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Appendix J- Details for Question B1

Recruiting

This study is being proposed as part of the activities of a REL-Southeast sponsored research 

alliance, which includes education policymakers from Georgia and South Carolina. Once the 

study has received OMB clearance, districts which have expressed interest will be contacted by

state alliance members and the study team. Districts will be provided with the approved proposal, 

MOUs (see Appendix D), the FAQ (see Appendix E), and consent forms (see Appendix A, F & 

G). In-person meetings will be held with LEAs. The plan is to begin contacting districts in 

January of 2014 (if OMB clearance is complete, or to begin as soon as it is completed) and to 

have all signed MOUs in place by June 2014.

Eight to ten districts will be recruited across the two states: 4-5 from each state. One district 

comprised primarily of rural schools will be recruited from each state, one district comprised 

primarily of schools in small/medium towns, and one district comprised primarily of schools in 

an urban context, to maximize the type of schools sampled within each state. The number of 

elementary schools in each state is provided in the urbanicity table below (Table F.1). Alliance 

members in both states will provide contacts for districts that would likely be interested in 

participating in the study. Districts that show interest in participating in the study and have at 

least 6 elementary schools with at least two 4

th grade teachers each will be selected for 

participation. It is expected that recruited districts will vary in size, with an average of 

approximately 10 participating elementary schools in 8-10 districts, for a total of 84 schools1. A 

minimum number of schools was established to eliminate the need to recruit and manage 

relationships with more than six districts. Because rural districts are required in the plan, it may 

be necessary to include districts with as low as six eligible elementary schools. It is anticipated 

that some of the urban and county or suburban districts will have more than six eligible 

elementary schools. Limiting the study to 8-10 districts also serves to control the number of 

different DMI training groups (of up to 20 teachers each) that would need to be formed. A 

number of smaller districts scattered over a larger area would likely necessitate more DMI 

groups and more trainers.

Once the district leadership has committed to participate in the study, school leaders within the 

district (from schools with at least two 4th grade teachers/classrooms) will be invited to a face-toface informational meeting. If there are more schools interested than are needed, then a lottery 

will be used to select the participating schools. Subsequently, all schools which sign an MOU 

will be included in the study. The study, school MOUs, and their roles given possible assignment 

to either the DMI or control conditions will be carefully explained. School leaders will be asked 

to commit prior to random assignment only if they are willing to accept the 50% probability of 

receiving the DMI professional development. The study team has successfully used this 

 

1 We need a minimum of 80 districts for adequate statistical power so we will recruit 84 districts to account for possible schoollevel attrition. We expect that the final number of schools after attrition will be 82. 
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approach in the past to recruit for two large-scale RCTs with 62 and 76 schools, respectively

(Gersten, Dimino, Jayanthi, & Haymond, forthcoming; Rolfhus et al., 2012). Both studies 

exhibited very low school- and teacher-level attrition (<5%).

Once individual school leaders have signed an MOU, information regarding the study, along 

with informed consent forms will be shared with individual teachers in those schools. Informed 

consent from teachers will be acquired prior to pairing and random assignment of schools.

Table F.1 Summary of urban-centric locale designation of schools

State Urban-Centric Locale 

Designation

Total Number of 

Schools

Georgia City 707

Town 136

Rural 480

South Carolina City 264

Town 107

Rural 295
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References

Gersten, R., Dimino, J., Jayanthi, M., & Haymond, K. (Manuscript in preparation). The Impact of 

Participation in Teacher Study Groups: A Replication in First Grade Classrooms. 

Rolfhus, E., Gersten, R., Clarke, B., Decker, L., Wilkins, C., and Dimino, J. (2012). An 

evaluation of Number Rockets: A Tier 2 intervention for grade 1 students at risk for 

difficulties in mathematics. (NCEE 2012-4007). Washington, DC: National Center for

Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. 

Department of Education.