Cabezas and colleagues recently concluded eight years of data collection from a randomized controlled trial designed to explore the short-term and medium-term effects of a tutoring intervention in Chile.  The program was administered by the Minister of Education and was directed toward fourth grade students from low socioeconomic backgrounds attending low-performing schools.  Students in the treatment group received 15 weekly 90-minute tutoring sessions with a focus on shared reading.  The program demonstrated small to moderate short-term effects that are similar or slightly smaller than previous research on tutoring programs. 

• Overall reading and literature test scores showed a small effect (ES = + 0.06).
• Reading comprehension scores showed positive effect (ES = + 0.11).
• But use of language, texts production, and attitude towards reading did not show significant effects.

The medium-term effects, which extend through the end of high school, are the focus of the study. 

• The treatment shows a beneficial effect on dropping out prior to the end of high school (ES = – 0.02) and a positive effect on completing high school on time (ES = + 0.03).
• Positive effects are noted on attendance in both primary school (ES = + 0.81) and secondary school (ES = + 1.14), as is a positive effect on primary school grades (ES = + 0.09).
• While the full sample did not show effects on 8th grade, there was a positive significant effect observed for students at a high risk of dropping out (ES = + 0.08 for language; ES = + 0.17 for math).
• There was also a positive significant effect noted on 10th grade math scores for the full sample (ES = + 0.09).

The authors conclude with an attempt to understand the mechanism responsible for the observed improvements. They suggest that short-term effects result from both the academic content of the tutoring and the human connection made during tutoring sessions, but that medium-term effects are primarily driven by the human connection rather than academic content.  The effects observed in this study provide evidence that tutoring may not only help to improve short-term improvements in student understanding, but also help students from disadvantaged backgrounds improve in a range of longer-term outcomes.

Source (Open Access): Cabezas, V., Cuesta, J. I., & Gallego, F. (2021). Does short-term school tutoring have medium-term effects? Experimental evidence from Chile. Retrieved from https://economia.uc.cl/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/dt-565.pdf.… Read the rest

A recent meta-analysis conducted by Bureau and colleagues seek to identify the strongest predictor of self-determined motivation in students by analyzing 144 studies consisting of a total of 79,079 participants (from primary school to university). The study situates itself within self-determination theory (SDT) which understands motivation on a continuum scale of level of self-determination, the highest level is intrinsic motivation, followed by extrinsic motivation. Amotivation is the third form of motivation considered non-self-determined. Extrinsic motivation is broken into three types: (a) identified regulation, a motivation to engage in activities that are personally meaningful, (b) introjected regulation, a motivation to engage in activities to assert pride or avoid shame, and (c) external regulation, a motivation to engage in activities to achieve a reward or avoid punishment.

Besides five types of motivation, SDT also posits three psychological needs’ satisfaction which may foster of motivation:

• autonomy (student perception of learning freely and voluntarily)
• competence (student belief in the impact of their actions on their learning experience)
• relatedness (student feeling of connection to the school and others)

The correlations of all three psychological needs demonstrated the same pattern:

• a negative correlation with amotivation (ρ = -0.38 to -0.30)
• little or no correlation with external regulation (ρ = -0.04 to +0.01)
• positive correlations with introjected regulation (ρ = +0.21 to +0.23), identified regulation (ρ = +0.44 to +0.48), and intrinsic motivation (ρ = +0.44 to +0.58)

The authors also established the relative weight on the contribution of autonomy, competence, and relatedness to each type of student motivation.

• Competence contributed the greatest weight to identified regulation, intrinsic motivation, and amotivation (44%, 42%, and 47%, respectively), followed by autonomy (30%, 39%, 30%, respectively), and relatedness the least (26%, 18%, 23%, respectively).

The authors interpret these results as showing that competence is the driving factor in student motivation followed by autonomy, while relatedness only displays a minimal role.

Another goal of this study is to identify the importance of teachers and parents in promoting self-determined motivation in students. Meta-analytic structural equation model was applied to test whether teacher and parental support promoted three student psychological needs satisfaction, and in turn, satisfaction of needs fostered each of five types of motivation. The data suggests teachers play a more important role in developing student motivation than parents do.

While this study’s reliance on correlational data limits the ability to assert causality, it effectively lays the groundwork for future studies to establish causal links.

Source: Bureau, J. S., Howard, J. L., Chong, J. X. Y., & Guay, F. (2021). Pathways to student motivation: A meta-analysis of antecedents of autonomous and controlled motivations. Review of Educational Research, 00346543211042426. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543211042426… Read the rest

The Journal of Computer Assisted Learning has recently published a meta-analysis to evaluate the effectiveness of digital games for the enhancement of K-12 student motivation in mathematics. To be included in the review, studies had to use randomized or quasi-experimental designs and evaluated interventions involving the use of digital games in mathematics in school contexts. A total of 20 studies were included in the review. Of them 10 studies took place in the United States and 5 in European countries. The studies used different measures of student motivation, most of them were based on the expectancy-value theory. This theory postulates that student behavior is determined by expectancy – students are more likely to achieve an outcome when they believe in their success – and value – how much students value the outcome to be achieved. Results of analysis were showed below.

• Overall, a significant positive effect of digital games on student motivation in mathematics (ES = +0.27).
• The effect of digital games decreases as the number of weeks of intervention increases.
• Furthermore, effect size was larger when motivation was measured in terms of expectancy (ES= +0.31) than in terms of value (ES = +0.21).

The authors concluded that there was an insufficient number of studies to reach strong conclusions about the moderating effect of different factors (e.g., gender), consequently the great variability between the studies was not adequately explained by the moderators analyzed in the meta-analysis.

Source (Open Access): Fadda, D., Pellegrini, M., Vivanet, G., & Zandonella Callegher, C. (2021). Effects of digital games on student motivation in mathematics: A meta-analysis in K-12. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcal.12618… Read the rest

A recent meta-analysis was published that investigated the association between phonological processing skills and mathematics in children. A total of 94 studies (135 unique samples, 826 effect sizes) was examined in the study. To be included for analysis, studies had to focus on participants in kindergarten or primary school. Effect sizes, Pearson’s correlation, were collected between the phonological processing measures and the mathematics outcomes, as well as children’s characteristics (e.g., age, grade). Phonological processing refers to the use of the sound structure of language to manage written and oral information and consists of three components, namely, phonological awareness (PA), rapid automatized naming (RAN), and phonological memory (PM). Phonological awareness refers to awareness of the sound structure of language. RAN signifies the rate of access to phonological information in long-term memory, and it is usually measured by how fast an individual can name symbol stimuli (e.g., colors, letters, digits). In contrast, PM comprises short-term phonological storage and a rehearsal process that maintains decaying information. It is usually accessed by the number of stimuli to be recalled within a string of words, letters, or digits. Results of the meta-analysis are shown below.

• In general, the relation between phonological processing and mathematics (ρ = +0.33) was significant.
• For subgroups, significant relations were also found among kindergarteners (K1-K3, ρ =+0.36), junior primary school children (G1-G3, ρ =+0.32), and senior primary school students (G4-G6, ρ =+0.29).
• PA (ρ = +0.38) and RAN (ρ = +0.35) showed stronger correlation with mathematics skills than PM (ρ =+0.28) did.
• Mean age was a significant moderator: younger children demonstrated a stronger relation between phonological processing skills and mathematics.
• Moreover, the association of RAN with mathematics was significantly stronger among kindergarteners (K1-K3) than senior primary school students (G4-G6).
• PA and PM showed a stronger association with mathematics accuracy than with mathematics fluency, whereas RAN was more strongly related to mathematics fluency than to mathematics accuracy.

After controlling for vocabulary knowledge, executive functioning, and nonverbal intelligence, results of meta-structural equation modelling analysis showed the unique contribution of phonological processing to various mathematics skills: number knowledge (r = +0.50), calculation (r = +0.35), mathematic accuracy (r = +0.20), mathematics fluency (r = +0.54).

The findings suggest that early PA and RAN abilities may be a good indicator of mathematics performance. Early training in recognition and manipulation of speech sounds as well as phonological access to symbols may facilitate early mathematics learning.

Source: Yang, X., Yan, M., Ruan, Y., Ku, S. Y. Y., Lo, J. C. M., Peng, P., & McBride, C. (2021). Relations among phonological processing skills and mathematics in children: A meta-analysis. Journal of Educational Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000710… Read the rest

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A recent analysis of a cluster-randomized trial of a pre-K math intervention by McCormick and colleagues provides insight on the differences between public school pre-K instruction compared to pre-K in community-based organizations. The study investigates the differences in instruction between public school settings and community-based organizations as well as the effects of a math intervention called Making Pre-K Count (MPC), which includes the implementation of a 2-year math curriculum along with training and coaching for teachers. The study was conducted in New York City and consisted of 35 sites (24 public schools and 11 community-based organizations) assigned to the treatment and 34 sites (23 public schools and 11 community-based organizations) assigned to the control group.  In total, there 1389 students from 173 classrooms enrolled in the study.

The differences between two settings:

• Lead teachers in public school settings are significantly more likely to have a master’s degree (96.6% of lead teachers) than lead teachers in community-based organizations (57.8% of lead teachers).
• Public school settings did offer significantly more daily math instruction, with the mean difference of 11.96 minutes daily.

The positive effects of the MPC were more noticeable in public school settings.

• Public school settings observed a positive impact on the followings:
  • the number of teacher-lead and informal math activities (ES = +0.69),
  • the minutes of teacher-lead and informal math activities (ES = +0.43),
  • the percentage of classrooms with moderate to high math activity quality scores (ES = +0.45)
• The only statistically significant effect for classrooms in community-based organizations was for the number of minutes of math per child (ES = +0.77).

The authors note that the impacts on pre-K settings in community-based organizations were often similar to those of public-school settings, but the smaller number of community-based sites may have limited the power of this sample and prevented the detection of statistically significant findings.

These findings reveal differences between public school pre-K classrooms and community-based organization pre-K classrooms, which is important because community-based organizations often serve students from lower SES households.  The MPC resulted in more significant effects observed in public school settings but appeared to benefit both types of classrooms.

Source: McCormick, M. P., Mattera, S. K., Maier, M. F., Xia, S., Jacob, R., & Morris, P. A. (2022). Different settings, different patterns of impacts: Effects of a Pre-K math intervention in a mixed-delivery system. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 58, 136–154. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2021.08.005… Read the rest