An independent evaluation in the UK of Stop and Think: Learning Counterintuitive Concepts has found evidence of a positive impact in math and science outcomes for students in Key Stage 2 .

The Learning Counterintuitive Concepts project, funded by the Education Endowment Foundation and Wellcome, aimed to improve science and math achievement for Year 3 (7-8 year olds) and Year 5 (9-10 year olds) using an intervention called Stop and Think. When learning new concepts in science and math, students must be able to inhibit prior contradictory knowledge and misconceptions to acquire new knowledge successfully. Stop and Think is a computer-assisted learning activity that aims to improve a learner’s ability to adapt to counterintuitive concepts by training them to inhibit their initial response, and instead, give a slower and more reflective answer.

The randomized controlled trial involved 6,672 children from 89 schools across England. The intervention was delivered to the whole class and consisted of 30 sessions delivered for a maximum of 15 minutes, three times a week, for 10 weeks at the start of math or science lessons.

The results suggest that

• Students who participated in Stop and Think made more progress in science and math on average, compared to children in the business-as-usual control group. 
• The combined effect size across the two year groups for math was +0.09 and +0.12 for science.

To check whether this impact was due to the Stop and Think game specifically, or was a result of the extra students engagement and motivation arising from having a fun computer-based activity at the start of lessons more generally, schools were offered an alternative computer-based program that did not include any content from Stop and Think. Intervention-group students also made more progress than students in this “active” control group. The combined effect sizes for math and science were +0.13 and +0.15 respectively.

Source (Open Access): Roy,P., Rutt, S., Easton,C., Sims,D., Bradshaw, S., & McNamara, S. (2019). Stop and Think: Learning counterintuitive concepts – Evaluation report. London, UK: The Education Endowment Foundation.… Read the rest

Math achievement has been thought to be interrelated with self-concept, interest and effort. In a recent longitudinal study published in Contemporary Educational Psychology, researchers examined how they influence each other over time using a sample of Grade 8 students in China. 

702 students in Grade 8 from 14 classes in two public schools in East and South China completed an assessment of their math achievement, homework self-concept, interest, and effort at six weeks after the start of the school year and at the end of the school year. The analysis showed that: 

• Reciprocal effects were found between math self-concept and achievement, effort and achievement, as well as interest and effort. 
• In particular, the authors found that higher homework interest led to a higher subsequent effort, and higher prior effort could promote higher homework interest. 
• Moreover, self-concept had no significant effect on subsequent interest, but prior interest led to higher self-concept, possibly reflecting the positive homework attitude among Chinese students. 

The authors suggested that the reciprocal effects indicated that simultaneously improving homework self-concept, interest, effort, and math achievement is a more effective approach. Specifically, attention should be paid to how homework interest and effort can be promoted more effectively.

Source: Xu, J. (2018). Reciprocal effects of homework self-concept, interest, effort, and math achievement. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 55, 42-52.… Read the rest

A study published in School Psychology investigates the importance of screening children for their readiness for kindergarten, and how effective this is at predicting outcomes in first grade.

Nineteen kindergarten teachers and 350 children from six schools in Missouri took part in the study. Teachers completed a kindergarten academic and behavior readiness screener at the beginning of the academic year. Melissa Stormont and colleagues then compared student scores from the screening tool to their performance on a math and reading achievement test, and to teacher ratings of their social and emotional skills 18 months later. The results showed that

• Children with poor academic readiness were more than 9 to 10 times more likely to have low reading scores at the end of their first grade year.
• Similarly, children who rated poor in behavior readiness were six times more likely to be rated as having displayed disruptive behavior and poor social skills by their first grade teachers.

The authors suggest that the screening tool could be used to screen for children low in readiness in order to provide supports and monitoring for early intervention.

Source : Stormont, M., Cohen, D. R., Herman, K. C., & Reinke, W. M. (2019). Teacher-rated school readiness items in a kindergarten sample: Outcomes in first grade. School Psychology, 34(6), 612–621.  … Read the rest

Social Programs That Work has released a new evidence summary on Learning Accounts, a demonstration program in New Brunswick, Canada that provided up to approximately $8,400 in conditional financial aid for post-secondary education to low-income 10th grade students. The students had to meet certain benchmarks (i.e., completion of 10th, 11th, and 12th grade) to receive the funding.

The program was evaluated through a randomized controlled trial with a sample of 1,145 low-income 10th graders in 30 high schools in New Brunswick, Canada. Within each school, the low-income students were randomly assigned to a group that was offered participation in the Learning Accounts program, or to a control group that received usual school services. Survey data was used to measure high school graduation rates, and administrative data was used to examine later graduation from college.

According to the evidence report, over the 10 years following random assignment, the program produced a 6.5 percentage point increase in the high school graduation rate, and 6.8 percentage point increase in the rate of postsecondary completion.

The Laura and John Arnold Foundation have featured this evidence brief on their Straight Talk on Evidence site.

Source (Open Access): Social Programs That Work (2019). Evidence summary for Learning Accounts. Retrieved from: https://evidencebasedprograms.org/document/learning-accounts-evidence-summary/

 … Read the rest

Teachers’ expectations are believed to affect students, but teacher expectation intervention studies that compare an intervention group to a control group are rare. A recent study published in Learning and Individual Differences investigated the effects of an intervention in China that enhanced teachers’ behaviour of conveying high expectations to students.

The study randomly selected two schools in the urban area of a city in south China. Four Grade 8 English teachers in each school were randomly chosen and evenly allocated to either the intervention or control group. While the control group teachers did not receive training, the intervention group teachers were provided with training workshops focusing on three strands of high expectation behaviour, namely, giving students challenging tasks, providing affirmation or suggestions to students about their performance, and enhancing how teachers impart personal regard to students. 

Teachers were asked to estimate the final exam score they believed each student would achieve for the study to categorize students into high-, middle- and low-expectation groups. Then, the study selected 30 students from each class, consisting of 10 each of high, middle, and low expectation students, to participate in the study. Among the 240 students selected, 229 students provided complete data for analysis. Students’ self-concepts regarding English and the English test achievement of 113 students from the intervention group and 116 students from the control group were gathered at the end of Grade 7, the middle of Grade 8, and at the end of Grade 8. 

The result showed that: 

• While the self-concept of students from the control group significantly declined from the end of grade 7 to the end of grade 8, the self-concept of mid- and low-expectation students from the intervention group significantly increased over the year.
• Students from the intervention group also increased in English achievement, while no significant changes were found among students in the control group.
• Low expectation students exhibited most gains in both self-concept and achievement. 

The authors concluded that teachers giving challenging tasks, detailed feedback, and enhanced personal regard to students has a positive impact on improving students’ self-belief and academic achievement. 

Source: Ding, H., & Rubie-Davies, C. M. (2019). Teacher expectation intervention: Is it effective for all students?. Learning and Individual Differences, Advanced online publication. doi: 10.1016/j.lindif.2019.06.005… Read the rest