Project Activities
The researchers will conduct a multi-site, cluster randomized controlled trial (RCT) with delayed roll-out to estimate TALCCS' impacts on targeted student outcomes and describe differences in instruction between treatment and control classrooms. For the cost studies, they will calculate overall and average per-student costs for implementing TALCCS and the cost effectiveness task will relate costs to student outcomes.
Structured Abstract
Setting
This project will take place in middle and high schools in three California school districts.
Sample
Approximately 240 middle and high school civics and social studies teachers will participate across 80 schools. Teachers will engage students in targeted civics and social studies classes. Each of the three districts serves high proportions of students of color and students from lower-income households.
Street Law designed TALCCS to improve teachers' instructional practices, supporting development of their students' ability to discuss current and contested issues. The TALCCS program includes (1) materials including content-focused discussion guides and instructional approach and assessment resources and (2) professional learning supports including comprehensive workshops (15-35 hours) aligned to the curriculum and designed to develop teachers' capacity to facilitate productive student discussions around current and contested topics. District staff and "teacher leaders" receive strategic capacity support starting before offering the program to teachers. Then throughout a school year, teachers receive support from Street Law coaches and teacher leaders, and access to TALCCS materials.
Research design and methods
The researchers will use a mixed-methods, multi-district, cluster RCT designed to meet What Works Clearinghouse 5.0 standards without reservations. In the first phase of the project and prior to school-level randomization, Street Law will train TALCCS "teacher leaders," namely social studies or civics teachers in participating districts who will subsequently serve as TALCCS instructors to their peers district-wide. The research team will then recruit teachers for year-long TALCCS participation and randomly assign schools of consented teachers to either the treatment or control condition. In a delayed-treatment design, treatment schools, teachers, and students will be those receiving the offer of TALCCS during the treatment phase. During the subsequent school year, teachers within control schools will receive the TALCCS offer. During the treatment phase, researchers will collect implementation and cost data through teacher and student surveys, classroom observations, and interviews. Researchers will also collect student administrative records to examine program impacts over the shorter and longer term.
Control condition
During the treatment offer phase, control schools and teachers implement their pre-existing curriculum and instructional strategies and may receive non-TALCCS supports. Researchers will compare outcomes between treatment and control schools, teachers, and students.
Key measures
For short-term student outcomes, researchers will measure the quality of student discussion (for example, extent to which students support their ideas with evidence, update their views when presented with new evidence) via coding of video observations; via Smarter Balanced assessments for students in grades 8 and 11; civic knowledge, participatory skills, and civic dispositions via publicly available NAEP civics items; and student attendance via district administrative records. For long-term student outcomes (for students of participating teachers in 12th grade during the treatment offer year), researchers will measure the propensity for high school graduation with high school administrative records, postsecondary enrollment and persistence with National Student Clearinghouse records, and voter registration and voting behavior for the 2028 presidential election with data collected by a commercial voting vendor. Additionally, researchers will measure teacher change in efficacy facilitating discussion (teacher outcomes).
Data analytic strategy
The researchers will estimate the impact of TALCCS using a three-level hierarchal linear model with students nested within teachers and schools and block-fixed effects. The research team will use mediation and moderation analyses to explore the mechanism(s) through which TALCCS may impact students.
Cost analysis strategy
The researchers conduct cost studies from societal, district, and school perspectives respectively. The data for these studies will draw from Street Law budgets and field data collection in participating districts, which the researchers will use to calculate the total cost of implementing TALCCS for the average participating student. They will draw from this average cost and estimated impact on students' outcomes to estimate cost-effectiveness.
People and institutions involved
IES program contact(s)
Project contributors
Products and publications
Products: This project will result in evidence of the potential efficacy of TALCCS for students in grades 8 through 12 and will produce information about TALCCS implementation, costs, and cost effectiveness. Project products will include a final shared dataset, peer-review publications and presentations, articles and presentations for practitioner and policy-maker audiences, and commentaries, as well as education trade and general press coverage of the results.
ERIC Citations: Find available citations in ERIC for this award here.
Questions about this project?
To answer additional questions about this project or provide feedback, please contact the program officer.
