Newsletter - March 2017
"Telepresence Robots for Virtual Academic Inclusion and Improved Well-Being, Health, and Social Outcomes for Homebound Pediatric Patients"
PhD Candidate Veronica Newhart and Professor Mark Warschauer have been awarded a one-year Institute for Clinical and Translational Science Biomedical and Health Informatics Grant. ICTS grants are designed to encourage early exploration of high-risk translational research ideas focused on emerging areas of basic and applied science with clear relevance to clinical applications. Specifically, the grants support exceptionally innovative and/or unconventional research projects that have the potential to create or overturn fundamental paradigms.
Grant: Telepresence Robots for Virtual Academic Inclusion and Improved Well-Being, Health, and Social Outcomes for Homebound Pediatric Patients
Funder: Institute for Clinical Translational Science Pilot: Biomedical and Health Informatics Grant
PI: Mark Warschauer
Co-PIs: Judith Olson (Informatics) & Veronica Newhart (Education)
Duration: One Year
Abstract
Due to increased survival rates, and reclassification of illnesses once considered fatal, there is a growing population of children who are homebound due to chronic illnesses. This project aims to address the lag between the scientific discoveries that have led to increased survival and needed changes in the treatments and practices afforded to these children for quality of life. Recent technological innovations, such as telepresence robots, may allow for partnerships between the technology, healthcare, and education fields to improve well-being, health, and social outcomes for homebound pediatric patients. These robots allow for real-time, two-way communication and have features that allow for integration of homebound pediatric patients in existing school settings and peer social structures. The goal of robot use is for the patient to engage in social and academic experiences in such a way that they contribute to healthy social emotional development. These social experiences may also contribute to increased adherence to prescribed medial regimens resulting in improved well-being and health outcomes for this population. This project will provide an interdisciplinary partnership between schools of Education, Informatics, and Pediatrics that will provide formal, objective research studies in order to provide recommendations for use of the robots as supported by the education, technology, and health care research literatures.
PhD Candidate Veronica Newhart and Professor Mark Warschauer have been awarded a one-year Institute for Clinical and Translational Science Biomedical and Health Informatics Grant. ICTS grants are designed to encourage early exploration of high-risk translational research ideas focused on emerging areas of basic and applied science with clear relevance to clinical applications. Specifically, the grants support exceptionally innovative and/or unconventional research projects that have the potential to create or overturn fundamental paradigms.
Grant: Telepresence Robots for Virtual Academic Inclusion and Improved Well-Being, Health, and Social Outcomes for Homebound Pediatric Patients
Funder: Institute for Clinical Translational Science Pilot: Biomedical and Health Informatics Grant
PI: Mark Warschauer
Co-PIs: Judith Olson (Informatics) & Veronica Newhart (Education)
Duration: One Year
Abstract
Due to increased survival rates, and reclassification of illnesses once considered fatal, there is a growing population of children who are homebound due to chronic illnesses. This project aims to address the lag between the scientific discoveries that have led to increased survival and needed changes in the treatments and practices afforded to these children for quality of life. Recent technological innovations, such as telepresence robots, may allow for partnerships between the technology, healthcare, and education fields to improve well-being, health, and social outcomes for homebound pediatric patients. These robots allow for real-time, two-way communication and have features that allow for integration of homebound pediatric patients in existing school settings and peer social structures. The goal of robot use is for the patient to engage in social and academic experiences in such a way that they contribute to healthy social emotional development. These social experiences may also contribute to increased adherence to prescribed medial regimens resulting in improved well-being and health outcomes for this population. This project will provide an interdisciplinary partnership between schools of Education, Informatics, and Pediatrics that will provide formal, objective research studies in order to provide recommendations for use of the robots as supported by the education, technology, and health care research literatures.
SoE Faculty and Students Present at 2017 SREE
SoE faculty and students presented at the Society for Research in Educational Effectiveness (SREE) Spring 2017 Conference, held in Washington, DC from March 1-4, 2017. SREE “endeavors to advance research relevant to practice, from early childhood through the transition to higher and continuing education. The Society strives to generate knowledge and facilitate applications in new contexts and across fields. SREE organizes conferences and professional development courses that bring together diverse audiences.”
The 2017 conference theme was “Expanding the Toolkit: Maximizing Relevance, Effectiveness and Rigor in Education Research.”
SoE Presentations (presented alphabetically by title)
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Assessing the Correspondence between Student-Level Fidelity Data and Observational Measures of Classroom Instructional Content"
Authors: Joshua Lawrence, Alex Lin, & Catherine Snow
Description
A previous analysis of notebooks collected from students participating in a randomized trial of the Word Generation program suggested that implementation was inconsistent across time and across content areas (WG is implemented in middle school classroom by math, science, social studies and English teachers). However, data collected from classroom observations seemed to suggest robust implementation. The current paper examines the data from these two sources to answer the following questions:
Three large urban districts participated in this evaluation study. Only data contributed by teachers and students in the treatment schools were used in this analysis.
Our findings suggest that observations may be poor measures of fidelity, especially for programs, like Word Generation, that emphasize consistent weekly use. We suspect that classroom observers influenced practice, leaving notebook data as a better indicator. The notebook data tell us that most schools did not implement the program consistently whereas those that did saw impressive improvements. Completing 60% rather than 30% of the writing produces a 1.4-point improvement (.4 SD difference) in school level vocabulary posttest scores.
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Beyond the Average Treatment Effect: Differential Effects of an Intervention on Growth Trajectories of Literacy Skills as a Function of Student Characteristics"
Authors: Young-Suk Kim & Benjamin Piper
Description
The primary goal of this study is to examine whether the effect of a comprehensive literacy intervention varies longitudinally as a function of student characteristics such as gender, socio-economic backgrounds (SES), exposure to early childhood education, and maternal literacy. Of particular interest was the relations of these student characteristics to variations in the growth rates in literacy skills. The children in the sample were drawn from three of Kenya’s counties as well as low cost private schools in Nairobi’s so called informal settlements. A total of 628 children (312 girls; 357 in treatment condition) participated in a comprehensive literacy and numeracy intervention in Grades 1 and 2. Clusters of schools were randomly selected and then randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. At the school level, simple random sampling was employed so that the children selected were representative of the entire Grade 1 population not simply one class at the school. Children’s literacy skills were assessed at three time points: before, middle and end of the intervention, which corresponded to the beginning of Grade 1, end of Grade 1, and end of Grade 2. Different patterns were found for students in treatment versus control conditions. For students in the treatment condition, SES and early childhood education were consistently and positively related to growth rates in the literacy skills. For students in the control condition, none of the student characteristics were related to individual differences in growth rates in literacy skills. The present results indicate that the effect of a comprehensive literacy intervention for primary grade children in Kenya was not uniformly distributed across students. Instead, certain students benefitted more than others – those from higher SES and those who received early childhood education learned more from systematic and explicit literacy instruction, after accounting for gender and maternal literacy. On the contrary, for students who were not exposed to systematic and explicit instruction in literacy, students’ background characteristics did not predict growth rates.
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Competencies That Research Suggests Are Related to College Success"
Author: Greg Duncan
Description
This presentation first summarizes the committee’s approach to reviewing the literatures of personality, developmental and social psychology and higher education to identify competencies that are empirically related to college success. Secondly, based on the identified competencies and drawing on the lenses of social and developmental psychology, the presentation shares a developmental framework describing how the competencies may shape students’ successful progression through college. While acknowledging the wide differences in situational contexts and individual characteristics that influence college success, the framework lays out challenges and core questions about self that college students are likely to face in common and in roughly the same order over the course of their college careers. Research underlying each of the competencies also is summarized.
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Evolution of the Pathway Project Intervention and Defining Key Components for Replication"
Author: Carol Booth Olson
Description
This presentation will trace the evolution of the Pathway Project intervention from 1996 to the present and consider how the research results demonstrating the efficacy of the project have impacted the design decisions of how to develop, improve upon, deliver, and disseminate the professional development over time.
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Meta-Analysis of Random Assignment Studies of Interventions Targeting the Identified Competencies"
Author: Sabrina Solanki
Description
The current meta-analysis investigated the extent to which motivational interventions improve academic performance for college students. We identified 32 published studies that used random assignment, manipulated an intrapersonal competency as identified by the National Research Council, and measured an academic performance outcome. Overall, interventions were significantly effective with an average effect size of g = 0.42 (95% confidence interval = [0.30 to .54]). Effects sizes varied in terms of competency, outcome, and target population (URM versus non-URM) but were uniformly positive. Preliminary regression results suggest that the differences in effect sizes were only significant for target population, but not for other moderators such as interpersonal competency.
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Middle School Language Classification Effects on High School Achievement and Behavioral Outcomes"
Authors: Marcela Reyes & NaYoung Hwang
Description
English Language Learners (ELLs) are students who speak another language at home and who have not yet reached full English proficiency are among the lowest performers on a broad range of educational outcomes even when they are compared with Reclassified Fluent English Proficient (RFEP), former ELL students. RFEP students outperforming ELL students on every measure examined can suggest that the criteria used to determine when an ELL student no longer needs support to learn English separates those who are stronger academic performers from those who are less able. Alternatively, ELL students are more likely to be placed in less rigorous courses separate from RFEP peers, which might lead students to disengage and underperform. At the same time, not all RFEPs are equal: those who are reclassified in earlier grades are more likely to progress on time, have higher test scores, and have other positive outcomes in their final years of high school.
I compare current ELL students with students who had only been recently reclassified in middle school, either in seventh or eighth grade.
OLS estimates coincide with previous studies, demonstrating that students who become RFEP in middle school have higher California Standards Test (CST) in English Language Arts, and California High School Exit Examination (CAHSEE) ELA and math scores. Additionally, RFEP students are more likely to be placed in more advanced math courses in high school than the ELL students. Furthermore, RFEP students are less likely to be absent and have less on-campus suspensions than ELL students. However, the regression discontinuity models show, in most instances, academic and behavioral differences between ELL and students who RFEP in middle school are spurious and not due to language classification itself. Only in a few instances do differences exist, and RFEP students are less likely to pass the CHASEE ELA portion and more likely to be suspended on-campus compared with ELL students.
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Kindergarten Language Status and Achievement Growth among Hispanics"
Author: Summer Wang
Description
This study uses multilevel growth model to explore whether the learning trajectory (K-2nd grade) among Hispanic children differ across initial language status, and to what extent such differentials in learning growth might be attributable to family and schools. Preliminary results suggest that compared to monolingual-EP Hispanic children, bilingual-EP Hispanic students have statistically comparable growth rate in reading, but bilingual-LEP students have a learning growth that is around 0.002 SD lower per month. School environment, instead of family background, explains such a differential growth rate. Controlling for family background, bilingual-EP Hispanic children showed around 0.002 SD higher in math growth rate than their native English speaking peers. In science, bilingual-EP children displayed a learning rate (0.006 SD) higher than that of their native English speaking counterparts, and bilingual-LEP children showed a lower (0.003 SD) learning rate. After controlling for family background and school level covariates, bilingual-EP children still displayed a higher learning rate (0.007 SD) than that of their native English speaking counterparts, but bilingual-LEP children showed a learning rate that is not significantly different from that of their native English speaking counterparts.
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Suspension and Achievement: Do the Effects Vary by Type and Frequency?"
Author: NaYoung Hwang
Description
Literature shows that receiving an out-of-school suspension is linked with negative educational outcomes, such as lower grades, lower achievement growth, and higher dropout rates. However, because these findings are based on comparisons between suspended students and non-suspended students or based on school level analysis, to what extent the associations are causal is still unclear. In this study, I ask the following questions: (a) What are the effects of receiving suspension on the educational achievement of suspended students? (b) Do the effects of suspension vary across suspension types (i.e., in-school suspension vs. out-of-school suspension)? (c) Are the effects of suspension on the educational achievement of suspended students non-linear? That is, are the effects of receiving suspension once different from the effects of receiving suspension multiple times? I used administrative data from one public school district in California. The sample of the studies includes data on 7th grade through 11th grade students in 17 different schools over a four-year period from 2009-2010 through 2011-2012. The results show that receiving out-of-school suspension multiple times hinders both math and ELA achievement, whereas receiving in-school suspension and one-time out-of-school suspension may not hamper the educational achievement of suspended students.
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Unintended Consequences: Does the Effort to Reduce Suspensions Harm Learning Environments?"
Author: NaYoung Hwang
Description
In recent years, motivated by a well-documented association between school suspensions and a wide range of negative developmental outcomes for suspended youth, many schools have implemented policies attempting to reduce the use of suspension and other forms of exclusionary discipline. In this study, I use data from a large California school district to investigate the effects of suspension on the educational outcomes of non-suspended students. Student fixed effect models reveal that a non-suspended student exhibits higher achievement at the end of a quarter in which their classmate suspension rates are higher. This positive peer effect seems to be heightened for low-achieving students. These findings suggest that efforts to reduce schools’ use of suspensions may harm learning environments.
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Using Fidelity Data to Elucidate the Results of a Quasi-Experiment on Assessment-2-Instruction Technology"
Authors: Carol Connor & Karen Taylor
Description
The current study represents the culmination of the 3-year development study funded by IES. During the first two years of the study, we re-designed and programmed A2i in collaboration with our partner schools. In year 3, we conducted a quasi-experiment to evaluate the efficacy of the newly designed ISI/A2i and to examine how teachers used A2i and how well they implemented ISI in the classroom. The research was conducted in two Title 1 schools in Arizona located in the rural fringe of Phoenix. The study included 898 students in K-3rd grade in 17 classrooms. We used a quasi-experimental delayed treatment design: one school was randomly assigned to use ISI/A2i at the beginning of the 2015-16 school year and the other school began using ISI/A2i in March of the same school year. Analysis of assessments in the fall, using multi-level models (HLM) revealed no significant differences in the immediate and delayed treatment students’ baseline performance on the Woodcock Johnson-III Letter-Word Identification test (M=371 and 367), the Passage Comprehension test (m=412 and 409) and the Gates MacGinitie Reading Test (M=425 and 424). Analysis of results using the March assessments (the end of the quasi-experiment) using HLM with the treatment variable (1=immediate; 0=delayed treatment) entered at the classroom level revealed significant effects of ISI/A2i in kindergarten and second grade but not in first or third grade. Analysis of A2i user log data revealed that kindergarten and second grade teachers used A2i for significantly more minutes from October to March (the length of the study) than did the first and third grade teachers. The results of this study demonstrate the utility of fidelity data to help in understanding the results of this quasi-experiment. The effects of ISI/A2i were greater when teachers actually used the technology.
--------------------------------------------------------------
"When Data and Theory Collide: Designing and Evaluating Successful Interventions for Young Children's Comprehension-Related Processes"
Authors: Christopher J. Lonigan, Carol M. Connor, Beth M. Phillips, & Young-Suk Kim
Description
The Reading for Understanding (RFU) project at the Florida Center for Research (FCRR) had three inter-related goals: (a) Develop a refined understanding of the cognitive, linguistic, and behavioral processes that are associated with understanding (both language and reading). (b) Develop, refine, and evaluate the impact of instructional interventions to promote factors associated with understanding, and (c) Develop, refine, and evaluate instructional tools that both provide teachers with effective instructional strategies for children with or at risk of problems in understanding. In the service of these goals, we simultaneously conducted basic science projects designed to uncover comprehension-related processes that could be leveraged to improve comprehension outcomes for children in grades preschool-fifth grade and development, design, and evaluation projects of interventions intended to affect children’s comprehension-related processes. We conducted a large-scale comparative efficacy study to identify the intervention or interventions that yielded the largest or broadest impacts on children’s comprehension-related processes. The results of this study, which involved approximately 4,000 children in preschool-fourth grades, indicated that several interventions produced significant effects that were largely constrained to measures of the skill targeted by the intervention, and that effects were largest for younger children. Therefore, we selected the three interventions that yielded the largest impacts to evaluate in the next study: “Language in Motion”, “Comprehension through Oral Retell, Monitoring, and Providing Awareness of Story Structure” (COMPASS), and “Dialogic Reading-Enhanced” (DR-E). Each of the three interventions targeted different aspects of language skill (i.e., vocabulary, syntax, text structure knowledge, comprehension monitoring). Each intervention was designed as a 9-week module involving small-group instruction. Because results of our comparative-efficacy study indicated that each intervention had impacts on its targeted skill, interventions were combined as a means of obtaining a broader impact on children’s comprehension-related processes. Although the interventions tended to produce significant positive effects for all children, impacts were moderated by some child characteristics. Follow-up analyses revealed that interventions tended to produce larger effects for preschool children with weaker initial skills. For kindergarten children, moderation effects were outcome specific with larger effects associated with both weaker and stronger initial skills. The results of this study indicate that it is possible to have broad impacts on young children’s comprehension-related skills using interventions specifically designed to impact the two primary dimensions of linguistic competencies related to reading comprehension.
--------------------------------------------------------------
In addition to presenting, the following are serving in organizational capacities:
SoE faculty and students presented at the Society for Research in Educational Effectiveness (SREE) Spring 2017 Conference, held in Washington, DC from March 1-4, 2017. SREE “endeavors to advance research relevant to practice, from early childhood through the transition to higher and continuing education. The Society strives to generate knowledge and facilitate applications in new contexts and across fields. SREE organizes conferences and professional development courses that bring together diverse audiences.”
The 2017 conference theme was “Expanding the Toolkit: Maximizing Relevance, Effectiveness and Rigor in Education Research.”
SoE Presentations (presented alphabetically by title)
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Assessing the Correspondence between Student-Level Fidelity Data and Observational Measures of Classroom Instructional Content"
Authors: Joshua Lawrence, Alex Lin, & Catherine Snow
Description
A previous analysis of notebooks collected from students participating in a randomized trial of the Word Generation program suggested that implementation was inconsistent across time and across content areas (WG is implemented in middle school classroom by math, science, social studies and English teachers). However, data collected from classroom observations seemed to suggest robust implementation. The current paper examines the data from these two sources to answer the following questions:
- How well was Word Generation implemented according to each measure?
- Which content areas implemented with greatest fidelity?
- How are the data from observations and notebook coding related?
- Which measures best explained variance in school pre-to-post performance?
Three large urban districts participated in this evaluation study. Only data contributed by teachers and students in the treatment schools were used in this analysis.
Our findings suggest that observations may be poor measures of fidelity, especially for programs, like Word Generation, that emphasize consistent weekly use. We suspect that classroom observers influenced practice, leaving notebook data as a better indicator. The notebook data tell us that most schools did not implement the program consistently whereas those that did saw impressive improvements. Completing 60% rather than 30% of the writing produces a 1.4-point improvement (.4 SD difference) in school level vocabulary posttest scores.
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Beyond the Average Treatment Effect: Differential Effects of an Intervention on Growth Trajectories of Literacy Skills as a Function of Student Characteristics"
Authors: Young-Suk Kim & Benjamin Piper
Description
The primary goal of this study is to examine whether the effect of a comprehensive literacy intervention varies longitudinally as a function of student characteristics such as gender, socio-economic backgrounds (SES), exposure to early childhood education, and maternal literacy. Of particular interest was the relations of these student characteristics to variations in the growth rates in literacy skills. The children in the sample were drawn from three of Kenya’s counties as well as low cost private schools in Nairobi’s so called informal settlements. A total of 628 children (312 girls; 357 in treatment condition) participated in a comprehensive literacy and numeracy intervention in Grades 1 and 2. Clusters of schools were randomly selected and then randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. At the school level, simple random sampling was employed so that the children selected were representative of the entire Grade 1 population not simply one class at the school. Children’s literacy skills were assessed at three time points: before, middle and end of the intervention, which corresponded to the beginning of Grade 1, end of Grade 1, and end of Grade 2. Different patterns were found for students in treatment versus control conditions. For students in the treatment condition, SES and early childhood education were consistently and positively related to growth rates in the literacy skills. For students in the control condition, none of the student characteristics were related to individual differences in growth rates in literacy skills. The present results indicate that the effect of a comprehensive literacy intervention for primary grade children in Kenya was not uniformly distributed across students. Instead, certain students benefitted more than others – those from higher SES and those who received early childhood education learned more from systematic and explicit literacy instruction, after accounting for gender and maternal literacy. On the contrary, for students who were not exposed to systematic and explicit instruction in literacy, students’ background characteristics did not predict growth rates.
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Competencies That Research Suggests Are Related to College Success"
Author: Greg Duncan
Description
This presentation first summarizes the committee’s approach to reviewing the literatures of personality, developmental and social psychology and higher education to identify competencies that are empirically related to college success. Secondly, based on the identified competencies and drawing on the lenses of social and developmental psychology, the presentation shares a developmental framework describing how the competencies may shape students’ successful progression through college. While acknowledging the wide differences in situational contexts and individual characteristics that influence college success, the framework lays out challenges and core questions about self that college students are likely to face in common and in roughly the same order over the course of their college careers. Research underlying each of the competencies also is summarized.
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Evolution of the Pathway Project Intervention and Defining Key Components for Replication"
Author: Carol Booth Olson
Description
This presentation will trace the evolution of the Pathway Project intervention from 1996 to the present and consider how the research results demonstrating the efficacy of the project have impacted the design decisions of how to develop, improve upon, deliver, and disseminate the professional development over time.
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Meta-Analysis of Random Assignment Studies of Interventions Targeting the Identified Competencies"
Author: Sabrina Solanki
Description
The current meta-analysis investigated the extent to which motivational interventions improve academic performance for college students. We identified 32 published studies that used random assignment, manipulated an intrapersonal competency as identified by the National Research Council, and measured an academic performance outcome. Overall, interventions were significantly effective with an average effect size of g = 0.42 (95% confidence interval = [0.30 to .54]). Effects sizes varied in terms of competency, outcome, and target population (URM versus non-URM) but were uniformly positive. Preliminary regression results suggest that the differences in effect sizes were only significant for target population, but not for other moderators such as interpersonal competency.
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Middle School Language Classification Effects on High School Achievement and Behavioral Outcomes"
Authors: Marcela Reyes & NaYoung Hwang
Description
English Language Learners (ELLs) are students who speak another language at home and who have not yet reached full English proficiency are among the lowest performers on a broad range of educational outcomes even when they are compared with Reclassified Fluent English Proficient (RFEP), former ELL students. RFEP students outperforming ELL students on every measure examined can suggest that the criteria used to determine when an ELL student no longer needs support to learn English separates those who are stronger academic performers from those who are less able. Alternatively, ELL students are more likely to be placed in less rigorous courses separate from RFEP peers, which might lead students to disengage and underperform. At the same time, not all RFEPs are equal: those who are reclassified in earlier grades are more likely to progress on time, have higher test scores, and have other positive outcomes in their final years of high school.
I compare current ELL students with students who had only been recently reclassified in middle school, either in seventh or eighth grade.
- How does language classification (ELL and RFEP) by the end of middle school affect the high school students’ English and math achievement outcomes (i.e., assessments and course placement)?
- How does language classification (ELL and RFEP) by the end of middle school affect high school students’ behavioral outcomes (i.e., attendance and suspensions)?
OLS estimates coincide with previous studies, demonstrating that students who become RFEP in middle school have higher California Standards Test (CST) in English Language Arts, and California High School Exit Examination (CAHSEE) ELA and math scores. Additionally, RFEP students are more likely to be placed in more advanced math courses in high school than the ELL students. Furthermore, RFEP students are less likely to be absent and have less on-campus suspensions than ELL students. However, the regression discontinuity models show, in most instances, academic and behavioral differences between ELL and students who RFEP in middle school are spurious and not due to language classification itself. Only in a few instances do differences exist, and RFEP students are less likely to pass the CHASEE ELA portion and more likely to be suspended on-campus compared with ELL students.
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Kindergarten Language Status and Achievement Growth among Hispanics"
Author: Summer Wang
Description
This study uses multilevel growth model to explore whether the learning trajectory (K-2nd grade) among Hispanic children differ across initial language status, and to what extent such differentials in learning growth might be attributable to family and schools. Preliminary results suggest that compared to monolingual-EP Hispanic children, bilingual-EP Hispanic students have statistically comparable growth rate in reading, but bilingual-LEP students have a learning growth that is around 0.002 SD lower per month. School environment, instead of family background, explains such a differential growth rate. Controlling for family background, bilingual-EP Hispanic children showed around 0.002 SD higher in math growth rate than their native English speaking peers. In science, bilingual-EP children displayed a learning rate (0.006 SD) higher than that of their native English speaking counterparts, and bilingual-LEP children showed a lower (0.003 SD) learning rate. After controlling for family background and school level covariates, bilingual-EP children still displayed a higher learning rate (0.007 SD) than that of their native English speaking counterparts, but bilingual-LEP children showed a learning rate that is not significantly different from that of their native English speaking counterparts.
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Suspension and Achievement: Do the Effects Vary by Type and Frequency?"
Author: NaYoung Hwang
Description
Literature shows that receiving an out-of-school suspension is linked with negative educational outcomes, such as lower grades, lower achievement growth, and higher dropout rates. However, because these findings are based on comparisons between suspended students and non-suspended students or based on school level analysis, to what extent the associations are causal is still unclear. In this study, I ask the following questions: (a) What are the effects of receiving suspension on the educational achievement of suspended students? (b) Do the effects of suspension vary across suspension types (i.e., in-school suspension vs. out-of-school suspension)? (c) Are the effects of suspension on the educational achievement of suspended students non-linear? That is, are the effects of receiving suspension once different from the effects of receiving suspension multiple times? I used administrative data from one public school district in California. The sample of the studies includes data on 7th grade through 11th grade students in 17 different schools over a four-year period from 2009-2010 through 2011-2012. The results show that receiving out-of-school suspension multiple times hinders both math and ELA achievement, whereas receiving in-school suspension and one-time out-of-school suspension may not hamper the educational achievement of suspended students.
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Unintended Consequences: Does the Effort to Reduce Suspensions Harm Learning Environments?"
Author: NaYoung Hwang
Description
In recent years, motivated by a well-documented association between school suspensions and a wide range of negative developmental outcomes for suspended youth, many schools have implemented policies attempting to reduce the use of suspension and other forms of exclusionary discipline. In this study, I use data from a large California school district to investigate the effects of suspension on the educational outcomes of non-suspended students. Student fixed effect models reveal that a non-suspended student exhibits higher achievement at the end of a quarter in which their classmate suspension rates are higher. This positive peer effect seems to be heightened for low-achieving students. These findings suggest that efforts to reduce schools’ use of suspensions may harm learning environments.
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Using Fidelity Data to Elucidate the Results of a Quasi-Experiment on Assessment-2-Instruction Technology"
Authors: Carol Connor & Karen Taylor
Description
The current study represents the culmination of the 3-year development study funded by IES. During the first two years of the study, we re-designed and programmed A2i in collaboration with our partner schools. In year 3, we conducted a quasi-experiment to evaluate the efficacy of the newly designed ISI/A2i and to examine how teachers used A2i and how well they implemented ISI in the classroom. The research was conducted in two Title 1 schools in Arizona located in the rural fringe of Phoenix. The study included 898 students in K-3rd grade in 17 classrooms. We used a quasi-experimental delayed treatment design: one school was randomly assigned to use ISI/A2i at the beginning of the 2015-16 school year and the other school began using ISI/A2i in March of the same school year. Analysis of assessments in the fall, using multi-level models (HLM) revealed no significant differences in the immediate and delayed treatment students’ baseline performance on the Woodcock Johnson-III Letter-Word Identification test (M=371 and 367), the Passage Comprehension test (m=412 and 409) and the Gates MacGinitie Reading Test (M=425 and 424). Analysis of results using the March assessments (the end of the quasi-experiment) using HLM with the treatment variable (1=immediate; 0=delayed treatment) entered at the classroom level revealed significant effects of ISI/A2i in kindergarten and second grade but not in first or third grade. Analysis of A2i user log data revealed that kindergarten and second grade teachers used A2i for significantly more minutes from October to March (the length of the study) than did the first and third grade teachers. The results of this study demonstrate the utility of fidelity data to help in understanding the results of this quasi-experiment. The effects of ISI/A2i were greater when teachers actually used the technology.
--------------------------------------------------------------
"When Data and Theory Collide: Designing and Evaluating Successful Interventions for Young Children's Comprehension-Related Processes"
Authors: Christopher J. Lonigan, Carol M. Connor, Beth M. Phillips, & Young-Suk Kim
Description
The Reading for Understanding (RFU) project at the Florida Center for Research (FCRR) had three inter-related goals: (a) Develop a refined understanding of the cognitive, linguistic, and behavioral processes that are associated with understanding (both language and reading). (b) Develop, refine, and evaluate the impact of instructional interventions to promote factors associated with understanding, and (c) Develop, refine, and evaluate instructional tools that both provide teachers with effective instructional strategies for children with or at risk of problems in understanding. In the service of these goals, we simultaneously conducted basic science projects designed to uncover comprehension-related processes that could be leveraged to improve comprehension outcomes for children in grades preschool-fifth grade and development, design, and evaluation projects of interventions intended to affect children’s comprehension-related processes. We conducted a large-scale comparative efficacy study to identify the intervention or interventions that yielded the largest or broadest impacts on children’s comprehension-related processes. The results of this study, which involved approximately 4,000 children in preschool-fourth grades, indicated that several interventions produced significant effects that were largely constrained to measures of the skill targeted by the intervention, and that effects were largest for younger children. Therefore, we selected the three interventions that yielded the largest impacts to evaluate in the next study: “Language in Motion”, “Comprehension through Oral Retell, Monitoring, and Providing Awareness of Story Structure” (COMPASS), and “Dialogic Reading-Enhanced” (DR-E). Each of the three interventions targeted different aspects of language skill (i.e., vocabulary, syntax, text structure knowledge, comprehension monitoring). Each intervention was designed as a 9-week module involving small-group instruction. Because results of our comparative-efficacy study indicated that each intervention had impacts on its targeted skill, interventions were combined as a means of obtaining a broader impact on children’s comprehension-related processes. Although the interventions tended to produce significant positive effects for all children, impacts were moderated by some child characteristics. Follow-up analyses revealed that interventions tended to produce larger effects for preschool children with weaker initial skills. For kindergarten children, moderation effects were outcome specific with larger effects associated with both weaker and stronger initial skills. The results of this study indicate that it is possible to have broad impacts on young children’s comprehension-related skills using interventions specifically designed to impact the two primary dimensions of linguistic competencies related to reading comprehension.
--------------------------------------------------------------
In addition to presenting, the following are serving in organizational capacities:
- Chair: Carol Connor, "Promoting Academic Achievement among Diverse Vulnerable Populations"
- Discussant: Young-Suk Kim, "Educational Effectiveness in Global and Immigration-Related Contexts Symposium"
- Organizer of Research Practice Symposium: Tyler Watts, "Analyzing Fidelity of Implementation Data in Educational Interventions"
Five SoE Faculty Author Top Ten-Ranked 2016 Articles in AERA Journals
School of Education faculty authored three articles ranked in the Top Ten by AERA in their listing of 2016 Most Read Education Research Articles.
Educational Researcher: #1 Most Read 2016
Science Achievement Gaps Begin Very Early, Persist, and Are Largely Explained by Modifiable Factors
Paul L. Morgan, George Farkas, Marianne M. Hillemeier, & Steve Maczuga
Abstract: We examined the age of onset, over-time dynamics, and mechanisms underlying science achievement gaps in U.S. elementary and middle schools. To do so, we estimated multilevel growth models that included as predictors children’s own general knowledge, reading and mathematics achievement, behavioral self-regulation, sociodemographics, other child- and family-level characteristics (e.g., parenting quality), and school-level characteristics (e.g., racial, ethnic, and economic composition; school academic climate). Analyses of a longitudinal sample of 7,757 children indicated large gaps in general knowledge already evident at kindergarten entry. Kindergarten general knowledge was the strongest predictor of first-grade general knowledge, which in turn was the strongest predictor of children’s science achievement from third to eighth grade. Large science achievement gaps were evident when science achievement measures first became available in third grade. These gaps persisted until at least the end of eighth grade. Most or all of the observed science achievement gaps were explained by the study’s many predictors. Efforts to address science achievement gaps in the United States likely require intensified early intervention efforts, particularly those delivered before the primary grades. If unaddressed, science achievement gaps emerge by kindergarten and continue until at least the end of eighth grade.
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Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis: #9 Most Read 2016
Head Start at Ages 3 and 4 Versus Head Start Followed by State Pre-K: Which Is More Effective?
Jade Marcus Jenkins, George Farkas, Greg J. Duncan, Margaret Burchinal, Deborah Lowe Vandell
Abstract: As policymakers contemplate expanding preschool opportunities for low-income children, one possibility is to fund 2, rather than 1 year of Head Start for children at ages 3 and 4. Another option is to offer 1 year of Head Start followed by 1 year of pre-K. We ask which of these options is more effective. We use data from the Oklahoma pre-K study to examine these two “pathways” into kindergarten using regression discontinuity to estimate the effects of each age 4 program, and propensity score weighting to address selection. We find that children attending Head Start at age 3 develop stronger prereading skills in a high-quality pre-kindergarten at age 4 compared with attending Head Start at age 4. Pre-K and Head Start were not differentially linked to improvements in children’s prewriting skills or premath skills. This suggests that some impacts of early learning programs may be related to the sequencing of learning experiences to more academic programming.
School of Education faculty authored three articles ranked in the Top Ten by AERA in their listing of 2016 Most Read Education Research Articles.
Educational Researcher: #1 Most Read 2016
Science Achievement Gaps Begin Very Early, Persist, and Are Largely Explained by Modifiable Factors
Paul L. Morgan, George Farkas, Marianne M. Hillemeier, & Steve Maczuga
Abstract: We examined the age of onset, over-time dynamics, and mechanisms underlying science achievement gaps in U.S. elementary and middle schools. To do so, we estimated multilevel growth models that included as predictors children’s own general knowledge, reading and mathematics achievement, behavioral self-regulation, sociodemographics, other child- and family-level characteristics (e.g., parenting quality), and school-level characteristics (e.g., racial, ethnic, and economic composition; school academic climate). Analyses of a longitudinal sample of 7,757 children indicated large gaps in general knowledge already evident at kindergarten entry. Kindergarten general knowledge was the strongest predictor of first-grade general knowledge, which in turn was the strongest predictor of children’s science achievement from third to eighth grade. Large science achievement gaps were evident when science achievement measures first became available in third grade. These gaps persisted until at least the end of eighth grade. Most or all of the observed science achievement gaps were explained by the study’s many predictors. Efforts to address science achievement gaps in the United States likely require intensified early intervention efforts, particularly those delivered before the primary grades. If unaddressed, science achievement gaps emerge by kindergarten and continue until at least the end of eighth grade.
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Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis: #9 Most Read 2016
Head Start at Ages 3 and 4 Versus Head Start Followed by State Pre-K: Which Is More Effective?
Jade Marcus Jenkins, George Farkas, Greg J. Duncan, Margaret Burchinal, Deborah Lowe Vandell
Abstract: As policymakers contemplate expanding preschool opportunities for low-income children, one possibility is to fund 2, rather than 1 year of Head Start for children at ages 3 and 4. Another option is to offer 1 year of Head Start followed by 1 year of pre-K. We ask which of these options is more effective. We use data from the Oklahoma pre-K study to examine these two “pathways” into kindergarten using regression discontinuity to estimate the effects of each age 4 program, and propensity score weighting to address selection. We find that children attending Head Start at age 3 develop stronger prereading skills in a high-quality pre-kindergarten at age 4 compared with attending Head Start at age 4. Pre-K and Head Start were not differentially linked to improvements in children’s prewriting skills or premath skills. This suggests that some impacts of early learning programs may be related to the sequencing of learning experiences to more academic programming.
SoE Homecoming 2017 Features Science Experiments and Creative Writing
The School of Education homecoming booths at UCI's 2017 Homecoming on February 25 offered two activities for visitors - experiments with electricity and surface tension, guided by volunteers from 100 Tiny Hands, and creative poetry writing, mentored by the UCI Writing Project.
100 Tiny Hands visitors enjoy hands-on experiments.
The School of Education homecoming booths at UCI's 2017 Homecoming on February 25 offered two activities for visitors - experiments with electricity and surface tension, guided by volunteers from 100 Tiny Hands, and creative poetry writing, mentored by the UCI Writing Project.
100 Tiny Hands visitors enjoy hands-on experiments.
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UCI Writing Project visitors create poems to take with them or attach to the "Poetree".
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