Tag: RCT

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Educational Administration and Leadership K-12 Education

Assumed competence while overlooking unseen information in decision-making

People interpret the same information in various ways, often believing their own views are objectively true while dismissing opposing perspectives as ignorant or biased. This can have serious implications for decisionmakers in education and other fields. A recent study examined how people assume they have enough information to make decisions, even when they are missing key details. For example, a driver may impatiently honk at a car waiting at a stop sign, only to discover an unseen mother pushing her stroller across the street. This reveals how mistaken assumptions about having complete information can lead to misunderstandings.

To investigate the “unknown unknowns” in decision-making, (i.e., we don’t know what we don’t know), Gehlbach and colleagues conducted a study of decision-making. Participants (n=1261) read an article about a school threatened by a drying aquifer, faced with the decision to either merge with another school or remain independent. They were randomly assigned to three groups based on the information presented in the article: pro-merge, pro-separate, and a control that received balanced arguments for both options. Subjects were mostly male (59%) and White (71%), with a mean age of 39.8 years and a median education level of three years of college.

Results showed that compared to the control group, the two treatment groups assumed that they had adequate information and were capable of making informed decisions. Their decisions were heavily influenced by the subset of information they received. They also believed that most other people would arrive at similar decisions. This study suggests that in a world of unreliable information, recognizing what information may be missing and approaching decisions with humility and curiosity can help us better understand others’ perspectives before passing judgment.

 

Source (Open Access): Gehlbach, H., Robinson, C. D., & Fletcher, A. (2024). The illusion of information adequacy. PLOS ONE, 19(10), e0310216. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0310216… Read the rest

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Achievement Educational Administration and Leadership Primary School Education Programme Evaluation

School gardens and nutrition education in limited-income Alabama

As funding cuts loom over the education system, from the federal level down to local classrooms, it is useful to remember the impact education and schools can have on all aspects of students’ lives. In addition to math and reading, schools have the capacity to change students’ health behaviors and their nutrition practices. A recent study in Alabama, conducted by Sofia Sanchez and colleagues, examined the impact of school gardens and nutrition education on students’ fruit and vegetable consumption. Other studies have highlighted the positive benefits that healthy diets have on academic achievement and social and emotional well-being. However, as Sanchez and her team noted, disparities in diet and nutrition knowledge persist along race and economic lines in Alabama and beyond.

In their study, the researchers conducted a randomized trial of over 4,000 third-grade students from 99 Alabama schools, some with on-site school gardens and others without. After surveying students on their nutrition, treatment students participated in the Body Quest school-based health promotion curriculum, which focused on healthy foods, beverages, and physical activity. Researchers were particularly interested in whether the presence of gardens and BQ provided an additive impact.

Before the intervention, students at schools with gardens already reported higher fruit and vegetable consumption. Using multi-level modeling, the researchers found that BQ nutrition education increased third grade students’ fruit and vegetable intake. Surprisingly, students who participated in BQ but did not have access to a school garden demonstrated the greatest vegetable consumption increases. While not feasible for all schools to maintain gardens, the study suggests that both school and community gardens, along with nutrition education alone, can positively influence student dietary practices.

 

Source (Open Access): Sanchez, S. O., Funderburk, K., Reznicek, E., Parmer, S. M., & Hinnant, J. B. (2025). Impact of school gardens on nutrition education among limited-income communities in Alabama. Journal of School Health, 95(2), 153–161. https://doi.org/10.1111/josh.13513… Read the rest

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Educational Administration and Leadership Primary School Education Programme Evaluation

Can online education be enhanced through increased teacher-student online interaction?

During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, many K-12 students in China relied on online video courses for education. Prior studies suggest that taking pure online courses can negatively impact academic achievement.  To address this, Wang and colleagues conducted a randomized controlled experiment to investigate whether enhancing teacher-student interaction could mitigate these effects for primary students.

The study involved 3,037 grade 3-5 students from 72 classes in 5 schools which were randomly selected in a rural county in South-Central China. One class per grade in each school was randomly assigned to the treatment classes, while the remaining served as the control groups. During the spring semester of 2020, the 15 teachers of the treatment classes delivered a 30-minute interactive online recitation session weekly after the regular online classes for 16 weeks. In these sessions, teachers answered student questions, called on students to answer questions about the taught material, and communicated with them regarding their mental state. Control group students were directed to self-study at home during the same period.

After controlling for baseline scores and background characteristics, the results revealed:

  • The treatment group students had significantly higher exam scores than the control group (ES = +0.185).
  • Low-ability students achieved greater improvement compared to high-ability students.
  • Students in the treatment group reported greater improvements in extraversion (ES=+0.13), openness (ES=+0.09), and conscientiousness (ES=+0.16), compared to the control group.

The authors suggested that the online tutorial sessions may have enhanced academic performance through improving in-class attention and increasing study hours after school. They also speculated that the intervention strengthened personality traits by increasing parental engagement hours with their children. However, these proposed mechanisms require more rigorous examination.

 

Source: Wang, C., Wang, Y., Xiao, A., Zhang, Y., & Zou, H. (2025). Student development in teacher–student interaction: Evidence from a randomized experiment in online education. Journal of Public Economics, 242, 105285. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2024.105285… Read the rest

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Achievement Educational Administration and Leadership Primary School Education

E-reader libraries as intervention: Positive outcomes for low-income students

As reading achievement gaps persist among students of different socioeconomic backgrounds, a research team from the University of Potsdam suggests that children’s home literacy environments are prime for intervention. Targeting 11 to 12 year-old students from low-income households across Germany (n=1,000), Anger and colleagues conducted a randomized controlled trial that put e-readers directly into students’ hands. The electronic reading tablets were preloaded with a vast, age-appropriate digital library where students could self-select books and were configured to prevent non-study related use. To replicate the literacy support that students from higher socioeconomic backgrounds may receive at home, the team also partnered with a non-profit to conduct a postcard campaign, recommending books and reading materials to treatment group households.

Findings indicated that access to free and self-selected reading materials paired with reading recommendations was associated with an increase in overall reading engagement and improved socio-emotional and academic outcomes (reading behavior, ES = +0.39; socio-emotional well-being, ES = +0.15; academic achievement, ES = +0.15). The researchers also performed a cost-benefit analysis that placed this intervention favorably compared to other educational interventions, demonstrating its scalability. These results underscore the importance of supporting families in creating home literacy environments that could not only close reading achievement gaps but positively impact children’s long-term outcomes.

 

Source (Open Access): Anger, S., Christoph, B., Galkiewicz, A., Margaryan, S., Peter, F., Sandner, M., & Siedler, T. (2024). A Library in the Palm of Your Hand? A Randomized Reading Intervention with Low-Income Children. IZA Discussion Paper No. 17322, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4970159 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4970159… Read the rest

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Achievement Maths and Science Learning Primary School Education

The effects of CGI professional development on student achievement in grades 3-5

A cluster-randomized trial examined the Year 1 effects of a three-year professional development program for math teachers, the Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI) 3-5 Program, on third through fifth graders’ achievement in fractions learning.

The study involved 149 teachers in grades 3-5 from 31 schools in 9 districts in Florida who were assigned randomly to the CGI condition or to a wait-list control group. Teachers in the CGI group participated in workshops on number operations, and algebraic thinking, with a focus on fractions. These workshops took place over 5 days in the summer, 2 in the fall, and 2 in the winter. The training focused on math problem types and student strategies and included teacher-student interactions where teachers applied what they learned, with later reflection and sharing with colleagues. Teachers in the control group continued with business-as-usual instruction.

Students were pre- and posttested using the Elementary Mathematics Student Assessment. Results showed that students of teachers in the CGI program outperformed the control group at post-test (ES=+0.19), which authors cited as a medium effect size equivalent to 1/5 of a school year in grade 3, and 1/3 of a school year in grades 4 and 5. A cost analysis, using Kraft’s schema to relate effect size to program cost, yielded a low per-student cost of $137.25. While CGI 3-5 is designed to be a 3-year program, this study provides important evidence of its one-year effects.

 

Source: Schoen, R. C., LaVenia, M., Tazaz, A. M., Gersten, R., & Smolkowski, K. (2024). Effects of a mathematics teacher professional development program on grades 3–5 student achievement: A multisite cluster-randomized trial. The Elementary School Journal, 125(2), 322–346. https://doi.org/10.1086/732783… Read the rest

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Kindergarten Language Development Programme Evaluation

Supporting early reading skills via parent shared reading with a focus on sounds

Reading is fundamental to children’s success in school, but how do we support its growth in the early childhood years (from ages 0-5) and specifically, how do we support parents in helping their children develop these early literacy skills? Schaughency and her colleagues investigated this question in an article in Reading Research Quarterly, analyzing results from an RCT of 69 parents and their 3.5-4.5 year old children in New Zealand. Parents were randomly assigned to one of three groups for 6 weeks: 1) shared reading of books focused on sound and phonological awareness (“Strengthening Sound Sensitivity”; SSS); 2) shared reading focused on comprehension (Rich Reading and Reminiscing; RRR); or 3) the control group with recommendations for non-reading activities.

Follow-up impacts assessed after one year showed that the SSS condition (focused on sounds rather than comprehension) had significant positive impacts on children’s letter sounds (d = 0.74), decoding pseudowords (d = 0.85) and word reading (d = 0.66), book level (d = 0.82), and teachers’ judgments of students’ reading readiness (d = 0.60), but not phonemic awareness. The impact also varied by children’s age – while all children benefited from sound-focused reading, those aged 65 months (the average age) or older benefited even more. This evidence does come from a small sample, although families were recruited from eight different early childhood centers and involved a short intervention (only 6 weeks), but the long-term follow-up for impacts strengthens the findings.

 

Source: Schaughency, E., Linney, K., Carroll, J., Das, S., Riordan, J., & Reese, E. (2023). Tender shoots: A parent-mediated randomized controlled trial with preschool children benefits beginning reading 1 year later. Reading Research Quarterly, 58(3), 450–470. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.500… Read the rest