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Effectiveness of a small‐group vocabulary intervention programme: evidence from a regression discontinuity design
Author(s) -
Dyson Hannah,
Solity Jonathan,
Best Wendy,
Hulme Charles
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
international journal of language and communication disorders
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.101
H-Index - 67
eISSN - 1460-6984
pISSN - 1368-2822
DOI - 10.1111/1460-6984.12404
Subject(s) - vocabulary , psychology , intervention (counseling) , vocabulary development , psychological intervention , developmental psychology , literacy , confidence interval , treatment and control groups , teaching method , medicine , mathematics education , pedagogy , psychiatry , linguistics , philosophy , pathology
Background Children's vocabulary knowledge is closely related to other measures of language development and to literacy skills and educational attainment. Aim To use a regression discontinuity design (RDD) to evaluate the effectiveness of a small‐group vocabulary intervention programme for children with poor vocabulary knowledge. Methods & Procedures The vocabulary knowledge of children ( N = 199) aged 6–9 years was assessed in six classes. Based on scores at the initial assessment, children with low vocabulary scores for their age were assigned to an intervention group (43 children), with the remaining 156 children assigned to a control group. Children in the intervention group received two to three small‐group weekly teaching sessions over a 10‐week period. All children were retested post‐intervention on the same measures of vocabulary knowledge. Outcomes & Results The intervention group showed significant improvements in their knowledge of the meanings of the taught words at post‐test (an additional 3.95 words learned [95% confidence interval (CI) = 2.70–5.20] compared with the control group; d = 1.20), but the effects did not generalize to untaught words. Conclusions & Implications A small‐group vocabulary intervention programme is effective for teaching word meanings to 6–9‐year‐old children with poor vocabulary skills. This study provides further evidence that the RDD is an effective method for evaluating educational interventions.