ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
Early Childhood Benefits at Low Cost--Evidence from a Randomized Trail in Mexico
Author: Cárdenas, Sergio
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Randomized Controlled Trials,Parent Education,Program Effectiveness,Child Development,Young Children,Cognitive Development,Physical Development,Social Development,Emotional Development,Parent Child Relationship,Rural Areas,Surveys,Questionnaires,Community Education,Behavior Change,Attitude Change,Child Rearing,Parents,Interviews

The evidence that investments in early child development can pay high, long-term dividends, is mounting, both in developed and developing countries. However, recent meta-analysis identified very few studies in developing countries. The authors report on the evaluation impact of a low-cost, community-based parent training program for early child development (ECD) implemented in four states across Mexico. This research study explored: (1) The impact of this low-cost, parent-focused ECD program on the physical, cognitive, and socio-emotional development of children 0-4 years?; (2) The impact of the program on the knowledge and behaviors of parents of children 0-4?; and (3) The differential impact of the program in communities with other significant ECD initiatives? The program, implemented by the government, provided out-of-school training for parents and caregivers of children aged 0-4, to improve their competencies and practices in caring for children and contribute to the children's comprehensive development and school readiness. The results showed participating children had higher scores in all five areas of child development. Also the low-cost, community-based parenting program for parents of young children had significant impacts both on child development and on observed parent behavior. Because parent behaviors affect child development throughout the development process, these changes have a particular potential to translate into long-term, sustained gains in child development.
Fadeout in an Early Mathematics Intervention: Same Old Schools or Underlying Skills?
Author: Bailey, Drew H.
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Early Intervention,Early Childhood Education,Mathematics Instruction,Mathematics Skills,School Readiness,Mathematics Achievement,Control Groups,Experimental Groups,Hypothesis Testing,Kindergarten,At Risk Students,Low Income Groups

A consistent finding across early childhood interventions targeting mathematics and other achievement-related skills that is that initial treatment effects fade over time, with children not receiving the intervention catching up to children who did (Clements et al., 2013; Leak et al., 2010; Puma et al., 2010). One popular explanation for this is that, owing to their own preparation or a desire to ensure that all children receive basic skills training, elementary school teachers do not teach the kind of advanced content that children are prepared for after receiving an effective early mathematics intervention (Bodovski &amp; Farkas, 2007; Crosnoe et al., 2010; Engel, Claessens, &amp; Finch, 2014). Thus, children who benefit from early mathematics interventions may experience flatter achievement trajectories in subsequent years. In contrast, the lower achieving children who did not receive the intervention may benefit more from the basic level of instruction and catch up to their higher achieving peers. This is hypothesis is referred to for fadeout of treatment effects in early mathematics interventions as the &quot;same old schools&quot; hypothesis. An alternative hypothesis is short-run differences in mathematics achievement induced by interventions are soon overtaken by differences produced by relatively stable factors influencing children's long-term mathematical development. These factors likely include a combination of domain general cognitive abilities, relatively stable academic skills, motivation, and other factors that affect children's mathematics achievement across time. If this is true, then children's higher mathematics achievement at the end of an effective early mathematics intervention might subsequently migrate to levels that would be predicted based on their underlying skills alone. This hypothesis is referred to for fadeout of treatment effects in early mathematics interventions as the &quot;underlying skills&quot; hypothesis. This study tested the same old schools and underlying skills hypotheses using data from an effective early mathematics intervention. Specifically, the authors identified a subset of children in the control group with similar post-intervention achievement scores to children in the treatment group, and then tested whether their subsequent learning trajectories differed. At the intervention's conclusion, children were assessed immediately thereafter and then one year later in the kindergarten year. The following are appended: (1) References; and (2) Tables and Figures.
Evaluating the Performance of Repeated Measures Approaches in Replicating Experimental Benchmark Results
Author: McConeghy, Kevin
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Replication (Evaluation),Benchmarking,Quasiexperimental Design,Comparative Analysis,Bias,Outcomes of Treatment,Validity,Demonstration Programs,Health Services,Intervention,Pretests Posttests,Randomized Controlled Trials

Randomized experiments have long been established as the gold standard for addressing causal questions. However, experiments are not always feasible or desired, so observational methods are also needed. When multiple observations on the same variable are available, a repeated measures design may be used to assess whether a treatment administered at a known time results in changes in the outcome. Despite the popularity of repeated measures approaches for assessing policy impacts, questions remain about the empirical performance of these approaches in field settings. In within-study comparison (WSC) designs, the quasi-experimental (QE) approach is evaluated by comparing QE results with those from a benchmark design that shares the same treatment group. The purpose of this WSC is to examine the following three methodological questions: (1) Does the simple interrupted time series (ITS) produce unbiased treatment effects, relative to an experimental benchmark?; (2) Do the comparative ITS and differences-in-differences (DID) approaches produce unbiased treatment effects, relative to an experimental benchmark?; and (3) Do the use of multiple in-state and out-of-state non-equivalent comparison groups rule out plausible threats to validity in the comparative ITS and DID designs? This study employs experimental data from the Cash and Counseling Demonstration Project (Carlson, Foster, Dale, &amp; Brown, 2007), which evaluated the effects of a &quot;consumer-directed&quot; care program on Medicaid recipients' outcomes. The data include monthly Medicaid expenditures for 12 months prior to the intervention (pretest), and 12 months after the intervention (posttest). Medicaid participants in Arkansas, New Jersey, and Florida were randomly assigned to treatment and control conditions, where the treatment consisted of Medicaid recipients selecting their own services using a Medicaid-funded account, and the control consisted of local agencies selecting services for Medicaid recipients. Findings include: (1) Consumer-directed care resulted in significant increases in Medicaid expenditures for all subgroups at each follow-up time period; (2) QE methods performed better at the earlier time points than at the later time points that required more extrapolation of the regression function; (3) The models that allowed for maximum flexibility also tended to produced less precise estimates; (4) The WSC results indicate that within-state comparisons performed better than cross-state comparison groups, and that gender-based comparisons produced less bias than age-based comparisons; and (5) The cross-state comparisons performed relatively well when the model was adjusted for more complicated trends. Tables are appended.
Efficacy Study of a Pre-Algebra Supplemental Program in Rural Mississippi: Preliminary Findings
Author: Clark, Tedra F.
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Readiness,Mathematics Instruction,Algebra,Middle School Students,Grade 7,Rural Schools,Mathematics Achievement,Program Effectiveness,Standardized Tests,Statistical Analysis,Scores

Mastering mathematics is important for all students, not only because such success increases college and career options and prospects for future income, but also because mathematics literacy helps citizens and policy leaders to make sound judgments (NMAP, 2008). Research suggests that the rural achievement gap can be addressed with modifiable school-based strategies that increase students' opportunity to learn. Therefore, even though rural students lag behind in mathematics, it is likely that their achievement can be increased by providing additional resources. Given this assumption, the authors sought to understand whether a low-cost supplemental program could result in increases in student learning. &quot;Every Day Counts Algebra Readiness&quot; (&quot;EDC Algebra Readiness&quot;) is a resource developed to improve the mathematics proficiency of middle school students and help prepare them for success in high school algebra. The program is a supplemental curriculum for use in the first 10-15 minutes of class, focusing on the most important pre-algebra concepts. This experimental efficacy study examines the impact of &quot;EDC Algebra Readiness&quot; on the algebra readiness of 7th grade students in rural schools in Mississippi. The study also examines the program's impact on the Algebra I achievement of these students, as measured by results on the state's end-of-course test. Table 1 is appended.
Estimating Treatment Effects via Multilevel Matching within Homogenous Groups of Clusters
Author: Steiner, Peter M.
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Computation,Outcomes of Treatment,Multivariate Analysis,Probability,Cluster Grouping,Selection,Simulation

Despite the popularity of propensity score (PS) techniques they are not yet well studied for matching multilevel data where selection into treatment takes place among level-one units within clusters. This paper suggests a PS matching strategy that tries to avoid the disadvantages of within- and across-cluster matching. The idea is to first identify groups of clusters that are homogenous with respect to the selection model, and then to estimate the PS and treatment effect within each of the homogeneous group. The purpose of the study is to demonstrate that across-cluster matching within homogenous groups of clusters is less prone to bias than within-cluster matching and complete across-cluster matching (across the whole population of clusters). The results indicate that a matching strategy that first groups the data into homogeneous groups of clusters and then estimates the treatment effects via across-cluster matching within each of the groups can outperform within-cluster matching and across-cluster matching without any grouping information. Tables and figures are appended.
Experimental Evidence from an Early Childhood Parenting Intervention in Nicaragua
Author: Macours, Karen
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Developing Nations,Early Childhood Education,Intervention,Parenting Styles,Rural Areas,Low Income Groups,Poverty Areas,Home Visits,Program Effectiveness,Cognitive Development,Psychomotor Skills,Social Development,Emotional Development,Parent Attitudes,Attitude Change,Mothers,Fathers

Despite the strong argument for investing in young children and the many types of interventions and delivery mechanisms that have been developed, knowledge on Early Childhood Development (ECD) programs' effectiveness in low-income settings remains thin. Yet a growing number of programs in developing countries contain interventions seeking to improve ECD outcomes by changing parenting practices. Large signs of cognitive delays have been document among children in rural Nicaragua, therefore, this study was conducted in six rural municipalities with high levels of extreme poverty to test the impact of a home-visiting parenting intervention on early childhood development outcomes in a low-income setting, as well as the relative effectiveness of targeting the intervention to mother or mothers and fathers. Results indicate that the preliminary analysis suggests small but significant improvements in ECD indicators from the home-vising intervention in targeted communities. Significant impacts are documented on cognitive development, motor skills and socio-emotional development. Impacts were found to be larger for the treatment modality involving mothers and fathers, and relatively larger for boys. Also the potential for interventions to change parental practices, attitudes, and targeting fathers can have large pay-offs.
Final-Year Results from the i3 Scale-Up of Reading Recovery
Author: May, Henry
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Reading Programs,Program Evaluation,Reading Achievement,Mixed Methods Research,Randomized Controlled Trials,Elementary School Students,Grade 1,Correlation,Reading Improvement,Sample Size,Reading Comprehension,Achievement Tests,Standardized Tests,Pretests Posttests,Hierarchical Linear Modeling

As part of the 2010 economic stimulus, a $55 million &quot;Investing in Innovation&quot; (i3) grant from the US Department of Education was awarded to scale up Reading Recovery across the nation. This paper presents the final round of results from the large-scale, mixed methods randomized evaluation of the implementation and impacts of Reading Recovery under this i3 Scale-Up. Over 10,000 low performing first-grade students from more than 1,000 schools participated in this study from 2010-2015. The evaluation design for the i3 scale-up of Reading Recovery includes a rigorous experimental research design (i.e., a multi-site randomized controlled trial) that supports strong causal inferences about program impacts, coupled with mixed methods descriptions of program implementation and contextual factors. Short-term impacts on students' reading performance are estimated by comparing mid-year reading achievement of students randomly assigned to participate in reading recovery at the beginning of first grade to students randomly assigned to the control condition. The consistently large positive impacts of Reading Recovery under the i3 scale-up suggest that this relatively large investment has led to substantial improvements in the reading performance of many thousands of students across the nation. In addition, results from the mixed-methods implementation evaluation revealed numerous programmatic and contextual factors that can support or hinder implementation of Reading Recovery by individual schools and may explain variation in impacts across sites.
Developing Self-Regulated Learners through Collaborative Online Case Discussion in Educational Psychology
Author: Willems, Patricia P.
Date: 2015-09-00
Type: Speeches/Meeting Papers
Subjects: Technology Uses in Education,Educational Technology,Technology Integration,Preservice Teachers,Case Studies,Cooperative Learning,Computer Mediated Communication,Educational Psychology,Self Management,Teaching Methods,Problem Solving,Decision Making,Discussion (Teaching Technique)

Case study instruction is characterized by centering instruction around the use of hypothetical classroom dilemmas. It uses descriptive stories and invites students to discuss application of course material as they engage in hypothetical classroom problem-solving and teacher decision-making. Teaching is a complex profession that requires high levels of multitasking in order to successfully instruct students and handle classroom disruptions. Because most pre-service teachers do not possess extensive classroom experience when enrolled in teacher education, working with case studies provides opportunities to test theoretical concepts and speculate on making decisions that would affect their future classrooms. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the elements of case study instruction that we have found to be effective in encouraging online learner's self-regulated learning for educational psychology. [For the full proceedings see ED562093.]
Exploring Technology Supported Collaborative and Cooperative Group Formation Mechanisms
Author: Carapina, Mia
Date: 2015-10-00
Type: Speeches/Meeting Papers
Subjects: Technology Uses in Education,Educational Technology,Technology Integration,Foreign Countries,Literature Reviews,Cooperative Learning,Group Activities,Elementary Education,Group Dynamics

This paper reflects on the systematic literature review paper (in progress), which analyzes technology enhanced collaborative and cooperative learning in elementary education worldwide from 2004 to 2015, focusing on the exploration of technology mediated group formation. The review paper reports on only a few cases of technology supported methods of group formation, since in the majority of analyzed papers groups are mostly formed before the activity by teachers or researchers. This paper suggests a novel approach by proposing an adaptive model for technology supported group formation. [For the full proceedings see ED5620903.]
Technology-Enhanced Pedagogical Framework for Collaborative Creativity: Analyses of Students' Perception
Author: Pifarré, Manoli
Date: 2015-10-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Technology Uses in Education,Educational Technology,Case Studies,Creativity,Student Attitudes,Cooperative Learning,Student Projects,Qualitative Research,Questionnaires,Coding,Secondary School Students,Secondary Education

This paper explores the effects of a technology-enhanced pedagogical framework on collaborative creativity processes. The pedagogical framework is built on socio-cultural theory which conceptualizes creativity as a social activity based on intersubjectivity and dialogical interactions. Dialogue becomes an instrument for collaborative creativity processes development, and processes as: distributed leadership, mutual engagement, peer assessment or group reflection become triggering processes of collaborative creativity expression. Two cases studies were conducted in which two secondary classrooms followed a creative project. We explored the role of technology in shaping collaborative creativity processes and we unpacked students' perception about the collaborative and creative processes developed during the educative project. Our preliminary findings showed that the technology-enhanced pedagogical framework scaffolded the development of collaborative creativity processes. Students reported key divergent and convergent process to solve the social and group challenge. And students highlighted key learning to learn processes related mostly with group reflection and mutual engagement. [For the full proceedings see ED562093.]
Experimental Effects of the Strategic Adolescent Reading Intervention on Reading Performance in High Poverty Middle Schools
Author: Hemphill, Lowry
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Middle School Students,Reading Programs,Intervention,Adolescents,Reading Achievement,Poverty,School Districts,Urban Schools,Rural Schools,Suburban Schools,Program Effectiveness,Grade 6,Grade 7,Grade 8,Reading Difficulties,Minority Group Students,Pretests Posttests,Regression (Statistics)

The roughly one-quarter of U.S. eighth graders who score below basic on national assessments of reading are poorly equipped for the reading demands of secondary school. They struggle with summarizing and making text-based inferences (NCES, 2013). Intervention in middle school needs to be comprehensive, both because of the heterogeneity of the population of struggling readers and because of the interdependence of components of reading. This study presents preliminary results of a clinical trial of a new multi-component program, the Strategic Adolescent Reading Intervention (STARI). Four Massachusetts school districts served as research sites: two large urban districts, District A and B, and two rural/suburban districts, District C and D. Districts volunteered to be part of the study and solicited schools to participate (in the case of the larger districts) or had all their middle schools participate in the two smaller districts. In each of the participating schools, students scoring below proficient on the state ELA assessment were eligible to participate in STARI. Students in substantially separate special education classes, students who were level 1 or 2 English language learners, and students whose special education plan included intensive, rules-based phonics intervention, were excluded from study participation. Questions guiding the analysis were: (1) What is the intention-to-treat (ITT) estimate of STARI on the Reading Inventory and Scholastic Evaluation (RISE) for a sample of struggling readers in Grades 6 to 8?; and (2) What is the treatment-on-the treated (TOT) estimate of STARI on the RISE subtests? Evaluation results of STARI suggest that a multi-component Tier-2 intervention for struggling adolescent readers can improve a range of reading outcomes including students' ability to decode words, to read connected text with speed and accuracy, to improve their knowledge of word parts, and to improve sentence and text-level comprehension outcomes. By the middle grades, it may be critical to engage struggling readers with curriculum units that tap student interests and provide opportunities to talk about text with teachers and peers. Tables are appended.
Fidelity of Implementation in a Large-Scale, Randomized, Field Trial: Identifying the Critical Components of Values Affirmation
Author: Bradley, Dominique
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Program Implementation,Fidelity,Intervention,Values Education,Grade 7,Urban Schools,Mixed Methods Research,Randomized Controlled Trials

Several studies suggest that values-affirmation can serve as a simple, yet powerful, tool for dramatically reducing achievement gaps. Because subtle variations in implementation procedures may explain some of the variation in these findings, it is crucial for researchers to measure the fidelity with which interventions are implemented. The authors discuss the two purposes that drove this work: (1) They employed a critical components approach to identify the most crucial elements of a classroom-administered values-affirmation intervention; and (2) Their district-wide randomized trial of values-affirmation revealed important, but relatively modest, impacts compared to previous studies. The intervention took place in an urban school district in the Midwest, and was implemented over two cohorts of 7th grade students across 11 schools, with qualitative data from 44 teachers involved in the exercise implementation. The results show, overall, the implementations across the school year appeared close to the ideal. However, in this scaled up intervention was found substantial variation in fidelity across schools and classrooms, particularly in terms of the teacher-centered delivery of the intervention. While measurements are limited by the realities of scaling up a research project into the everyday classrooms of teachers, the authors believe their data supported integrating teachers more fully into the process of delivery in order to resolve the conflict between teacher blindness on one hand and stealth and normalcy for students on the other--as this internal contradiction was implicated in the variation in teacher delivery.