Study: 89402

Practice Guide

Review Details

Reviewed: November 2021

No statistically significant positive
findings

Meets WWC standards without reservations

For:

Practice Guide (findings for Intelligent Tutoring for Structure Strategy (ITSS) (Individualized))

Using:

Rating:

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

Reading Comprehension outcomes—Substantively important positive effect found for the domain
Outcome measure	Comparison	Period	Sample	Intervention mean	Comparison mean	Significant?	Improvement index
Gray Silent Reading Test	Intelligent Tutoring for Structure Strategy (ITSS) (Individualized) vs. Intelligent Tutoring for Structure Strategy (ITSS) (Standard)	0 Days	Full sample (Low Reading Ability subgroup); 43 students	36.49	31.62	No	--
Show Supplemental Findings
Total Recall - Comparison Text (Meyer et al., 2011)	Intelligent Tutoring for Structure Strategy (ITSS) (Individualized) vs. Intelligent Tutoring for Structure Strategy (ITSS) (Standard)	1 Month	Full sample (Low Reading Ability subgroup); 43 students	23.55	26.30	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.

Female: 50%
Male: 50%
Suburban
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Pennsylvania

Race
Asian		2%
Black		11%
Other or unknown		6%
White		81%

Study Details

Setting

The study was based in two elementary schools in suburban western Pennsylvania. The intervention was held during the 5th-grade students' regularly scheduled social studies class in which students used computers at mobile docking stations during the intervention.

Study sample

Equal numbers of students in the low-ability reading group were male and female. Approximately 17% of the students in this group were enrolled in special education. Study authors also report student demographics at the school level across the two schools in the study: 80.6% of students were White, 11.4% were African American, 1.6% were Asian American, and 6.4% were Native American, Hispanic, or students from other backgrounds; 9.8% of all students received state aid in the form of free or reduced-rate lunch; and 8.5% of the students were enrolled in part-time special education services.

Intervention Group

The study examined the effectiveness of a reading intervention for students struggling with reading. Students worked individually on the computer 3 times per week for 30 minutes a session from September to April in the same school year to complete a more individualized version of the Intelligent Tutoring of the Structure Strategy (ITSS) lessons. This equated to roughly 35 sessions. ITSS replaced 90 minutes per week of regularly scheduled social studies for all students in both schools. The individualized intervention adapts instruction to the reading needs of the student. Unlike in the comparison condition, where students completed the lessons in a standard, fixed order, students in the intervention condition received remedial lessons after poor performance on a lesson and enrichment lessons after a good performance on a lesson, for a more individualized approach. Remediation and enrichment consisted of reading a parallel text with increased/decreased readability.

Comparison Group

Students worked individually on the computer 3 times per week for 30 minutes a session to complete the standard ITSS lessons. This equated to roughly 35 sessions. ITSS replaced 90 minutes a week of regularly scheduled social studies for all students in both schools. Lessons were presented in a fixed order. This condition did not adapt instruction to the individual reading needs of the student. It instead delivered standard instruction to all students at the same level by following a standard sequence of lessons.

Support for implementation

No support for implementation is reported.

Individualizing a Web-Based Structure Strategy Intervention for Fifth Graders' Comprehension of Nonfiction [Intelligent Tutoring for Structure Strategy (ITSS) (Individualized) vs. Intelligent Tutoring for Structure Strategy (ITSS) (Standard)]