Research
Eight studies reviewed by the WWC investigated the effects of The Creative Curriculum®. One study (Chapter 3 in PCER Consortium, 2008) was a randomized controlled trial that meets WWC evidence standards. One study (Chapter 2 in PCER Consortium, 2008) used a randomized controlled trial design that had nonrandom allocations after random assignment, but the analytic groups were shown to be equivalent, so the study meets WWC evidence standards with reservations. One study (Henry et al., 2004) is a quasi-experimental design in which the analytic groups were shown to be equivalent, so the study meets WWC evidence standards with reservations. The remaining five studies do not meet WWC evidence standards.
Meets evidence standards
PCER Consortium [Chapter 3] (2008) conducted a randomized controlled trial of teachers and children in five Head Start centers in North Carolina and Georgia.5 Randomization of teachers was conducted in the pilot year. Twenty teachers were blocked on education and teacher certification status and then randomly assigned equally to treatment or control. Eighteen of the classrooms were maintained during the evaluation year. Then, children within a center were sorted into blocks based on gender, disability status, and ethnicity and randomly assigned to treatment or control classrooms. Each of the five participating Head Start centers included both treatment and control classrooms. Data were collected for 171 children (90 Creative Curriculum® and 81 control). The study investigated effects on oral language, print knowledge, phonological processing, and math. The control condition consisted of teacher-developed, nonspecific curricula with a focus on basic school readiness. The study reported children’s outcomes in the spring of the preschool year and again at the end of kindergarten.
Meets evidence standards with reservations
PCER Consortium [Chapter 2] (2008) assessed the effectiveness of The Creative Curriculum® as part of the PCER effort. This study of 28 preschools in Tennessee was a randomized controlled trial with severe attrition. In the pilot year, 36 full-day preschool classrooms were sorted into blocks based on demographic and achievement characteristics and then randomly assigned to The Creative Curriculum®, to Bright Beginnings, or to the control group. Also in the pilot year, 21 of the 36 classrooms (7 from each group) were randomly selected to become part of the PCER study in the following year. After the pilot year, 8 classrooms from the PCER study dropped out. Eight classrooms were randomly selected from the local study classrooms to replace those that had dropped out, bringing the total to 7 classrooms per group again for the PCER evaluation (7 Creative Curriculum® and 7 control). The study investigated effects on oral language, print knowledge, phonological processing, and math. The WWC based its effectiveness ratings on findings from comparisons of 93 students who received The Creative Curriculum® and 100 control group students who received teacher-developed, nonspecific curricula with a focus on basic school readiness. The study demonstrated the baseline equivalence of the outcome measures for the analytic sample of intervention and control group children. The study reported students’ outcomes in the spring of the preschool year and again at the end of kindergarten.
Henry et al. (2004) conducted a quasi-experimental design study that compared 482 children in 69 state prekindergarten, Head Start, and private preschool program classrooms in Georgia that were using The Creative Curriculum® or another curriculum (High/Scope, High Reach, or a different curriculum).6 The study investigated effects on oral language, print knowledge, and math. The baseline intervention and comparison groups were equivalent on the achievement measures in the fall. The study reported students’ outcomes in the spring of the preschool year.
Extent of evidence
The WWC categorizes the extent of evidence in each domain as small or medium to large (see the WWC Procedures and Standards Handbook, Appendix G). The extent of evidence takes into account the number of studies and the total sample size across the studies that meet WWC evidence standards with or without reservations.7
The WWC considers the extent of evidence for The Creative Curriculum® to be medium to large for oral language, print knowledge, phonological processing, and math. No studies that meet WWC evidence standards with or without reservations examined the effectiveness of The Creative Curriculum® in the early reading and writing or the cognition domains.
5 The study was part of the Preschool Curriculum Evaluation Research Consortium (2008) that evaluated a total of 14 preschool curricula, including The Creative Curriculum®, in comparison to the respective control conditions.
6 To calculate effects of The Creative Curriculum®, the WWC aggregated means and standard deviations across three comparison curricula: High/Scope, High Reach, and other.
7 The extent of evidence categorization was developed to tell readers how much evidence was used to determine the intervention rating, focusing on the number and size of studies. Additional factors associated with a related concept—external validity, such as the students’ demographics and the types of settings in which studies took place—are not taken into account for the categorization. Information about how the extent of evidence rating was determined for The Creative Curriculum® is in Appendix A6.