WestEd News
Use of Regression Discontinuity Design to Study School Improvement Grants
Publication: SAGE Research Methods Cases Part 2
Publication Date: 2017
Related WestEd Authors: Jonathan Nakamoto, Staci Wendt, John Rice, Juan Carlos Bojorquez, Anthony Petrosino
Related WestEd Programs: Health & Justice Program, Learning Innovations
Abstract
This study used a regression discontinuity design and a quasi-experimental design to evaluate the impact of School Improvement Grants on high school students’ reading, mathematics, and science achievement.
The high schools that participated in the School Improvement Grant program were very low performing and received approximately $1 million a year to help turnaround their academic performance.
The study is a demonstration of the use of regression discontinuity design in a real-world setting and showed that researchers can have more confidence in their findings when the results from multiple designs are consistent with one another. The results did not indicate that the School Improvement Grant program positively impacted the high school students’ reading, mathematics, and science achievement during the program’s first 2 years.
Visit the “An Evaluation of School Improvement Grants Using Regression Discontinuity and Quasi-Experimental Designs” abstract page to find out how to gain access to the full article.
Posted on February 27, 2017