Study Overview

GOALS

The goal of this project was to test the effectiveness of three learning technologies, From Here to There, Dragon Box, and problem sets in ASSISTments, on 7th-grade students’ mathematical understanding. Students worked individually on a device solving problems using one of the three technologies. 

Participants

A total of 52 seventh-grade mathematics teachers and their students from 11 middle schools (10 in-person schools and one virtual academy) were recruited from a large, suburban district in the Southeastern United States in the summer of 2020. Together, these teachers taught 190 mathematics classes and 4,092 students. Prior to random assignment, one school declined to participate. This school included 3 teachers and 381 students. This resulted in 10 schools (9 in-person and 1 virtual), 37 teachers, 156 classes, and 3,591 students. The study sample was

49.2% White, 14.0% Hispanic, and 28.0% Asian, and 42.2% began the school year in the Virtual Academy. 

Study Design

The students were ranked based on prior state mathematics assessment scores, blocked into sets of five, and randomly assigned to either FH2T (40%), DragonBox (20%), Immediate Feedback (20%), and Active Control (20%). Randomization occurred at the student level; therefore students within the same class were assigned different conditions. Excess students were selected at random and formed other quintets, and if there were excess from other schools this same process was applied. 

Study procedure

All study sessions were administered online, and students worked individually at their own pace using a device.