Effectiveness

Findings

The WWC review of interventions for English language learners addresses student outcomes in three domains: reading achievement, mathematics achievement, and English language development. The study included in this report covers one domain: reading achievement. The findings below present the authors’ estimates and WWC-calculated estimates of the size and the statistical significance of the effects of Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies on English language learners.⁹

Reading achievement. Saenz, Fuchs, and Fuchs (2005) analyzed three reading achievement outcomes, which are three subtests of the Comprehensive Reading Assessment Battery (Word Correct, Maze Choices Correct, and Comprehension Questions Correct) for 3rd- through 6th-grade students. In the maze task, students read a selection in which the first sentence is intact. This is followed by sentences in which every seventh word is replaced with a three-item multiple-choice format. One of the choices is a semantically correct substitution for the missing word. There were no statistically significant effects on the three reading achievement measures once clustering corrections were made. However, the WWC found that the combined effect for reading achievement across all measures was positive and large enough to be considered substantively important (ES = 0.31).

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 Procedures and Standards Handbook, Appendix E).