Effectiveness

Findings

The WWC review of interventions for middle school mathematics curriculum-based interventions addresses student outcomes in mathematics achievement.

Math achievement. Baker (1997) found The Expert Mathematician group did not score statistically significantly higher than the comparison group on the posttest measure of achievement after adjusting for group pretest differences. The WWC confirmed that this finding was not statistically significant but found that it was large enough to be considered substantively important according to WWC criteria.

Rating of effectiveness

The WWC rates an intervention’s effects for 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,³ the size of the difference between participants in the intervention condition and the comparison condition, and the consistency in findings across studies (see the WWC Intervention Rating Scheme).