Long-Term Findings From a Randomized Controlled Trial of Higher Achievement

• In Event: 52.044 - Recent Research Insights Into Summer Learning Losses and Gains

Abstract

The goal of the RCT was to determine the potential of academic OST programs by examining the impact of Higher Achievement, an intensive year-round academically oriented OST program. A sample of 952 economically disadvantaged rising 5th and 6th graders was randomly assigned to either the treatment or control group. Students were tested in math and reading in 1, 2 and 4 years after random assignment. They and their parents also filled out surveys after the exams. on students’ math and reading test scores, their academic attitudes and behaviors and the high schools to which they matriculate.

Researchers found that:
• Higher Achievement fostered improvements in both math and reading. However, these changes took more than a year to materialize, and only the math impacts were sustained four years after youth enrolled in the program.
• The size of the gains was substantial relative to those yielded in other studies of out-of-school-time (OST) programs and year-to-year gains typically seen in middle school.
• Higher Achievement boosted the odds that youth would apply to, be admitted to and attend a private high school (the latter by 67%). And the program successfully steered youth away from weaker public magnet and charter schools.

To understand more about how Higher Achievement may have produced these benefits, the researchers examined a number of potential contributing factors. They found that Higher Achievement affected the types of academic and enrichment activities youth engaged in and the extent to which youth engaged in these activities with adults; youth’s academic attitudes and behaviors; the high school–related activities youth engaged in; and the extent to which youth’s parents participated in the high school application process. Higher Achievement did not appear to affect youth’s learning over the course of the summer; the types of peers youth spent time with; the amount of adult support they experienced; or youth’s reported criteria for selecting a high school.

These findings suggest that intensive OST programs like Higher Achievement can produce important benefits for middle school youth and may help keep them on a positive path well into the future. They also highlight some of the factors that other programs might consider trying to influence as they work to increase their impact on youth’s lives.

Author

• Jean Grossman, MDRC/ Princeton Univ