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Effectiveness of Reading and Mathematics Software Products: Findings from the First Student Cohort
NCEE 2007-4005
March 2007

Selecting Technology Products for the Study

The study was based on the voluntary participation of technology product developers, districts and schools, and teachers. Their characteristics provide an important part of the study's structure and context for interpreting its findings.

Before products could be selected, decisions were needed about the study's focus. The legislation mandating the study provided general guidelines but did not describe specifically how the study was to be implemented. A design team consisting of U.S. Department of Education staff, researchers from MPR and its partners, and researchers and educational technology experts recommended that the study

  • focus attention on technology products that support reading or math instruction in low-income schools serving the K–12 grades;
  • use an experimental design to ensure that measured achievement gains could be attributed to products; and
  • base the analysis of student academic achievement on a commonly used standardized test.

The team also identified conditions and practices whose relationships to effectiveness could be studied, and recommended a public process in which developers of technology products would be invited to provide information that a panel would consider in its selection of products for the study. A design report provided discussion and rationales for the recommendations.

A total of 160 submissions were received in response to a public invitation made by ED and MPR in September 2003. A team rated the submissions on evidence of effectiveness (based on previous research conducted by the companies or by other parties), whether products could operate on a scale that was suitable for a national study, and whether companies had the capacity to provide training to schools and teachers on the use of their products. A list of candidate products was then reviewed by two external panels (one each for reading and math). ED selected 16 products for the study from among the recommendations made by the panels and announced the choices in January 2004. ED also identified four grade levels for the study, deciding to study reading products in first and fourth grades and math products in sixth grade and in algebra classes, typically composed of ninth graders. Twelve of the 16 products have either received or been nominated to receive awards (some as recently as 2006) from trade associations, media, parents, and teachers. The study did not determine the number of schools, teachers, and students already using the selected products.

The voluntary aspect of company participation in the study meant that products were not a representative sampling of reading and math technology used in schools. Not all products were submitted for consideration by the study, and most products that were submitted were not selected. Also, products that were selected were able to provide at least some evidence of effectiveness from previous research. ED recognized that selecting ostensibly more effective products could tilt the study toward finding higher levels of effectiveness, but the tilt was viewed as a reasonable tradeoff to avoid investing the study's resources in products that had little or no evidence of effectiveness.

The study was designed to report results for groups of products rather than for individual products. Congress asked whether technology was effective and not how the effectiveness of individual products compared. Further, a study designed to determine the effectiveness of groups of products required fewer classrooms and schools to achieve a target level of statistical precision and thus had lower costs than a study designed to determine the effectiveness of individual products at the same level of precision. Developers of software products volunteered to participate in the study with the understanding that the results would be reported only for groups of products.

During the course of implementing the study, various parties expressed an interest in knowing results for individual products. To accommodate that interest, the design of the study was modified in its second year of data collection. At the same time, product developers were asked to consent to having individual results about their products reported in the second year of data collection. A report of the results from the second year is forthcoming.

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