Providing Opportunities for Deeper Learning: Findings from the Study of Deeper Learning
Author: Bitter, Catherine
Date: 2014-00-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Critical Thinking,Thinking Skills,Educational Opportunities,Outcomes of Education,Comparative Analysis,Quasiexperimental Design,High School Students,Qualitative Research,Student Surveys,International Assessment,Achievement Tests,Gender Differences,Statistical Significance,Correlation

The &quot;Study of Deeper Learning: Opportunities and Outcomes,&quot; funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, is a &quot;proof-of-concept&quot; study to determine whether students attending high schools with a mature and at least moderately well-implemented approach to promoting &quot;deeper learning&quot; experience greater deeper learning opportunities and outcomes than they would have had they not attended these schools. The study examined high schools associated with ten established networks from across the country that embrace the goals of deeper learning and promote instructional practices they believe are likely to lead to deeper learning competencies. To determine whether students who attend these schools experience different opportunities and outcomes relative to similar students who do not attend these network schools, the study included a sample of students from &quot;non-network&quot; comparison schools. This paper focuses on two central questions guiding the study: (1) Do students attending network schools have more opportunities to engage in deeper learning processes than they would have if they had not attended the network schools; and (2) Do individual students who experience more opportunities to engage in deeper learning achieve better deeper learning outcomes than students who experience fewer opportunities? This analysis relies on data from schools located in six districts across two states: California and New York. For the analysis and findings described in this paper, a quasi-experimental design was used to collect and analyze data from students within 12 network high schools, which represented 8 of the 10 networks, and were located in five districts across two states. Analyses also include students attending 10 non-network schools located in six districts across two states. One non-network school was matched to two network schools, for a total of 11 school pairs. The primary data sources used for the analysis in this paper include: (1) Student survey data; (2) OECD PISA-based Test for Schools; and (3) Qualitative data. Primary findings include: (1) Students in participating network high schools reported significantly greater opportunities for deeper learning than students in the paired non-network schools; (2) At the individual pair level, students in each of the 11 network schools reported significantly more opportunity for deeper learning on at least one opportunity measure than students in the paired non-network school. In addition, no negative effects of network attendance on opportunities within any individual pairs were observed; (3) Only gender and grade level revealed differences in the effects of attending a network school on opportunities for deeper learning; and (4) There is a statistically significant correlational relationship among all measures of opportunities for deeper learning and all measures of dispositional outcomes. Tables and figures are appended.