The second edition of Investigations in Number, Data and Space became available for full-year implementation during the 2007-2008 school year.
During the multi-year research and development process that resulted in the second edition, a team of outside evaluators from Indiana University worked with the Investigations authors to study the impact of pre-publication materials on student learning. The research was large scale (using data from three different geographical regions with multiple classrooms at each site), longitudinal (examining impact on the same students over three years of schooling), and comparative (including matched comparison groups for grades 3 through 5 at two of the sites). Study measures included both standardized tests (national and state) and neutral tests designed by the researchers. The researcher-designed items focused on the content most heavily impacted by the revision process—number, operations, and algebraic thinking.
Did the revised materials
have the intended impact
on student learning? Although
high student attrition
rates at some of the sites
limited the use of more
powerful statistical analyses
of the longitudinal effects
on student achievement,
single-grade comparative
analyses of the data showed
that Investigations
students did as well or
significantly better than
comparison students using
other curricula on both
standardized tests of mathematical
achievement and on researcher-designed
assessments. At one site
the Investigations
students outperformed
the comparison group at
each grade level and at
the other site they performed
statistically the same.
This study should be viewed
as a first step towards
understanding the impact
of the second edition.
Several factors limit conclusions
that can be drawn from
this study. The curricular
materials were not in final
form, measures of classroom
practice were based on
self-report, and high attrition
rates limited the power
and complexity of the statistical
analyses. However, the
results do provide evidence
of efficacy. Future research
should examine contextual
factors that may maximize
impact of the 2nd Edition
on student learning and
instructional practice.
This research is described in the 2007 report What Did They Learn?: A Longitudinal, Comparative, and Focused Study of a Prepublication Version of Investigations in Number, Data, and Space by Paul Kehle, Kathy Essex, Diana Lambdin, and Kelly McCormick.
