Efficacy of Rich Vocabulary Instruction in Fourth- and Fifth-Grade Classrooms
Vadasy, Patricia F.; Sanders, Elizabeth A.; Logan Herrera, Becky (2015). Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, v8 n3 p325-365. Retrieved from: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1068559
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examining1,532Students, grades4-5
IES Performance Measure
Review Details
Reviewed: September 2017
- IES Performance Measure (findings for Rich Vocabulary (RVOC))
- Randomized Controlled Trial
- Meets WWC standards without reservations because it is a randomized controlled trial with low attrition.
This review may not reflect the full body of research evidence for this intervention.
Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.
Findings
|
Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS): Reading Comprehension |
Rich Vocabulary (RVOC) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Full sample;
|
32.07 |
32.83 |
No |
-- |
|
Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Iowa Test of Basic skills-Vocabulary |
Rich Vocabulary (RVOC) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Full sample;
|
26.91 |
27.35 |
No |
-- |
Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.
Sample Characteristics
Characteristics of study sample as reported by study author.
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West
Study Details
Setting
The authors present sample demographics by intervention and comparison group on Table 1 (p.330). About one third of the students were minority status (Black, Hispanic, or Asian), half were from each grade level (fourth and fifth), about half were female, less than 10% were receiving English learner and less than 10% were receiving special education services and the students were on average 10 years old at the pretest.
Study sample
The authors present sample demographics by intervention and comparison group on Table 1 (p.330). About one third of the students were minority status (Black, Hispanic, or Asian), half were from each grade level (fourth and fifth), about half were female, less than 10% were receiving English learner and less than 10% were receiving special education services and the students were on average 10 years old at the pretest.
Intervention Group
The intervention group received RVOC instruction five days per week for 14 weeks. The researchers developed the instructional materials based on a teachers’ handbook, Creating Robust Vocabulary, and selected a set of activities to fit in each week’s schedule, with 30-minute sessions in the first four days and one 10-minute review session on the fifth day. All instructional materials were provided to teachers and lesson components were scripted. The instruction was developed to teach 140 tier 2 words embedded in two grade-level novels: A Long Way from Chicago, and Maniac Magee. On average, intervention group teachers spent 35 minutes per literacy block on vocabulary instruction and 13 minutes on comprehension instruction.
Comparison Group
The comparison group participated in regular language arts/literacy block vocabulary instruction. On average, comparison group teachers spent 9 minutes per literacy block on vocabulary instruction and 25 minutes on comprehension instruction. The intervention and comparison groups provided similar levels of other language arts instruction, including word study instruction and text reading instruction.
Support for implementation
Researchers engaged in four key activities intended to improved intervention fidelity: coaching and modeling during site visits; teacher logs of how much time was spent on each RVOC activity; teacher-researcher email communication; and formal classroom observations of teachers in the intervention and comparison conditions. First, researchers visited classrooms during the first two weeks to provide coaching on the intervention and train teachers on how to log the time spent on each RVOC activity. The researchers engaged in follow-up communication via phone and email. Second, the researchers also conducted three formal classroom observations of all intervention teachers in the study to ensure the teachers were allocating the right amount of time to the RVOC activities in their 30 minute instructional block. Third, they conducted three observations in both intervention and comparison classrooms to evaluate whether: (a) intervention teachers were maintaining fidelity to the RVOC model to which they were assigned; (b) to examine if there was any contamination in comparison classrooms; and (c) to examine comparison group teachers’ business-as-usual instruction. The researchers found no evidence of contamination among intervention and comparison teachers.
An indicator of the effect of the intervention, the improvement index can be interpreted as the expected change in percentile rank for an average comparison group student if that student had received the intervention.
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The sample on which the analysis was conducted.
The group to which the intervention group is compared, which may include a different intervention, business as usual, or no services.
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The mean score of students in the comparison group.
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Study findings for this report.
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as defined in the
non-regulatory guidance for ESSA
and the regulations for ED discretionary grants (EDGAR Part 77).