Manipulating Treatment Dose: Evaluating the Frequency of a Small Group Intervention Targeting Whole Number Operations

Abstract

Treatment dose is an understudied aspect of treatment effectiveness. This study compared the frequency with which a small-group mathematics intervention was delivered weekly (i.e., four times, twice, once) with a control condition while controlling for total duration. 101 at-risk students in grades 2-4 were randomly assigned to a condition following universal screening and skill-based assessments. Multilevel modeling was used to evaluate final score and growth on three measures. Results suggested that for the most proximal computation measure, treatment sessions occurring four times weekly produced clear benefits. On the application measure, students in all treatment groups outperformed students in the control condition. For the most complex computation measure, frequency was not a useful predictor. Grade was a moderating variable.

Effects of Schema-Based Instruction on Immediate, Generalized, and Combined Structured Word Problems

“…A promising finding was the teacher-implemented intervention impacted student problem-solving performance, and these effects were comparable to previous literature using researchers as implementers (see Figure 2). Furthermore, duration data were collected during fidelity checks; we estimated the mean duration per session to be 18 min ( SD = 4.92), which is in-line with previous intervention work focused on identifying the most efficacious duration (Codding et al, 2016). By providing small group instruction (rather than individual) and shortening the duration of sessions, the current study documented the efficacy of a schema-based intervention to be adapted based on logistical constraints placed upon special education teachers working in resource room settings (VanDerHeyden & Harvey, 2013).…”

Examining Dimensions of Treatment Intensity and Treatment Fidelity in Mathematics Intervention Research for Students at Risk

“…In practice, group size might be affected by the number of available interventionists and the similarity of students’ needs (Mellard et al, 2010). The total duration and number of sessions applied in the empirical literature is slightly below expert recommendations (Gersten, Beckmann, et al, 2009) and at least one empirical study suggested that for some math outcomes, more frequent delivery is required (Codding et al, 2016). It is possible that treatment strength is specific to particular interventions such that each mathematics intervention comes with explicit instructions regarding how much of the intervention is required to maximize success (Yoder & Woynaroski, 2015).…”

Construction and Examination of Math Subskill Mastery Measures

“…Specifically, subskill mastery measurement is an application of CBM that simply measures narrower content and therefore reflects growth over a shorter interval of instruction, which may be preferable when planning, delivering, and monitoring intervention effects in math (Shinn & Bamonto, 1998;VanDerHeyden, Codding, & Martin, 2017). Monitoring short-term intervention effects requires a tool that is sensitive, which has been a persistent limitation of GOM-like measures in math (Hintze, Christ, & Keller, 2002) for which expected growth is so minimal that it is impossible to know if the growth attained was sufficient or not (Foegen et al, 2007).Recently, subskill mastery math CBMs have gained credibility as potentially useful measures to make screening decisions, to determine the specific type of intervention needed, and to monitor the effects of intervention over time for MTSS decision-making purposes (Codding, VanDerHeyden, Martin, & Perrault, 2016;Fuchs et al, 2007;VanDerHeyden & Burns, 2005). Because of the promise of subskill mastery measures for use in MTSS decision-making, researchers have begun to construct and examine these measures in schools (e.g., VanDerHeyden et al, 2017).…”