Effects of the Tennessee Prekindergarten Program on children’s achievement and behavior through third grade
Lipsey, MW., Farran, DC., and Durkin, K. (2018). Early Childhood Research Quarterly. Volume 45, pp 155-176. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0885200618300279.
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examining1,043Students, gradePK
Department-funded evaluation
Review Details
Reviewed: January 2023
- Department-funded evaluation (findings for Tennessee Voluntary Prekindergarten program (TN-VPK))
- Randomized Controlled Trial
- Meets WWC standards with reservations because it is a compromised randomized controlled trial, but 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Woodcock-Johnson Composite 6 |
Tennessee Voluntary Prekindergarten program (TN-VPK) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Full sample: Intensive substudy ITT analysis;
|
411.30 |
407.40 |
Yes |
|
|
|
Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Woodcock Johnson (WJ): Letter-word Identification subtest |
Tennessee Voluntary Prekindergarten program (TN-VPK) vs. Business as usual |
0 Years |
Intensive substudy: ITT analysis;
|
344.10 |
337.10 |
Yes |
|
|
|
Woodcock-Johnson III (WJ-III): Spelling subtest |
Tennessee Voluntary Prekindergarten program (TN-VPK) vs. Business as usual |
0 Years |
Intensive substudy: ITT analysis;
|
376.90 |
371.00 |
Yes |
|
|
|
Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Woodcock Johnson III - Picture Vocabulary Subtest |
Tennessee Voluntary Prekindergarten program (TN-VPK) vs. Business as usual |
0 Years |
Intensive substudy: ITT analysis;
|
463.00 |
459.70 |
Yes |
|
|
|
Woodcock-Johnson III (WJ-III): Oral Comprehension |
Tennessee Voluntary Prekindergarten program (TN-VPK) vs. Business as usual |
0 Years |
Intensive substudy: ITT analysis;
|
452.20 |
451.70 |
No |
-- |
|
Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Woodcock-Johnson III (WJ-III): Quantitative Concepts |
Tennessee Voluntary Prekindergarten program (TN-VPK) vs. Business as usual |
0 Years |
Intensive substudy: ITT analysis;
|
422.30 |
419.10 |
Yes |
|
|
|
Woodcock-Johnson III (WJ-III): Applied Problems subtest |
Tennessee Voluntary Prekindergarten program (TN-VPK) vs. Business as usual |
0 Years |
Intensive substudy: ITT analysis;
|
409.60 |
405.80 |
Yes |
|
|
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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20% English language learners -
Female: 52%
Male: 48% -
Rural, Suburban, Urban
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Tennessee
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Race Black 23% Other or unknown 21% White 56% -
Ethnicity Hispanic 19% Not Hispanic or Latino 81%
Study Details
Setting
The RCT intensive subsample (ISS), which is the focus of this WWC review, included 58 voluntary pre-kindergarten programs that operated across the state of Tennessee. The full sample RCT study included 79 programs, some of which enrolled separate cohorts of youth over a two year period.
Study sample
The initial ISS sample was about half boys (48 percent), just over half white (56 percent), and about 23 percent black. Nineteen percent of the students in the ISS sample were Hispanic; race is not reported for Hispanic students. Twenty percent of students did not speak English as a native language. The full RCT sample was about half boys (49 percent), half white (49 percent), 27 percent black, and 23 percent Hispanic. About a quarter of the full RCT sample (24 percent) did not speak English as a native language. All students in the research sample were eligible to receive free or reduced price lunch as it was a requirement for being an eligible applicant for the voluntary pre-k programming. All students were approximately four years old and eligible to enter Kindergarten the following school year.
Intervention Group
Tennessee's voluntary pre-k programs are funded through the Tennessee Department of Education and serve low income youth. Districts must apply for funding for a pre-k program, and they receive an amount based on their basic education program formula. If these funds are not sufficient, the local district must make up the difference. Students must be 4 years old and eligible for kindergarten the following year. Students eligible for free or reduced price lunch are given priority for admission. Programs must include 5.5 hours of instructional time per day, 5 days per week. A state-licensed teacher endorsed for early childhood education must lead classes of no more than 20 students. These teachers receive the same pay scale as regular K-12 teachers. Tennessee sets broad standards for pre-k programs, though districts have latitude to determine how best to meet those standards.
Comparison Group
Approximately one-third of youth who were assigned to the comparison group eventually attended a voluntary pre-k program. This is the case in the full RCT analysis as well as the ISS subsample.
Support for implementation
No additional support was provided by the study for implementation.
Department-funded evaluation
Review Details
Reviewed: October 2018
- Department-funded evaluation (findings for Tennessee Voluntary Prekindergarten program (TN-VPK))
- Randomized Controlled Trial
- Meets WWC standards with reservations because it is a compromised randomized controlled trial, but 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Woodcock-Johnson Composite 6 |
Tennessee Voluntary Prekindergarten program (TN-VPK) vs. Business as usual |
0 Years |
ISS;
|
411.30 |
407.40 |
Yes |
|
|
|
Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Woodcock Johnson (WJ): Letter-word Identification subtest |
Tennessee Voluntary Prekindergarten program (TN-VPK) vs. Business as usual |
0 Years |
ISS;
|
343.80 |
337.10 |
Yes |
|
|
|
Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Woodcock Johnson III - Picture Vocabulary Subtest |
Tennessee Voluntary Prekindergarten program (TN-VPK) vs. Business as usual |
0 Years |
ISS;
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462.38 |
459.70 |
Yes |
|
|
|
Woodcock-Johnson III (WJ-III): Oral Comprehension |
Tennessee Voluntary Prekindergarten program (TN-VPK) vs. Business as usual |
0 Years |
ISS;
|
451.99 |
451.70 |
No |
-- |
|
Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Woodcock-Johnson III (WJ-III): Applied Problems subtest |
Tennessee Voluntary Prekindergarten program (TN-VPK) vs. Business as usual |
0 Years |
ISS;
|
410.53 |
405.80 |
Yes |
|
|
|
Woodcock-Johnson III (WJ-III): Quantitative Concepts |
Tennessee Voluntary Prekindergarten program (TN-VPK) vs. Business as usual |
0 Years |
ISS;
|
422.30 |
419.10 |
Yes |
|
|
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.
-
24% English language learners -
Female: 51%
Male: 49% -
Rural, Suburban, Urban
-
- B
- A
- C
- D
- E
- F
- G
- I
- H
- J
- K
- L
- P
- M
- N
- O
- Q
- R
- S
- V
- U
- T
- W
- X
- Z
- Y
- a
- h
- i
- b
- d
- e
- f
- c
- g
- j
- k
- l
- m
- n
- o
- p
- q
- r
- s
- t
- u
- v
- x
- w
- y
Tennessee
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Race Black 27% Other or unknown 23% White 49% -
Ethnicity Hispanic 23% Not Hispanic or Latino 78%
Study Details
Setting
Students included in this analysis are those whose parents applied to have them attend an over-subscribed voluntary pre-k programs in Tennessee. Two cohorts of students are included in the analysis.
Study sample
The full RCT sample was about half boys (49 percent), half white (49 percent), and about 27 percent black. More than a fifth of the students in the full RCT sample was Hispanic; as is typical, the race is not reported for Hispanic students. About a quarter of the full sample (24 percent) did not speak English as a native language. (p. 5)
Intervention Group
Tennessee's pre-k program are funded through the Tennessee Department of Education. Districts must apply for funding for a pre-k program, and they receive an amount based on their basic education program formula. If these funds are not sufficient, the local district must make up the difference. Students must be 4 years old and eligible for kindergarten the following year - FRPL students are given priority admission. There must be at least 5.5 hours of instructional time per day, 5 days per week. A state-licensed teacher endorsed for early childhood education leads classes of no more than 20 students. These teachers receive the same pay scale as regular K-12 teachers. Tennessee sets broad standards for pre-k programs, though districts have latitude to determine how best to meet those standards (p. 3)
Comparison Group
The comparison condition was business as usual.
Support for implementation
No additional support was provided by the study for implementation.
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.
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The number of students included in the analysis.
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