Didactic methods and small-group instruction for low-performing adolescents in mathematics. Results from a randomized controlled trial

Lars Kirkebøen, Trude Gunnes, Lena Lindenskov and Marte Rønning ()

Discussion Papers from Statistics Norway, Research Department

Abstract: Can high-dosage tutoring help low-performing adolescents? We implement a randomized experiment to test a twofold intervention: A teacher training program customized for instructing 8th graders who perform poorly in mathematics and two 4-6 week periods of targeted math instruction for lowperforming 8th graders, a majority in small homogeneous groups and the rest in larger and more heterogeneous groups. We randomized 24 schools to treatment and 24 schools to control. For students receiving small-group instruction, we find that test scores increase by .06 SD. Moreover, the share of low-performing students decreases by up to 25 percent. We find no impact on treated students in large groups. Classroom observations and surveys to teachers indicate higher fidelity to the didactic methods among teachers managing small groups.

Keywords: Low-performing students; Ability grouping; High-dosage tutoring; Classroom management; Didactic methods; Mathematics; RCT; Stratified randomization; Cost-benefit of interventions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 I24 I28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 62 pages
Date: 2021-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.ssb.no/en/forskning/discussion-papers/_attachment/455917 (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ssb:dispap:957

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://www.ssb.no/e ... zed-controlled-trial

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers from Statistics Norway, Research Department P.O.Box 8131 Dep, N-0033 Oslo, Norway. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by L Maasø ().