Longitudinally adaptive assessment and instruction increase numerical skills of preschool children

Abstract

Social inequality in mathematical skill is apparent at kindergarten entry and persists during elementary school. To level the playing field, we trained teachers to assess children’s numerical and spatial skills every 10 wk. Each assessment provided teachers with information about a child’s growth trajectory on each skill, information designed to help them evaluate their students' progress, reflect on past instruction, and strategize for the next phase of instruction. A key constraint is that teachers have limited time to assess individual students. To maximize the information provided by an assessment, we adapted the difficulty of each assessment based on each child’s age and accumulated evidence about the child’s skills. Children in classrooms of 24 trained teachers scored 0.29 SD higher on numerical skills at posttest than children in 25 randomly assigned control classrooms (P = 0.005). We observed no effect on spatial skills. The intervention also positively influenced children’s verbal comprehension skills (0.28 SD higher at posttest, P < 0.001), but did not affect their print-literacy skills. We consider the potential contribution of this approach, in combination with similar regimes of assessment and instruction in elementary schools, to the reduction of social inequality in numerical skill and discuss possible explanations for the absence of an effect on spatial skills.

Can an early mathematical intervention boost the progress of children in kindergarten? A field experiment

“…Arithmetic is indeed a fundamental dimension and one that has been shown to be especially predictive of later performances in both mathematics and literacy (Duncan et al, 2007). Thus, the present results support recent research showing that early interventions are particularly efficient for increasing children mathematical knowledge and consequently, should be promoted in kindergarten classrooms (Clements & Sarama, 2011;Raudenbush et al, 2020).…”

Use them or lose them: Are manipulatives needed to assess numeracy and geometry performance in preschool?

“…When examining children's counting and cardinality skills, we found that whether or not children were using manipulatives did not influence their performance during assessment. Children's early counting and cardinality skills are important predictors of their later mathematics achievement (Geary et al, 2018; Nguyen et al, 2016), and students learn more when teachers can match instruction to their developmental level (Raudenbush et al, 2020). Because manipulatives offered no performance difference when it came to assessing children's understanding of counting and cardinality researchers and educators may be able to focus on a simpler administration of assessments using 2D printouts of materials.…”

“…Given the importance of assessment in guiding instruction (Lee & Ginsburg, 2009; Raudenbush et al, 2020), it is crucial that decisions regarding when to use manipulatives during assessment are based on research findings. However, any benefits of using manipulatives are likely related to both the concept being targeted and the specific task being used.…”

Effects of double-dose algebra on college persistence and degree attainment

“…Many subsequent surveys largely replicated that result, finding significant impacts of such nonschool factors as neighborhood deprivation (36)(37)(38) and parent job loss (39,40) on students' educational attainment. However, recent experimental and quasi-experimental studies have shown that a range of policies, including expanding preschool education (41), improving elementary school curriculum (42,43), using assessments to tailor instruction to children of varied skill (44)(45)(46), and reducing class size (47,48) can all increase achievement and reduce social and ethnic disparities in educational outcomes.…”