Project CRISS Reading Program and Grade 9 Reading Achievement in Rural High Schools
Data collection approach
The SDRT-4 comprehension subtest will be group administered to all grade 9 students in treatment and control schools in September and April of the school year in which Project CRISS teachers are in year 2 of professional development and implementation. At this time teachers should be fully familiar with the CRISS principles and have specific strategies for integrating them into their content areas based on the first year of intensive training and support. Test administrators at the Regional Educational Laboratory Northwest will work with local test coordinators to administer the 50-minute reading comprehension test. The study includes two cohorts of schools: one beginning Project CRISS in the 2007/08 school year, and another in following school year, 2008/09. Student data collection for the study will occur during the 2008/09 school year (cohort 1) and 2009/10 school year (cohort 2). Results from the combined cohorts (26 treatment/26 control) will be analyzed, and an impact analysis will be completed in 2010.
The teacher and principal questionnaires will be administered in the spring of year 1 and year 2 of Project CRISS teacher professional development. The local facilitator log collects monthly data throughout the two years of professional development. These monthly measures on specific Project CRISS activities will be aggregated into an overall school implementation index ranging from high to low.
VCOT teacher observations will occur at two times in a subsample of classrooms in treatment and control schools: at the beginning of the two-year training (to establish baseline equivalence) and during the second half of year 2 of Project CRISS continuing professional development. A subsample of 20 of the 52 schools will be randomly selected for observations (10 treatment/10 control). Five teacher/class periods will be randomly selected across content areas in each school, and each teacher will be observed for an entire class period on two successive days.