Does Evidence-Based Fractions Intervention Address the Needs of Very Low-Performing Students?

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this set of analyses, conducted on a randomized control trial examining the effects of a fourth-grade fraction intervention, was to assess the initial academic deficit severity hypothesis. With this hypothesis, at-risk students with more severe initial academic deficits are expected to profit less from intervention than do students with less severe initial academic deficits. Moderation analyses indicated that students with varying degrees of initial academic deficits benefited comparably from the intervention, such that effect sizes comparing intervention against control students were similar across the range of initial academic deficits. In a similar way, across the range of initial academic deficits, intervention students' posttest (spring) calculation performance was normalized (one standard error of measurement above the 25th percentile of a not-at-risk normative group's spring performance). On the most distal fractions outcome, however, normalized performance was achieved for intervention students with less severe initial academic deficits. Findings are discussed in terms of methods for judging intervention efficacy and for making individual decisions about when students should exit intervention.

KEYWORDS:

• mathematics
• intervention
• elementary

Funding

This research was supported in part by Grant R324D130003 from the Institute of Education Sciences in the U.S. Department of Education to Vanderbilt University; by Grant R324C100004 from the Institute of Education Sciences to the University of Delaware with a subcontract to Vanderbilt University; and by Core Grant HD15052 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to Vanderbilt University. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the Institute of Education Sciences, the U.S. Department of Education, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, or the National Institutes of Health.