blog posts and news stories

Evidentally Rejoins Empirical Education

On 10/31/18, we formed Evidentally from a set of projects that Empirical Education called Evidence as a Service (EaaS). The idea was to build a set of products that would automate much of the labor-intensive portions of the research process, e.g., statistical analysis, data cleaning, and similar efforts. Building on the education technology (edtech) efficiencies, particularly the collection of edtech usage data, would make it possible for non-researchers such as school administrators to conduct efficacy research.

By lowering the cost of research and introducing an ease into the research process, we are able to increase the number of valid studies that could be combined in a meta-analysis for generalizable results. The notion was that, as a product company, Evidentally could attempt to get investments unavailable to services companies such as Empirical Education. Unfortunately, for several reasons, Evidentally was unable to get that investment.

The intellectual property and projects of Evidentally have been returned to Empirical Education as of 12/7/22, and Evidentally (as its own entity) was dissolved. While the team is still committed to building the Evidence as a Service suite of tools, it will be conducted as a project of Empirical Education, under the branding of the Evidentally Evidence Suite. The Evidentally product is just one piece of Empirical Education’s education evidence offerings, when an education application or curriculum needs evidence of efficacy meeting any of the Every Students Succeeds Act (ESSA) Tiers of evidence.

Studying the Impacts of CAPIT Reading: An Early Literacy Program in Oklahoma

Empirical Education’s Evidentally recently conducted a study to evaluate the impact of CAPIT Reading on student early literacy achievement. The study utilized a quasi-experimental comparison group design using data from 12 elementary schools in a suburban school district in Oklahoma during the 2019–20 school year.

CAPIT Reading is a comprehensive PK–2 literacy solution that includes a digital phonics curriculum and teacher professional development. The program is a teacher-led phonemic awareness and phonics curriculum that includes lesson plans, built-in assessments, and ongoing support.

Four schools used CAPIT to supplement their literacy instruction for kindergarten students (treatment group) while eight schools did not (comparison group). The study linked CAPIT usage data and district demographic and achievement data to estimate the impact of CAPIT on the Letter Word Sounds Fluency (LWSF) and Early Literacy Composite scores of the aimsweb reading assessment, administered by the district in August and January.

We found a positive impact of CAPIT Reading on student early reading achievement on the aimsweb assessment for kindergarten students. This positive impact was estimated at 4.4 test score points for the aimsweb Early Literacy Composite score (effect size = 0.17; p = 0.01) and 7.8 points for the LWSF score (effect size = 0.29; p < 0.001). This impact on the LWSF score is equivalent to a 29% increase in growth for the average CAPIT student from the fall to winter tests.

We found limited evidence of differential impact favoring student subgroups, meaning that this positive impact for CAPIT users did not vary according to student characteristics such as eligibility for free and reduced-price lunch, race, or gender. We found that the impact on aimsweb overall was marginally greater for special education students by 4.9 points (p = 0.09) and that the impact on LWSF scores was greater for English Language Learners by 7.4 points (p = 0.09). Impact of CAPIT reading does not vary significantly across other student groups.

Read the CAPIT Reading Student Impact Report for more information on this early literacy research.

Evidentally is a finalist in the XPRIZE Digital Learning Challenge

The XPRIZE Digital Learning Challenge encourages applicants to develop innovative approaches to “modernize, accelerate, and improve effective learning tools, processes and outcomes” for all learners. The overarching goal of this type of research is to increase equity by identifying education products that work with different subgroups of students. Seeing the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) move in this direction provides hope for the future of education research and our students.

For those of you who have known us for the last 5-10 years, you may be aware that we’ve been working towards this future of low-cost, quick turnaround studies for quite some time. To be completely transparent, I had never even heard of XPRIZE before IES funded one of their competitions.

Given our excitement about this IES-funded competition, we knew we had to throw our Evidentally hat into the ring. Evidentally is the part of Empirical Education—formerly known as Evidence as a Service (EaaS)—that has been producing low-cost, quick turnaround research reports for edtech clients for the past 5 years.

Of the 33 teams who entered the XPRIZE competition, we are excited to announce that we are one of the 10 finalists. We look forward to seeing how this competition helps to pave the road to scalable education research.

Evidentally, a New Company Taking on Edtech Efficacy Analytics

Empirical Education has launched Evidentally, Inc., a new company that specializes in helping edtech companies and their investors make more effective products. Founded by Denis Newman, CEO, and Val Lazarev, Chief Product Architect, the company conducts rapid cycle evaluations that meet the federal Every Student Succeeds Act standards for moderate and promising evidence. The efficacy analytics leverage the edtech product’s usage metrics to efficiently identify states and districts with sufficient usage to make impact studies feasible. Evidentally is actively servicing and securing initial clients, and is seeking seed funding to prepare for expansion. In the meantime, the company is being incubated by Empirical Education, which has transferred intellectual property relating to its R&D prototypes of the service and is providing staffing through a services agreement. The Evidentally team will be meeting with partners and investors at SXSW EDU, EdSurge Immersion, ASU GSV Summit, and ISTE. Let’s talk!