Award Period: 2020-07-01 - 2025-06-30

Description

The purpose of this NCSER Systematic Replication in Special Education research project is to conduct an efficacy replication of ROOTS, a 50-lesson (Tier 2) kindergarten mathematics intervention in which key variables related to intervention delivery will be systematically varied across different school types (i.e., urban and rural) and student populations than our original ROOTS efficacy trial (Clarke et al., 2012). Evidence has shown ROOTS to be effective for increasing the mathematics achievement of kindergarten students at risk for mathematics difficulties (e.g. Clarke et al., 2016; Clarke et al., 2017). In this project, we propose measuring the impact of ROOTS in a randomized controlled trial (RCT). The treated sample will be students identified as at risk for mathematics learning disabilities (MLD). We will block on classroom and randomly assign students in each classroom to one of two treatment conditions (both using ROOTS) or a control condition. Three research questions will be examined. The first research question will focus on the immediate and long-term impact of ROOTS on student mathematics outcomes. The second research question will examine the impact of intervention onset on student mathematics achievement. A third set of research questions will be examined related to implementation of ROOTS. Research will occur in sites intentionally selected to examine whether ROOTS is efficacious across a range of settings, including in schools located in rural areas (USDE, 2018), and with different student populations. The research proposed as part of this grant will provide specific insight into for whom and under what conditions ROOTS works (B. Miller et al., 2014) and information related to variables associated with sustained implementation and scalability of the intervention (Onken et al., 2014).