Policies Supporting Scale-Up of Interventions for Children at Risk in Early Mathematics

• In Event: Math Learning Among At-Risk Students From Preschool Through Fourth Grade: Implications for Educational Policy and Practice

Abstract

Objectives
A challenging issue for research and policy is scaling up programs for children from non-dominant groups across diverse contexts in the U.S. early education system, avoiding the dilution and pollution that plagues such efforts to achieve broad implementation and impact. Critical educational problems include (1) scaling up interventions shown to be successful (only) in small-scale studies, (2) ensuring that effects of that intervention persist, and (3) encouraging successful diffusion of the innovation. We conducted a mixed-method evaluation of a model for scaling up successful interventions for children from low-resource communities, children of color, and who are ELLs.

Theoretical Framework
We implemented in early childhood because long-range benefits to children are greatest for such interventions (Carneiro & Heckman, 2003) and because there is conflicting evidence as to whether their effects persist or “fade.” We implemented a mathematics intervention because studies show such competencies are strongly predictive of later school success in all domains (Duncan & Magnuson, 2011). Our TRIAD model’s theoretical grounding is the Network of Influences model (Sarama, Clements, & Henry, 1998), based on research on scale up, especially from the diffusion of innovations field. Each component of TRIAD has a central core of learning trajectories, descriptions of children’s thinking and learning…and a related, conjectured route through a set of instructional tasks. Learning trajectories bring coherence and consistency to TRIAD's three components of assessment, professional development, and instruction, and facilitate communication among stakeholders.

Methods and Data Sources
The main quantitative method was a cluster randomized trial experiment for 42 schools in two states. Qualitative data was collected via naturalist inquiry (Lincoln & Guba, 1985), including case studies of teachers, aggregated to schools and districts (e.g., events indicating diffusion to surrounding districts, including catalysts and blockages).

Results
Briefly, results from the final year showed that students in the experimental group scored significantly higher than control students (g = .48 for those who received follow through intervention in kindergarten and 1st grade; g = .27 for non-follow through) and that follow-through students also scored significantly higher than non-follow-through students (g = .27). Moderator and mediator analyses found benefits for African-American children and confirmed mediational roles of the classroom mathematical culture.

Policy Implications
• All children benefit from a research-based early mathematics intervention, and children of color, who are ELLs, and from low-resource communities benefit the most.
• Benefits extend beyond mathematics—itself one of the best predictors of later school success—to include language and cognitive skills (such as executive function).
• Both a research-based curriculum and professional development over years (training plus coaching) are critical for realizing this benefit. These should support scientific, not idiosyncratic, practice.
• Follow through into the primary grades is a sine qua non of a successful scale-up effort.
• Guidelines that dictate pacing and time of instruction for the primary grades can backfire.
• Learning trajectories form an essential common core (“boundary object”) for linking goals (standards), learning, and teaching, as well as for communicating across grade levels and across diverse groups of participants and stakeholders.

Authors

• Douglas H. Clements, University of Denver

• Julie Sarama, University of Denver

• Christopher B. Wolfe, University at Buffalo - SUNY

• Mary Elaine Spitler, State University of New York