in Brief, found a similar relationship between literacy and science achievement gaps for pupils in US elementary and middle schools.

 

Source: Nunes, T., Bryant, P., Strand, S., Hillier, J., Barros, R., & Miller-Friedmann, J. (2017). Review of SES and Science Learning in Formal Educational Settings. UK: Education Endowment Foundation.… Read the rest