Georgia Policy Labs Reports
Efficacy of Online Learning Assessment Tools for COVID-19 Recovery Intervention
Author ORCID Identifier
Jennifer Darling-Aduana: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7940-5662
K. Jurée Capers: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5903-9941
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Document Type
Report
Publication Date
11-13-2024
Abstract
As school districts work to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic on student achievement growth, many have leveraged existing technology platforms for additional instructional time. Virtual platforms do not face many of the challenges of other recovery interventions such as stigma, low-uptake, or real-time instructor support, and they allow teachers to reallocate their attention to higher-impact learning tasks. Additionally, students can complete the lessons independently, anywhere at any time using a web browser, making them popular among school leaders, but their effectiveness as a pandemic recovery strategy has not been well evaluated. Jennifer Darling-Aduana and K. Jurée Capers investigate the effectiveness of using the i-Ready Personalized Instruction platform to promote student acceleration in the wake of the pandemic in a metro-Atlanta school district. During the 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 school years, our partner school district implemented the platform in over 60% of its schools, prioritizing access to low-performing schools in the initial year.
We find that, overall, students earned about two additional weeks of instructional gains in math and nearly three weeks in reading on standardized assessments when using the i-Ready platform, and this is especially true for students who receive free or reduced-price meals, who identify as Black, and who identify as male. Additionally, students who complete roughly 70 lessons in reading and 50 lessons in math earned roughly two months of instructional gains. Our findings suggest that online platforms such as i-Ready are useful recovery tools that can help school districts enhance student learning and mitigate both the effects of COVID-19 and longstanding demographic-related achievement gaps.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.57709/6H5W-M820
Recommended Citation
Darling-Aduana, Jennifer and Capers, K. Juree, "Efficacy of Online Learning Assessment Tools for COVID-19 Recovery Intervention" (2024). Georgia Policy Labs Reports. 71.
doi: https://doi.org/10.57709/6H5W-M820
Comments
This report has an accompanying appendix and policy brief accessible from the landing page.