Instructional Research and Research Synthesis

Russell Gersten

Instructional Research Group

& University of Oregon

Focus

Findings that challenge folk wisdomMultiplicities of interpretationThe human factor (J. Singer)

Interventions for Struggling Readers: Torgesen Research

Addressed common myth: work on word reading is all struggling readers need

Most importantly, addresses a wild card: long term “fix” for struggling readers in grades 3-9

A professional issue for me since 1969

A few issues that bubble over

Homogeneous groups seem to work best for building foundational skills/ Heterogeneous for comprehension

The right texts for students to read as they work on comprehension

Limits of the strategy instruction model (Beck & McKeown) & limited understanding of need to possess relevant background knowledge (before activating)

We can only hope for increments

Carlo et al: Cognates

Context: common feature of texts on teaching methods

Most useful for technical words and Latin roots (for Latin languages)

Ironies: English learners born in U. S. don’t have large tech vocabularies

Catch 22: They don’t always workDoes one teach awareness? Or really work

on this ability

Thus the study

Findings open up new issuesAgain, impact on words taught, NS on

untaught cognatesImplication: More to build broad

awareness? Not a big deal?Deeper implications: Common finding

for vocabulary instruction (depth, but not transfer)

The Research Synthesis: Part 1: Instructional

Interventions Strength: Does not overshoot the dataPoints out that the adjustments are

NOT CLEARLY EXPLAINEDHelps point out that these need to be

focus of next wave of instructional research: experimental and observational/ descriptive

The Research Synthesis: Part 2: Language of

Instruction Politically controversial (unlike the first) Raises issue of how each meta-analysis is

an act of interpretation and decision rules (defining terms, classifying interventions, methodological inclusion) affect outcomes

My Two Cents Worth

RCT as gold standard is not enough Though some methodological issues

stressed, others ignored Total confounding of teachers with intervention Differential attrition Use of covariates that are salient predictors (e.g.

oral language has zero predictive validity) Control for instructional time

A very different picture would emerge