The Roles of Transfer and Forgetting in the Persistence and Fadeout of Early Childhood Mathematics Interventions

• In Event: Poster Session 2
  In Poster Session: Division C Section 2a Poster Session 4: Cognitive Processes

Abstract

Previous studies have usually described the fadeout of academic intervention effects as a process of the control group “catching up” to the treatment group due to the treatment group learning at a slower trajectory than the control group. While we agree with this premise, it does not rule out the possibility that the fadeout effect can also be explained by a treatment-control difference in the forgetting of mathematics knowledge. Using OLS probability regression analysis, we found that while forgetting is not the primary contributor of the fadeout of intervention impacts, it is a significant contributor and the magnitude of this treatment-control difference in forgetting accounts for about 28% of the size of the fadeout effect of an early mathematics intervention.

Authors

• Connie Yun Kang, University of California - Irvine

• Greg Duncan, University of California - Irvine

• 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

• Drew Bailey, University of California - Irvine