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First-Year Results of Federal Mathematics Education Study Shed Light on What Works To Raise Math Achievement in Early Grades
Contact: Joanne Pfleiderer, (609) 275-2372
PRINCETON, N.J. (February 25, 2009)—Educators and policymakers have long debated which textbooks and their associated instructional approaches have the greatest impact on student learning in key subjects. This has been particularly true in early math where, lacking information about which learning programs are most effective, educators have waged ideological battles about which materials should guide instruction.
A new large-scale federal study of the effectiveness of four early math programs brings new clarity to what works. The four programs are distinct from one another and represent many of the diverse approaches used to teach elementary school math in the United States. (See attached for brief descriptions of each program.) These four programs plus three others not in the study comprise 91 percent of the math curricula used in schools today.
The study, just released by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences, found that two of these programs significantly outperform the other two in randomized trials where 1st-grade teachers in 39 schools were assigned to use the various curricula during the 2006-07 school year.
Researchers from Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., and its subcontractor SRI International evaluated each curriculum for its effect on 1st-grade math achievement. They found that each curriculum improved student math achievement, but there were differences between the curricula:
- Student math achievement was significantly higher in schools assigned to Math Expressions and Saxon Math (Saxon), than in schools assigned to Investigations in Number, Data, and Space (Investigations) and Scott Foresman-Addison Wesley Mathematics (SFAW).
- The effect is strong enough that an average-performing student’s percentile rank would improve by 9 to 12 points if the school used Math Expressions or Saxon, instead of Investigations or SFAW.
In addition, the better performing programs showed improved results for several student subgroups, including students in schools with low math scores and students in schools with high poverty levels.
“Instead of escalating the rhetoric about particular approaches to teaching math and further fueling the math wars, we need to continue evaluating what works to improve student learning,” says Roberto Agodini, senior economist at Mathematica who served as the study’s director and principal investigator. “This report for the study’s first cohort of participants is a major step in figuring out how educators can improve math achievement of early elementary school students. It is important for students to develop a strong foundation in math in these early years—research shows that this foundation leads to future success in math, and in college and the labor market.”
Study Design and Implementation
The Mathematica study, the largest of its kind ever to use an experimental design to study a variety of math curricula, includes a total of 110 schools. This report is based on the first cohort of 39 schools that joined the study during the 2006-07 school year. Another 71 schools joined the study during the next (2007-08) school year.
The study team that produced the report, Achievement Effects of Four Early Elementary School Math Curricula: Findings from First Graders in 39 Schools, randomly assigned schools in each participating district to the four curricula, thereby setting up an experiment in each district. The sites are geographically dispersed in four states and in three regions of the country.
All teachers received initial training from the publishers of their assigned curriculum, and 96 percent received follow-up training. Taken together, training varied by curriculum, ranging from an average of 1.4 to 3.9 days. Nearly all teachers (99 percent in the fall, 98 percent in the spring) reported using their assigned curriculum as their core math curriculum according to fall and spring surveys, and about one-third (34 percent in fall and 36 percent in spring) reported supplementing their curriculum with other materials.
Other data also suggest that teachers regularly used their curriculum throughout the school year. Eighty-eight percent of teachers reported completing at least 80 percent of their assigned curriculum. With regard to instructional time, Saxon teachers on average reported spending one more hour on math instruction per week than did teachers using the other curricula.
Next Steps for the Study
Results from all 110 schools participating in the study will be presented in a follow-up report. Those results will include a second year of curriculum implementation that occurred during the 2007-08 school year, where implementation included both the 1st and 2nd grades. A third report will present findings from a third year of implementation (the 2008-09 school year), in which a subset of schools expanded curriculum implementation to the 3rd grade.
Mathematica, a nonpartisan research firm, conducts high-quality, objective policy research and surveys to improve public well-being. Its clients include federal and state governments, foundations, and private-sector and international organizations. The employee-owned company, with offices in Princeton, N.J., Washington, D.C., Cambridge, Mass., Ann Arbor, Mich., and Oakland, Calif., has conducted some of the most important studies of education, health care, welfare, employment, nutrition, and early childhood policies and programs in the United States.