Date of Award

Fall 2024

Language

English

Embargo Period

9-17-2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Psychology (PsyD)

College/School/Department

Department of Educational and Counseling Psychology

Program

School Psychology

First Advisor

Benjamin Solomon

Committee Members

Amanda VanDerHeyden, David Miller

Subject Categories

Curriculum and Instruction | Science and Mathematics Education | Special Education and Teaching

Abstract

This study was designed to evaluate the impact of instructional group size and composition on student progress within a classwide math intervention. In terms of group size, groupings of greater than and less than 10 students were compared. In terms of group composition, homogeneous and heterogeneous groups were compared, defined by grouping the classes with standard deviations of student performance within the upper quartile (heterogeneous) and lower quartile (homogeneous) on a pre-intervention measure. The outcome measure used to evaluate student progress was the number of trials required for students to reach mastery on a specific skill within the 16-skill intervention trajectory. Comparisons between the two groups were conducted for each skill to determine whether students reached mastery more efficiently in a certain type of intervention grouping (e.g., large vs. small and homogeneous vs. heterogeneous). Results showed significant differences in learning efficiency for homogeneous versus heterogeneous student groupings, with students placed in more heterogeneous groups reaching mastery on the math skill trajectory at a statistically significantly faster pace than their peers in a more homogeneous grouping. Group size comparisons led to results that were less conclusive, with some skills showing significantly more efficient growth for smaller groups, but overall effectively null results. This contributed to the research base in support of mixed-ability groupings for intervention, particularly in a tier 1.5 classwide intervention that relies on peer mediated learning as a component of instruction. Future research incorporating a different frequency of progress monitoring data collection, further exploration of group size differences, and examination of different types of outcome metrics would provide further information on optimal group size and compositions for mathematics intervention.

License

This work is licensed under the University at Albany Standard Author Agreement.

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