Effects of Fourth- and Fifth-Grade Super Solvers Intervention on Fraction Magnitude Understanding and Calculation Skill [Super Solvers vs. Super Solvers with error analysis]

Findings

Rational Numbers Computation outcomes—Indeterminate effect found for the domain

Outcome measure	Comparison	Period	Sample	Intervention mean	Comparison mean	Significant?	Improvement     index	Evidence tier
Fraction Calculations (Malone & Fuchs, 2017)	Super Solvers vs. Super Solvers with error analysis	0 Days	Super Solvers (fraction magnitude + calculations) vs. Super Solvers (fraction magnitude + calculations) + Error Analysis; 91 students	6.53	6.38	No	--

Rational Numbers Knowledge outcomes—Indeterminate effect found for the domain

Outcome measure	Comparison	Period	Sample	Intervention mean	Comparison mean	Significant?	Improvement     index	Evidence tier
National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP-revised; U.S. Department of Education, 1990-2009), 17 selected items (Fuchs et al., 2019)	Super Solvers vs. Super Solvers with error analysis	0 Days	Super Solvers (fraction magnitude + calculations) vs. Super Solvers (fraction magnitude + calculations) + Error Analysis; 91 students	6.11	6.52	No	--

Rational Numbers Magnitude Understanding/Relative Magnitude Understanding outcomes—Indeterminate effect found for the domain

Outcome measure	Comparison	Period	Sample	Intervention mean	Comparison mean	Significant?	Improvement     index	Evidence tier
Ordering Fractions	Super Solvers vs. Super Solvers with error analysis	0 Days	Super Solvers (fraction magnitude + calculations) vs. Super Solvers (fraction magnitude + calculations) + Error Analysis; 91 students	5.87	6.05	No	--
0-2 Fraction Number Line	Super Solvers vs. Super Solvers with error analysis	0 Days	Super Solvers (fraction magnitude + calculations) vs. Super Solvers (fraction magnitude + calculations) + Error Analysis; 91 students	0.31	0.32	No	--

Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.

Study Details

Setting

This study takes place in a school district in a U.S. southeastern metropolitan city. Participating students were drawn from 49 classrooms in 13 schools.

Study sample

The Super Solvers group included 52% female, 43% African-Americans, 23% white students, 25% Hispanic students, 9% classified as other, 9% who received special education services, 27% who were classified as English learners, and 52% who qualified for subsidized lunch. The Super Solvers + Error Analysis group included 50% female, 46% African-Americans, 20% white students, 24% Hispanic students, 10% classified as other, 14% who received special education services, 28% who were classified as English learners, and 52% who qualified for subsidized lunch. And the comparison group included 47% female, 43% African-Americans, 29% white students, 21% Hispanic students, 7% classified as other, 13% who received special education services, 23% who were classified as English learners, and 58% who qualified for subsidized lunch.

Intervention Group

For this contrast, the intervention condition is Super Solvers. The Super Solvers intervention was delivered to student dyads in 40-minute sessions, 3 times a week for 13 weeks. The intervention focused on two components of the Super Solvers program: Fraction Action (focused on fraction magnitude understanding) and Calculations Quest (focused on fraction calculation). During the first 21 lessons, Fraction Action comprises 17 minutes of the first 21 lessons, and then beginning with Lesson 22, decreases to just 10 minutes of review. Calculations Quest comprises only five minutes of Lessons 13 to 21 but then increases to 15 minutes in Lesson 22. Lessons 4 to 13 also include five minutes focused on whole-number multiplication, and Lesson 22 includes a brief two-minute activity focused on multiplication fluency. Each lesson includes three minutes of discussion on self-regulated learning and three minutes focused on building magnitude fluency. Lessons 4 to 39 conclude with seven minutes of independent practice, though during some weeks, progress monitoring in the form of curriculum-based measurement tasks replaces the practice. Regular mathematics instruction occurred during a 60- to 90-minute block five days per week. Approximately 16% of Super Solvers students received the school’s regular supplemental math intervention (M = 134.29 minutes per week, SD = 100.18).

Comparison Group

The comparison condition in this contrast is the Super Solvers plus Error Analysis group. The comparison group condition was the same as the intervention condition, except that the comparison condition added an instructional strategy focused on the conceptual and strategic error analysis of fraction calculations. Error analysis related to checking fraction calculations, which occurred during Calculations Quest in Lessons 13 to 39. The comparison intervention was delivered to student dyads in 40-minute sessions, three times a week for 13 weeks.

Support for implementation

Training of tutors (most of whom were graduate students) involved two stages. During the first stage, tutors participated in 20 hours of overview, demonstration, and practice in pairs. Once they achieved 95 percent implementation accuracy in practice, they began tutoring with students. The second phase of training involved weekly meetings with research staff to solve any problems that had arisen and to train on upcoming content. All implementation sessions were audio-recorded, and researchers listened to the recordings and conducted live observations to provide feedback on fidelity of implementation. Test administrators were graduate student research assistants who received training on testing procedures and passed fidelity checks. Two RAs, blind to study conditions, scored each test, and any discrepancies were discussed and resolved. Testing sessions were audio-recorded, and 20 percent of the recordings were randomly selected for accuracy checks.