The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires schools and districts to use evidence-based programs to improve outcomes for students. Thus, to understand how this requirement informs decision-making regarding the selection of curricular programs, in her study, Yoshizawa observed meetings and conducted interviews with practitioners in three different school districts in one state. The state education agency provided school districts with access to optional professional development on using tools such as Evidence for ESSA and the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC). Additionally, school districts received a handbook that explained how to document their reform initiatives and justify decisions using research.

The study found that the district- and school-level practitioners used the tools suggested by the state education agency but made decisions regarding curricular purchases in nuanced ways. Practitioners used their own background knowledge regarding program effectiveness and weighed it against evidence. Additionally, they drew from different understandings of what constitutes evidence and placed sources of evidence at odds with one another. The author found that the push to use instrumental research in decision-making increased the use of evidence. However, practitioner expertise and teacher capacity weighed more heavily when existing decisions were at odds with the research evidence tools. To decrease the gap between research and practice, the findings suggest systematic and tailored professional development on instrumental research use should be provided for different stakeholder levels, including district curriculum specialists, school principals, and teachers.

Source: Yoshizawa, L. (2022). The imposition of instrumental research use: How school and district practitioners enact their state’s evidence requirements. American Educational Research Journal, 59(6), 1157–1193. https://doi.org/10.3102/00028312221113556… Read the rest

Augmented reality (AR) technology emphasizes superimposing virtual information over the real environment to create a new context of learning.  Studies and research about the impact of using augmented reality (AR) continue to grow in number in the educational sector. By including a total of 134 (quasi-)experiment studies from 2012 to 2021, Chang and colleagues conducted a meta-analysis to investigate the impact of AR on three levels of learning outcomes:

• Response outcome: learners’ self-reported attitude to the AR learning environment, e.g., satisfaction, motivation, or perception of usefulness
• Knowledge and skill outcome: involves assessment tools to measure learners’ understanding and skills, e.g., literacy, numeracy, or reasoning.
• Performance outcome: how learners apply and transfer what they learned to the authentic situation, e.g., conduct scientific enquiry or operate a simulated medical survey.

Results of the meta-analysis included:

• Comparing AR with non-AR, positive impacts of AR instruction were found on response outcome (g=+0.49), knowledge and skill (g = +0.65), and performance (g = +0.74).
• Comparing refined AR with other AR instruction, refined AR (e.g., including more support, or games with AR) showed better outcomes: response (g=+0.25), knowledge and skill (g = +0.56).

Moreover, meta-regression was employed to discern factors that relate to the variation in the effects of AR.

• In terms of response outcome about using AR, results indicated that treatment duration and subject area are significant factors related to the effect sizes. The longer the duration, the larger the effect sizes. The most positive effects in relation to subject area were in language learning, while other subject areas showed no significant differences (social studies, science, technology, and math).
• With respect to knowledge and skill, treatment duration and education level (e.g. primary, secondary, postsecondary school education) had no impact on effect size. However, AR design affordance without 3-D visualization achieved better results than those which incorporated 3-D visualization.

As treatment duration was a significant factor, it may be interesting for further studies to increase the treatment duration. Although in theory AR incorporating 3-D visualization could improve student learning, given the negative effect of 3-D visualization in knowledge and skill outcomes, the authors suggested that in practice, it needs more careful and tailored 3-D visualization design.

Source (Open Access): Chang, H.-Y., Binali, T., Liang, J.-C., Chiou, G.-L., Cheng, K.-H., Lee, S. W.-Y., & Tsai, C.-C. (2022). Ten years of augmented reality in education: A meta-analysis of (quasi-) experimental studies to investigate the impact. Computers & Education, 191, 104641. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2022.104641… Read the rest

There is an accepted relationship between students’ oral language skills and their ability to master literacy skills in schools. The importance of developing oral language skills in the early years is important so that students can fully engage with instruction. However, to develop those skills, teachers must understand this relationship and support the development of oral language in their classrooms. One proposed approach to this is through professional learning that helps teachers develop new knowledge and beliefs as well as new pedagogy to address oral language development.

A recent study by Goldfeld and colleagues tested whether the Classroom Promotion of Oral Language (CPOL) intervention, a teacher professional learning program focused on oral language in kindergarten and first grade, improved student literacy outcomes at the end of first and third grade. The study was conducted in Australia, in government and Catholic schools. A total of 36 schools were randomly assigned to participate in CPOL, with another 36 assigned to continue with their current professional learning.

There were no significant differences in student outcomes, for either reading in third grade on the standardized, system-wide reading test given to all students, or on a range of literacy measures at the end of first grade.

It is important to note that an earlier report on this study examining teacher outcomes found while the teacher knowledge of oral language improved for CPOL participants, there were no changes in teacher instruction, which could explain the lack of improvements in student outcomes.  This work highlights the challenges in changing teacher instructional practices to improve student outcomes, especially when implemented at scale.

Source (Open Access): Goldfeld, S., Snow, P., Eadie, P., Munro, J., Gold, L., Le, H. N. D., Orsini, F., Shingles, B., Connell, J., Watts, A., & Barnett, T. (2022). Classroom promotion of oral language: Outcomes from a randomized controlled trial of a Whole-of-Classroom intervention to improve children’s reading achievement. AERA Open, 8, 23328584221131530. https://doi.org/10.1177/23328584221131530… Read the rest

Rapid automatized naming, the ability of an individual to name as quickly as possible a list of familiar visual stimuli, e.g., letters, digits, objects, or colors, has been found to be a significant predictor of literacy skills.  Chen and colleagues conducted a meta-analysis to investigate the relationship between RAN and spelling accuracy (RAN-spelling) in alphabetic languages. In addition, the relationship between RAN and reading (RAN-Reading) was also examined.

A total of 103 studies met the inclusion criteria, and a robust variance estimation approach, which takes into account non-independent effect sizes, was adopted in the analysis. Overall, mean effect size for RAN-spelling relation was r = 0.35 (95% predictive interval PI: 0.06- 0.66) and RAN-reading was r=0.44 (PI: 0.05- 0.71). Given the presence of significant heterogeneity for both relations, a series of moderator analyses was conducted. With respect to the RAN-spelling relation, the results below show the significant moderators:

• Word type: RAN correlated more strongly with real word spelling (r=0.38) than pseudo word spelling (r=0.28).
• Type of stimulus: RAN letters (r=0.41) and digits (r=0.36) correlated more strongly with spelling than RAN colors (r=0.27) and objects (r=0.26).
• Orthographic consistency: RAN-spelling relation was stronger in opaque orthographies (e.g., English, French; r=0.39) than in transparent (e.g., Greek, German; r=0.31) and intermediate orthographies (e.g., Dutch, Portuguese; r=0.31).

Regarding the RAN-reading relation, significant moderators included:

• RAN correlated with letters and digits (r=0.46) more strongly than objects (r=0.36) and colors (r=0.35).
• RAN associated stronger with the reading fluency tasks (r=0.46) than the reading accuracy tasks (r=0.38).

As RAN correlated significantly with spelling and reading, and the effect size of RAN-spelling was similar to RAN-reading accuracy, the authors speculated that both RAN and spelling/reading relations have something in common with an individual’s ability to form print-to-sound or sound-to-print connections.

Source: Chen, Y.-J. I., Thompson, C. G., Xu, Z., Irey, R. C., & Georgiou, G. K. (2021). Rapid automatized naming and spelling performance in alphabetic languages: A meta-analysis. Reading and Writing, 34(10), 2559–2580. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-021-10160-7… Read the rest

A recent randomized controlled trial (RCT) by Wolbers and colleagues evaluated the effect of Strategic and Interactive Writing Instruction (SIWI) on writing outcomes for children who are deaf or hard of hearing. SIWI, developed specifically for deaf learners, explicitly teaches the writing process, provides interactive and co-constructed writing opportunities, and helps learners develop metalinguistic and linguistic skills.

The RCT included students in grades 3 through 5 randomly assigned to the treatment (n=43) or business as usual control condition (n=36). Participants were students from different educational environments across the country, including self-contained or pullout classes in public schools or schools for the deaf. Teachers in the treatment condition administered the writing intervention 2 hours per week for nine weeks. The study found that the treatment students outperformed the control students on writing to recount (ES=+3.32) and writing information (ES=+1.12). Additionally, treatment students were assessed nine weeks after the intervention period had concluded and demonstrated they maintained the gains in writing to recount (ES=+3.12) and writing information (ES=+0.62). Findings from the study suggest SIWI may be an appropriate instructional model to improve short- and long-term writing outcomes of children who are deaf or hard of hearing.

Source: Wolbers, K., Dostal, H., Graham, S., Branum-Martin, L., & Holcomb, L. (2022). Specialized writing instruction for deaf students: A randomized controlled trial. Exceptional Children, 88(2), 185–204. https://doi.org/10.1177/00144029211050849… Read the rest