Dissertation Writing Help - Expeditionary Learning Schools: The Relationship Between Implementation Gains and Growth in Student Achievement

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Recent American Institutes for Research reports (AIR, 2005; AIR, 2006) suggest a dearth of evidence-based research linking the implementation of Comprehensive School Reform (CSR) designs to student achievement. In an earlier comprehensive meta-analysis of CSR designs, Borman et al. (2002) indicated that nearly half of the studies analyzing CSR effects have been performed by the developers, and only half of those have used some kind of quasi-experimental control group. CSR design developers and independent researchers alike have been searching for viable methods to test the efficacy of these whole-school reform designs in an era of evidence-based accountability.

Expeditionary Learning Schools, one of the 29 CSR models that the Borman (2002) meta-analysis evaluated, was identified as having "highly promising evidence of effectiveness". The two more recent AIR analyses indicate that conclusive statements regarding Expeditionary Learning's relationship between implementation and student achievement are, at best, questionable. While this does not mean that Expeditionary Learning is ineffective in schools or in improving student achievement, it does show that there is a need for new research that meets the standards of rigor espoused by the No Child Left Behind legislation and recommended by evidence-based researchers. Likewise, there is a gap in secondary school research and broad or generalizable conclusions that can be made regarding the Expeditionary Learning Schools design. This study will attempt to add to the research base.

This study will evaluate Expeditionary Learning Schools as a CSR model and will provide insight into whether the design has a positive, negative, or neutral impact on student achievement growth, with a specific lens focused on design implementation at the secondary level. Employing a quasi-experimental pre-test post-test nonequivalent groups research design, this study will explicitly match Expeditionary Learning Schools students with highly similar comparison students in non-EL schools. The populations for this study will encompass approximately four hundred students from three Expeditionary Learning high schools and two Expeditionary Learning middle schools. The research questions addressed will be as follows:

1. What relationship if any exists among the early stages of implementation of the Expeditionary Learning Schools design at the high school level and growth in student academic achievement?
2. What relationship if any exists among later stages of implementation of the Expeditionary Learning Schools design and growth in student academic achievement?

The ELS middle and high schools selected for this study use an assessment tool designed by the Northwest Evaluation Association called Measures of Academic Progress (MAP). The MAP test is a computerized adaptive test that reports the instructional level of each student on a grade-independent scale, called RIT, and measures growth over time. Each Expeditionary Learning student will be matched with highly similar counterparts via the Northwest Evaluation Association Growth Research Database (GRD). The NWEA matches will include geographic proximity, age, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic levels, ELL status, and disability status. In addition, each student counterpart will also be matched based on identical language usage, reading, and math baseline student achievement RIT scores as reported on its Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) assessment tool.

The MAP assessment data will be particularly useful for comparison purposes. Both experimental and control groups will have pre-test data from the fall of 2006, experimental groups will receive treatment (i.e. Expeditionary Learning), and additional MAP tests will be administered in the spring of 2007, fall of 2007, and spring of 2008. A t-test for dependent samples will be used to acquire the achievement growth gains made by Expeditionary Learning students from grades 9 through 10 at the high school level and grades 6 through 7 at the middle school level. Likewise, the t-test will be used to compare the achievement growth gains made by the control group from grades 9 through 10 and grades 6 through 7. Then a directional one-tailed t-test will be used to compare the mean achievement growth of the Expeditionary Learning schools versus the non-Expeditionary Learning counterparts for each subject (math, reading, and language usage) in order to determine the effects of Expeditionary Learning on the recipient students to determine if any achievement growth differences are significant at the .05 level. For each subject area, separate mean scores and separate standard deviations will be obtained to test if there is any significant difference between the pre-test and post-test mean achievement growth scores of the experimental group on the one hand and the control group on the other hand. The calculated t-test values and the critical t-test values for the groups will be compared at the .05 probability level. The effect size of the differences, if any, will be calculated using Cohen's d or a similar appropriate statistical measure of effect size. Statistical analyses will be conducted using SPSS software.

In addition to the statistical analyses identified above, the data will be disaggregated by sub-populations within each school in order to compare mean achievement growth differences between the treatment and control groups in the following sub-categories by using similar t-test calculations: gender, ethnicity, disability, socioeconomic status, and ELL identification.

A statistical comparison of achievement growth data may reveal whether or not students in Expeditionary Learning secondary schools perform differently than similar non-EL peers. This study may also speak to the assertion that implementation of the Expeditionary Learning Schools design will have a positive impact on student achievement growth. Using annual implementation data provided by the Expeditionary Learning Schools organization, the level of implementation that each school participating in the study has achieved during the timeframe of this analysis will be identified. What remains to be seen, however, is whether or not adequate implementation of the core practices and design principles actually produce the outcomes that Expeditionary Learning Schools claim will occur. If so, it may be easier to support the theory of school improvement espoused by ELS.