Students Turn the Tables on School Research -- And Do It Themselves
Voice of San Diego
By EMILY ALPERT
June 15, 2009
...are usually under the microscope in education research as scholars try to figure out how to raise their test scores or why they drop out. Now the teens are manning the microscopes. A fledgling extracurricular project, now in its third year in San Diego Unified, empowers students to study the inner workings of their own schools, from why teens skip tutoring to whether classes are interesting.
Trained by researchers from the University of California, San Diego, students at four different schools chose their own questions, learned to conduct interviews, gathered and analyzed data from surveys and classroom visits, and even explained their work at an annual conference for education wonks in the convention center downtown. The teens volunteered for the project and met roughly once a week after school.
"There is always debate about how to improve schools," said Makeba Jones, a project scientist at the Center for Research on Educational Equity, Assessment and Teaching Excellence at UCSD, who led the project along with fellow researcher Susan Yonezawa. "Who better to ask than the students themselves?"..
Showing posts with label research on education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label research on education. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Federal studies show most programs yield few results
'No Effects' Studies Raising Eyebrows
EdWeek.org
By Debra Viadero
March 31, 2009
...The studies are part of a new generation of so-called "scientifically based" research that was set in motion by the institute—the main research arm of the U.S. Department of Education—when it was created in 2002.
The body of research employs a study design called "randomized controlled trials," in which subjects are randomly assigned to either an experimental group or a business-as-usual group. Although rarely used in education before the wave of studies backed by the IES, such designs are widely considered to be the "gold standard" for determining whether an intervention works.
Of the eight such studies released by the federal institute this academic year, six have produced mixed results pointing to few, or no, significant positive effects on student achievement.
They include studies on: school-based mentoring programs in elementary school; commercial software programs for teaching mathematics; various certification routes for teachers; teacher-induction programs; interventions for boosting literacy instruction for disadvantaged preschoolers and their families; and professional-development initiatives in reading.
In addition, the research agency’s final evaluation of the federal Reading First program, which uses a research design that differs slightly from the randomized controlled approach, found that the $6 billion federal reading program improved young children’s decoding skills, but failed to make dramatic differences in reading comprehension.
On the other hand, an ongoing study of “double dose” reading classes for struggling 9th grade readers is showing positive results. And a head-to-head comparison of four different elementary math curricula identified two, philosophically different programs that gave 2nd graders an added boost in that subject over the standard curricula...
EdWeek.org
By Debra Viadero
March 31, 2009
...The studies are part of a new generation of so-called "scientifically based" research that was set in motion by the institute—the main research arm of the U.S. Department of Education—when it was created in 2002.
The body of research employs a study design called "randomized controlled trials," in which subjects are randomly assigned to either an experimental group or a business-as-usual group. Although rarely used in education before the wave of studies backed by the IES, such designs are widely considered to be the "gold standard" for determining whether an intervention works.
Of the eight such studies released by the federal institute this academic year, six have produced mixed results pointing to few, or no, significant positive effects on student achievement.
They include studies on: school-based mentoring programs in elementary school; commercial software programs for teaching mathematics; various certification routes for teachers; teacher-induction programs; interventions for boosting literacy instruction for disadvantaged preschoolers and their families; and professional-development initiatives in reading.
In addition, the research agency’s final evaluation of the federal Reading First program, which uses a research design that differs slightly from the randomized controlled approach, found that the $6 billion federal reading program improved young children’s decoding skills, but failed to make dramatic differences in reading comprehension.
On the other hand, an ongoing study of “double dose” reading classes for struggling 9th grade readers is showing positive results. And a head-to-head comparison of four different elementary math curricula identified two, philosophically different programs that gave 2nd graders an added boost in that subject over the standard curricula...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)