The results of a 2008-2009 efficacy study of The Word Up Project show the program dramatically raising student achievement. Here is the data:
Summary of the Results of Phase 1 of The Word Up Project Instructional Efficacy Study
By the Educational Research Institute of America
Flocabulary contracted with the Educational Research Institute of America (ERIA) to conduct a two-phase study of the effectiveness of The Word Up program, a multimedia program that was designed to support students with vocabulary and reading development. Phase One of that study is now complete. The following is a summary of the design and findings of Phase One of the study.
599 students in grades 7 and 8, attending seven different public middle schools in the states of Texas, California, New York, Pennsylvania, Alabama, and Massachusetts, participated in the study in the fall of 2008. During the course of the study, the teachers of the participants taught the first 7 of 14 units from the Green level of The Word Up program. Teachers administered a pretest prior to beginning instruction and a posttest upon completing all seven units.
The assessment used for the pretest and posttest was developed by Flocabulary and was designed to assess students’ understanding of a large random sample of words taught in the first seven units of the green level of The Word Up program. This multiple-choice assessment, consisting of 40 items, was used as both the pretest and the posttest. Test results provide strong evidence of the reliability of the assessment, which had a KR20 coefficient of .88.
A total of 599 students were included in the analysis to determine if significant gains were made from pretest to posttest. In the total sample, the average percent-correct score increased from 53% on the pretest to 78% on the posttest, a difference that was statistically significant at a level of .0001. This level of significance indicates that such a change would have occurred by chance less than once out of 10,000 repetitions.
An effect-size analysis was computed for the pretest to posttest comparison. Cohen’s d statistic was used to determine the effect size. This statistic provides an indication of the strength of the effect of the treatment regardless of the statistical significance. Cohen’s d statistic is interpreted as follows:
.2 = small effect
.5 = medium effect
.8 = large effect
The Cohen’s d statistic for the current study was 1.23, indicating that the effect of The Word Up program on the pretest to posttest achievement gain was quite large.
The results of this study indicate that The Word Up program is very effective in increasing and improving students’ vocabulary development.
Read the research base of The Word Up Project to learn more about effective methods of increasing literacy. The research report is by By Roger Farr, Ed.D., Jenny Conner, Ph.D. and the Educational Research Institute of America.
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