Study: 64604

Direct Instruction Intervention Report - Early Childhood Education

Review Details

Reviewed: May 2007

No statistically significant positive
findings

Meets WWC standards with reservations

For:

Direct Instruction Intervention Report - Early Childhood Education

Using:

Rating:

Meets WWC standards with reservations

This review may not reflect the full body of research evidence for this intervention.

Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.

Please see the WWC summary of evidence for Direct Instruction.

Findings

Cognition outcomes—Indeterminate effect found for the domain
Outcome measure	Comparison	Period	Sample	Intervention mean	Comparison mean	Significant?	Improvement index	Evidence tier
The McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities (MSCA): Perceptual	Direct Instruction vs. Mediated Learning	Posttest	3-7 year olds; 164 students	38.20	38.50	No	--
The McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities (MSCA): Memory	Direct Instruction vs. Mediated Learning	Posttest	3-7 year olds; 164 students	36.90	37.30	No	--

General Mathematics Achievement outcomes—Indeterminate effect found for the domain
Outcome measure	Comparison	Period	Sample	Intervention mean	Comparison mean	Significant?	Improvement index	Evidence tier
The McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities (MSCA): Quantitative	Direct Instruction vs. Mediated Learning	Posttest	3-7 year olds; 164 students	38.70	39.60	No	--

Oral language outcomes—Indeterminate effect found for the domain
Outcome measure	Comparison	Period	Sample	Intervention mean	Comparison mean	Significant?	Improvement index
The McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities (MSCA): Verbal	Direct Instruction vs. Mediated Learning	Posttest	3-7 year olds; 164 students	39.20	37.70	No	--
Test of Early Language Development (TELD): Language Quotient	Direct Instruction vs. Mediated Learning	Posttest	3-7 year olds; 164 students	89.50	88.20	No	--
Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test Revised (PPVT-R): Scale Score	Direct Instruction vs. Mediated Learning	Posttest	3-7 year olds; 164 students	81.70	84.60	No	--

Print knowledge outcomes—Indeterminate effect found for the domain
Outcome measure	Comparison	Period	Sample	Intervention mean	Comparison mean	Significant?	Improvement index	Evidence tier
Test of Early Reading Ability (TERA): Reading Quotient	Direct Instruction vs. Mediated Learning	Posttest	3-7 year olds; 164 students	78.00	79.10	No	--

Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.

Sample Characteristics

Characteristics of study sample as reported by study author.

Female: 32%
Male: 68%
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Washington

Race
Black		29%
Other or unknown		9%
White		62%

Study Details

Setting

The study took place at the Experimental Education Unit of the University of Washington’s Child Development and Mental Retardation Center. Preschool classes were two hours a day, five days a week for 180 days, and kindergarten classes were five and a half hours a day, five days a week for 180 days.

Study sample

This study included 164 preschool and kindergarten children from a larger study. They had no previous preschool experience. Eighty-one children were in the intervention group and 83 children were in the comparison group. Individual children were first randomly assigned to a Direct Instruction intervention group or a Mediated Learning comparison group; then children in each condition were randomly assigned to classrooms (six preschool classes and two kindergarten classes). All the children had disabilities, including language delay (80%), cognitive delay (50%), fine motor delay (60%), gross motor delay (60%), and socio-emotional delay (60%). The mean age of the children in the sample was 4.75 years, their mean IQ was 76.03, and 32% were female. Sixty-two percent of the children were European-American, 29% were African-American, and 10% were Hispanic, Pacific Islander, Asian, Native American, or another race/ethnicity.

Intervention Group

The WWC designated the Direct Instruction condition as the intervention for this review. The intervention condition included the Direct Instruction programs DISTAR Arithmetic, DISTAR Reading, and DISTAR Language, which are academically-oriented programs characterized by instruction that is fast-paced, teacher-directed, prescribed, and explicit, with all children receiving instruction on a pre-specified sequence of activities at the same time. Although there is information on the length of each school program, there is no information about the duration or frequency of Direct Instruction.

Comparison Group

The WWC designated the Mediated Learning condition as the comparison condition for this review. The Mediated Learning curriculum included units that were two to three weeks long and focused on topics such as identifying patterns, making comparisons, identifying feelings, and planning ahead. Mediated Learning is a cognitively-oriented, non-academic program that emphasizes processes related to input, elaboration, and output. As opposed to the direct approach used by teachers of Direct Instruction, teachers using Mediated Learning scaffold children’s learning around cognitive processes such as classification and sequencing. Although there is information on the length of each school program, there is no information about the duration or frequency of Mediated Learning.

Outcome descriptions

The primary outcome domains assessed were children’s oral language, print knowledge, cognition, and math. Oral language was assessed with five standardized measures and one non-standardized measure. The standardized measures include: the McCarthy Scales of Children’s Abilities (MSCA) Verbal Scale; the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (PPVT-R); the Test of Early Language Development (TELD); the Preschool Language Assessment Inventory (PLAI); and the Basic Language Concepts Test-Errors (BLCT; criterion referenced measure). The non-standardized measure is the Mean Length of Utterance (MLU) derived from language samples. Print knowledge was assessed with one standardized measure, the Test of Early Reading Ability (TERA). Cognition was assessed with three standardized measures, the MSCA Composite Scale (General Cognitive Index), the MSCA Perceptual Scale, and the MSCA Memory Scale. Math was assessed with one standardized measure, the MSCA Quantitative Scale (see Appendices A2.1–2.4 for detailed descriptions of outcome measures). Data analyses were based on the children’s scores after the first year of participation in the four-year study period.

Support for implementation

Each class was staffed by a head teacher and an assistant teacher. Other staff included related services personnel and practicum students. All head teachers had Master’s degrees in special education. Of the eight Direct Instruction head teachers, three received their degrees from a University of Oregon program that emphasized Direct Instruction, four received in-service training from that program, and one was trained on-site. Two of the Mediated Learning teachers were trained in Mediated Learning at Vanderbilt University and two additional teachers received training from Dr. Feuerstein (an Israeli psychologist whose work is the basis for Mediated Learning) and consultation on curriculum and procedures. The five additional teachers in the Mediated Learning program received ongoing professional development from the teachers who were trained at Vanderbilt.

Additional Sources

In the case of multiple manuscripts that report on one study, the WWC selects one manuscript as the primary citation and lists other manuscripts that describe the study as additional sources.

Cole, K. N., Dale, P. S., & Mills, P. E. (1991). Individual differences in language delayed children's responses to direct and interactive preschool instruction. Topics in Early Childhood Special Education, 11(1), 99-124.

Interaction between Early Intervention Curricula and Student Characteristics.