Report completed on the effectiveness of MathForward
Empirical Education assisted Richardson Independent School District (RISD) in conducting an evaluation of the MathForward algebra readiness program published by Texas Instruments. RISD implemented MathForward in their 7th and 8th grade general mathematics and 9th grade Algebra I classes. The research employed an interrupted time series design comparing existing student achievement scores with MathForward to student achievement scores from the three years prior to the introduction of MathForward.
The results of this four-year study suggest that 7th grade students scored, on average, 11 percentile points higher with MathForward than the 7th grade students from the three previous years without MathForward. A similar result for the 8th grade suggests that students participating in MathForward scored, on average, 9 percentile points higher. While the trend did not hold for 9th grade, further exploration suggests that 9th grade students whose teachers had 3 years experience using MathForward scored higher than 9th grade students whose teachers did not use MathForward.
The report further illustrates how an interrupted time series design can be used to study a program as it is rolled out over several years. This research will be presented at the 2010 AERA conference in Denver, Colorado (Friday, April 30 — Tuesday, May 4).