Study will define best way to prepare students for algebra

Denver—What does it take to get middle school students ready for algebra? Education researchers currently don’t have data that answer that question. But a new study by Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL), in partnership with the University of Southern Mississippi, will provide just that, through an efficacy study funded by an Institute of Education Sciences grant.

The $1.9 million, four-year study, which started in March, will examine the effects of a program intended to help prepare middle school students for algebra. Approximately 60 teachers and their roughly 2,500 7^th grade students will participate in the program, Every Day Counts: Algebra Readiness. Teachers will receive professional development from the program’s author, Andy Clark, as well as ongoing support from McREL’s mathematics content specialists.

The 40 schools involved are all rural and are located primarily in southern Mississippi. The sample includes a mix of configurations, including 6‒8, K‒8, 7‒12, and K‒12 schools. Mississippi requires students to pass Algebra I in order to graduate, but it also has the largest achievement gap in the nation between rural and non-rural students in the 8^th grade.      

Not only will the study show whether this particular program helped these particular students, but it will also allow the researchers to draw conclusions about “what precisely are the active ingredients that lead to greater algebra readiness,” said Andrea Beesley, McREL senior director and principal investigator on the study. The longitudinal data collected, she said, will show mathematics educators and other researchers what kind of pre-algebra instruction helps students succeed.

The study began in March and will continue until February 2016.