Improving Student Reading Through Parents' Implementation of a Structured Reading Program

Improving the Assessment of Teaching Effectiveness With the Nonequivalent Dependent Variables Approach

“…Several DVs were measured including reading efficiency, accuracy, and comprehension. Mitchell and Begeny (2014) hypothesized that if the HELPS program was effective, scores should increase over time. But in addition to the typical one-group pretest-posttest design, they also included several nonequivalent DVs: math achievement and phonetic decoding.…”

“…An example of a nonequivalent DV design is Mitchell and Begeny (2014). In this study, a reading fluency intervention, the Helping Early Literacy with Practice Strategies (HELPS) program, was being evaluated.…”

“…Results indicated that there were medium to large effects in the expected direction on all the main DVs (Cohen’s d s > 0.72 p s < .01), but they also found negative effects that were small to medium on the nonequivalent DVs of math achievement and phonetic decoding (Cohen’s d s < −0.68 p s > .01). If Mitchell and Begeny (2014) had used the typical one–group pretest–posttest design, then increases in their reading outcomes could be attributed to effects such as maturation and not necessarily the HELPS program. However, since the targeted abilities increased greatly over time and the non-targeted abilities did not, there is better evidence that the HELPS program was effective.…”

“…In Mitchell and Begeny (2014), both the main DVs and the nonequivalent DVs were academic abilities. Therefore, both main DVs and the nonequivalent DVs arguably measured the same latent construct (in this case, general academic ability).…”

“…The nonequivalent DV should also be dynamic (i.e., changeable). In Mitchell and Begeny (2014), it was possible for students to increase their math achievement or phonetic decoding abilities. If the nonequivalent DV is completely unrelated or not possible to change over time, then its inclusion is meaningless.…”