Effectiveness

Findings

The WWC review of interventions for Early Childhood Education addresses student outcomes in six domains: oral language, print knowledge, cognition, math, phonological processing, and early reading/writing. The study included in this report covers four domains: oral language, print knowledge, cognition, and math. The findings below present the authors’ estimates and WWC calculated estimates of the size and statistical significance of the effects of Tools of the Mind on children.⁵

Oral language. Barnett et al. (2008) reported results separately for regression and hierarchical linear model (HLM) analyses. For regression analysis, the authors found a statistically significant positive effect of Tools of the Mind on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT-III). For hierarchical linear model analysis, which accounted for clustering of children within classrooms, the effect was not statistically significant. The study authors did not find statistically significant effects of Tools of the Mind on the second oral language measure: Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (EOWPVT-R). The WWC found that the average effect size across the two outcomes was neither statistically significant nor large enough to be considered substantively important (an effect size at least 0.25) according to WWC criteria.

Print knowledge. The study authors did not find statistically significant effects of Tools of the Mind on either measure of print knowledge: Woodcock-Johnson-Revised Letter Word Identification subtest or Get Ready to Read! assessment. The average effect size across the two outcomes was not large enough to be considered substantively important according to WWC criteria.

Cognition. Barnett et al. (2008) did not find a statistically significant effect of the Tools of the Mind curriculum on the Animal Pegs Subtest of the Wechsler Preschool Primary Scale of Intelligence, and the effect was not large enough to be considered substantively important according to WWC criteria.

Math. Barnett et al. (2008) did not find a statistically significant effect of the Tools of the Mind curriculum on the Woodcock-Johnson-Revised Applied Problems subtest, and the effect was not large enough to be considered substantively important according to WWC criteria.

Rating of effectiveness

The WWC rates the effects of an intervention in a given outcome domain as positive, potentially positive, mixed, no discernible effects, potentially negative, or negative. The rating of effectiveness takes into account four factors: the quality of the research design, the statistical significance of the findings, the size of the difference between participants in the intervention and the comparison conditions, and the consistency in findings across studies (see the WWC Intervention Rating Scheme).

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