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Gender effects in a randomized trial of individual tutoring with children in care

Robyn Marquis & Robert J. Flynn School of Psychology & Centre for Research on Educational and Community Services (CRECS) University of Ottawa (Canada) EUSARF 2014, Copenhagen September 3, 2014. Gender effects in a randomized trial of individual tutoring with children in care.

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Gender effects in a randomized trial of individual tutoring with children in care

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  1. Robyn Marquis & Robert J. Flynn School of Psychology & Centre for Research on Educational and Community Services (CRECS) University of Ottawa (Canada) EUSARF 2014, Copenhagen September 3, 2014 Gendereffects in a randomized trial of individualtutoringwithchildren in care

  2. Canada & Ontario

  3. Low educational achievement of young people in care:Research in Canada • In Canada, resultssimilar to those in USA & UK • Flynn & Biro (1998): higher rates of suspension and grade retentionthan for peers in general population • Flynn et al. (2004): In samples of young people in care: • 10-15 years of age: 80% scored in same range as lowestthird of general Canadian population on parental ratings of reading, spelling, and math • 5-9 years of age: 78% scored in same range of lowestthird of Canadian population (samecriteria)

  4. A note on effect sizes in education • Effect size = size of effect of intervention • Cohen’sd or Hedgesg (nearlyidentical) • Criteria for effect sizes in education: • What Works Clearinghouse (2011): 0.25 • Lipsey et al. (2012) (medians): • Individual interventions: 0.29 • Small-group interventions: 0.22 • Classroom: 0.08 • Wholeschool: 0.14 • Overall: 0.18

  5. Tutoring: A useful intervention • Systematicreview & meta-analysis by Ritter et al. (2006, 2009): • Studies of children in general population • 21 randomizedstudies, 28 cohorts • Tutoringproduced positive effects: • Reading overall (d = 0.30)* • Reading global (d = 0.26)* • Reading oral fluency (d = 0.30)* • Reading letters & words (d = 0.41)* • Reading comprehension (d = 0.18) • Writing (d = 0.45)* • Mathematics (d = 0.27)

  6. Direct-Instruction Tutoring & Maloney’s Teach Your Children Well • Direction-instruction teaching method: • Well-organized, structured, effective method of teaching reading & math skills • For special & general education students • See National Institute for Direct Instruction web site (http://www.nifdi.org/) • M. Maloney’s Teach Your Children Well: • DI-based (http://www.maloneymethod.com/) • Combined with behavior management • Uses tutor manuals, learn-to-read series of books, workbooks, math CD-ROM, training

  7. Our randomized trial(Flynn et al., 2012) • Collaboration between: • 9 Children’sAidSocieties in Ontario & • University of Ottawa (CRECS) • Two main questions: 1. Does individual direct-instruction tutoring help children living in foster care to catch up in reading & math? 2. Do girls and boys benefit equally from direct-instruction tutoring?

  8. Method • Participants: 77 fosterchildren • Children in foster care (grades 2-7, ages 6-13) and theirfoster parents (tutors) • Randomlyassigned to control or intervention groups • 2008-2009 schoolyear • Wait-list control group (n = 35) • Intervention group (n = 42): Tutoring by foster parents, usingMaloney’s TYCW method, for 30 weeks, 3 hrs/week

  9. Method • Outcomemeasure: • Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT4): • Word Reading • Sentence Comprehension • Reading Composite • Spelling • Math Computation • Mental healthmeasures

  10. Method - AnalysisSample • Foster childrenreassessedatpost-test: • Total N = 64 • 30 childrenwhohadactuallyreceived the tutoring intervention • 34 children in wait-list control condition • Intervention and control conditions stillequivalent, despite attrition

  11. Results • Question no. 1: Does individual direct-instruction tutoring help children living in foster care to catch up in reading & math?

  12. WRAT4 Word Reading: Results at post-test (N = 64) (g = .19, p = .19, 1-tailed, ns;post-test scores adjusted for pre-test scores)

  13. WRAT4 Reading Comprehension:Results at post-test (N=64) (g = .38, p = .035, 1-tailed;post-test scores adjusted for pre-test scores

  14. WRAT4 Reading Composite:Results at post-test (N = 64) (g = .29, p = .096, 1-tailed;post-test scores adjusted for pre-test scores

  15. WRAT4 Spelling: Results at post-test (N = 64) (g = -.08, p = .37, 2-tailed, ns;post-test scores adjusted for pre-test scores)

  16. WRAT4 Math Computation:Results at post-test (N = 64) (g = .46, p = .009, 1-tailed;post-test scores adjusted for pre-test scores)

  17. Results • Question no. 2: Do girls and boys benefit equally from direct-instruction tutoring?

  18. WRAT4 Word Reading: Pre/post change, by gender & condition BOYS (d = .01) GIRLS (d=.39) (*p < .05, 2-tailed)

  19. WRAT4 Sentence Comprehension: Pre/post change, by gender & condition BOYS (d = .44) GIRLS (d =.12) (*p < .05, 2-tailed)

  20. WRAT4 Reading Composite:Pre/post change, by gender & condition GIRLS (d = .25) BOYS (d = .19) (*p < .05, 2-tailed)

  21. WRAT4 Spelling:Pre/post change, by gender & condition GIRLS (d = .15) BOYS (d = .19) (*p < .10, 2-tailed)

  22. WRAT4 Math Computation:Pre/post change, by gender & condition GIRLS (d = .41) BOYS (d = .21) (*p < .05, 2-tailed)

  23. Results – Conclusionsregardinggendereffects • Girls: • Made statisticallysignificant gains on 4 out of 5 WRAT4 outcomemeasures • d > median of .29 on Word Reading and Math Computation • Boys: • Made statisticallysignificant gains on 3 out of 5 WRAT4 outcomemeasures • d > median of .29 on Sentence Comprehension

  24. Overall conclusions • Tutoringby foster parents helps foster children to catch up in reading and math • Girls and boys both benefit in reading and math • More well-controlled evaluations of interventions are needed

  25. Thank you for your attention • References: For papers by Forsman & Vinnerljung (2012), Flynn et al. (2012), and Harper & Schmidt (2012), seespecial issue of Children and Youth Services Review, 34 (6), June, 2012, on improvingeducationaloutcomes of young people in care. • Contact: Robert Flynn (rflynn@uottawa.ca). Feel free to write to me by e-mail

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