Abstract
The Say-All-Fast-Minute-Every-Day-Shuffled (SAFMEDS) strategy promotes fast and accurate recall. The existing literature suggests that the strategy can help learners improve academic outcomes. Through a cluster randomized controlled trial, we assessed the impact of implementation support on children’s mathematics outcomes during a teacher-led SAFMEDS intervention. Following training and prior to baseline assessments, we randomly allocated schools to receive either no (n = 31) or ongoing (n = 33) support from a researcher. Support consisted of three in-situ visits and email contact. Assessors remained blind to the condition of the schools throughout. We analyzed the outcomes of children (n Support = 294, n NoSupport = 281) using a multi-level mixed-effects model; accounting for the children nested within schools. The results suggest that implementation support has a small effect on children’s fluency of arithmetic facts (Mathematics Fluency and Calculation Tests (MFaCTs): Grades 1–2, d = 0.23, 95% CI: 0.06–0.40; MFaCTs: Grades 3–5, d = 0.25, 95% CI: 0.08–0.42). These results are larger than the average effect sizes reported within professional development literature that apply coaching elements to mathematics programs.
Highlights
Evidence-based practice has the potential to generate effective educational programs and promote positive outcomes for students
The results suggest that implementation support has a small effect on children’s fluency of arithmetic facts (Mathematics Fluency and Calculation Tests (MFaCTs): Grades 1-2, d = 0.23, 95% CI: 0.06 to 0.40; MFaCTs: Grades 3-5, d = 0.25, 95% CI: 0.08 to 0.42)
We were interested in investigating whether implementation support from a researcher could help improve children’s fluency outcomes during a teacher led SAFMEDS intervention
Summary
Evidence-based practice has the potential to generate effective educational programs and promote positive outcomes for students. Durlak and DuPre (2008) found that educators who do not specialize in research (e.g., teachers) often do not implement an intervention to 100% fidelity under the real-world conditions of a classroom. They found that low-quality implementation of evidence-based interventions results in smaller effect sizes on outcome variables; including those linked to student achievement. This highlights the importance of identifying effective implementation support models to ensure that teachers are able to elicit desired and intended outcomes from evidence-based educational interventions
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