Helping Students Make the Transition into High School: The Effect of Ninth Grade Academies on Students' Academic and Behavioral Outcomes
Somers, Marie-Andrée; Garcia, Ivonne (2016). MDRC. Retrieved from: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED566404
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examining43Schools, grade9
IES Performance Measure
Review Details
Reviewed: December 2017
- IES Performance Measure (findings for IES Funded Studies (NCER))
- Quasi-Experimental Design
- Meets WWC standards with reservations because it uses a quasi-experimental design in which the analytic intervention and comparison groups satisfy the baseline equivalence requirement.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Average GPA in core courses |
IES Funded Studies (NCER) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Cohort 1;
|
2.21 |
2.14 |
No |
-- | |
|
Average GPA in core courses |
IES Funded Studies (NCER) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Cohort 2;
|
2.21 |
2.15 |
No |
-- | |
|
% Proficient English Language Arts (ELA) |
IES Funded Studies (NCER) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Cohort 1;
|
37.15 |
37.08 |
No |
-- | |
|
% Proficient English Language Arts (ELA) |
IES Funded Studies (NCER) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Cohort 2;
|
39.55 |
39.24 |
No |
-- | |
|
% Proficient English Language Arts (ELA) |
IES Funded Studies (NCER) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Cohort 3;
|
40.63 |
40.06 |
No |
-- | |
|
Average GPA in core courses |
IES Funded Studies (NCER) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Cohort 3;
|
2.18 |
2.17 |
No |
-- | |
|
% Proficient Math |
IES Funded Studies (NCER) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Cohort 1;
|
58.82 |
60.21 |
No |
-- | |
|
% Proficient Math |
IES Funded Studies (NCER) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Cohort 2;
|
58.78 |
61.68 |
No |
-- | |
|
% Proficient Math |
IES Funded Studies (NCER) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Cohort 3;
|
58.81 |
63.22 |
No |
-- |
|
Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
In-School Suspensions |
IES Funded Studies (NCER) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Cohort 2;
|
26.11 |
24.90 |
No |
-- | |
|
Out of School Suspensions |
IES Funded Studies (NCER) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Cohort 2;
|
13.32 |
13.26 |
No |
-- | |
|
Expulsions |
IES Funded Studies (NCER) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Cohort 1;
|
0.00 |
0.02 |
No |
-- | |
|
Expulsions |
IES Funded Studies (NCER) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Cohort 2;
|
0.05 |
0.03 |
No |
-- | |
|
Expulsions |
IES Funded Studies (NCER) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Cohort 3;
|
0.05 |
0.04 |
No |
-- | |
|
In-School Suspensions |
IES Funded Studies (NCER) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Cohort 3;
|
25.73 |
27.09 |
No |
-- | |
|
Out of School Suspensions |
IES Funded Studies (NCER) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Cohort 3;
|
12.66 |
13.28 |
No |
-- |
|
Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Core credit accumulation for graduation (% of core courses) |
IES Funded Studies (NCER) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Cohort 2;
|
21.47 |
21.26 |
No |
-- | |
|
Core credit accumulation for graduation (% of core courses) |
IES Funded Studies (NCER) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Cohort 1;
|
21.43 |
21.51 |
No |
-- | |
|
Core credit accumulation for graduation (% of core courses) |
IES Funded Studies (NCER) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Cohort 3;
|
21.00 |
21.91 |
No |
-- |
|
Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Mean attendance rate |
IES Funded Studies (NCER) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Cohort 3;
|
92.94 |
92.86 |
No |
-- | |
|
Mean attendance rate |
IES Funded Studies (NCER) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Cohort 2;
|
92.76 |
93.03 |
No |
-- | |
|
Mean attendance rate |
IES Funded Studies (NCER) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Cohort 1;
|
92.39 |
92.93 |
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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6% English language learners -
Rural, Urban
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Florida
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Race Black 35% Other or unknown 4% White 47% -
Ethnicity Hispanic 15% Not Hispanic or Latino 85%
Study Details
Setting
The study focused on multiple cohorts of ninth-grade students in 43 public high schools in eight Florida school districts. Each participating school had to be a regular nonmagnet public school with a grade 9 through 12 configuration so that the ninth grade represented a change in school for students.
Study sample
Ninth-grade students of the last cohort before NGA creation were 35% Black and 47% White. A total of 15% of the cohort identified as Hispanic or Latino, and 33% qualified for free or reduced lunch based on weighted averages across intervention and comparison conditions.
Intervention Group
The intervention in this study was Ninth Grade Academies (NGAs). An NGA is a self-contained small learning community in which a group of administrators and teachers work exclusively with grade 9 students to create a personalized school within a school that is responsive to the academic and social needs of incoming and repeating freshmen. The four core structural components of NGAs include: (1) a separate space in the high school that is designated for the program, (2) an administrator who oversees the academy, (3) faculty who only teach grade 9 students, and (4) interdisciplinary teacher teams that share students and planning periods. NGAs also use specific instructional and student support practices which could include coordinated, interdisciplinary curricula, flexible scheduling, specific efforts to close achievement gaps, curricula around career and college awareness, a "summer bridge" program prior to grade 9, extra help, data monitoring and systems and incentives to promote positive behavior.
Comparison Group
The comparison condition included high schools that did not meet the criteria for an NGA program. Comparison schools were selected from among the same school districts as the NGA schools. The study found that some features of the NGA model were implemented in comparison schools, for example providing support services to students in grade 9 and having faculty dedicated to the grade level. Comparison schools did not have dedicated spaces for grade 9 or a specifically dedicated administrator for the grade level.
Support for implementation
The study notes that the intervention was challenging to implement and that many schools lacked the resources to do so.
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.
For more, please see the WWC Glossary entry for improvement index.
An outcome is the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are attained as a result of an activity. An outcome measures is an instrument, device, or method that provides data on the outcome.
A finding that is included in the effectiveness rating. Excluded findings may include subgroups and subscales.
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.
The timing of the post-intervention outcome measure.
The number of students included in the analysis.
The mean score of students in the intervention group.
The mean score of students in the comparison group.
The WWC considers a finding to be statistically significant if the likelihood that the finding is due to chance alone, rather than a real difference, is less than five percent.
The WWC reviews studies for WWC products, Department of Education grant competitions, and IES performance measures.
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Study findings for this report.
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Tier 1 Strong indicates strong evidence of effectiveness,
Tier 2 Moderate indicates moderate evidence of effectiveness, and
Tier 3 Promising indicates promising evidence of effectiveness,
as defined in the
non-regulatory guidance for ESSA
and the regulations for ED discretionary grants (EDGAR Part 77).