Reporting of Software Product-Testing Stirs Debate
Major U.S.-funded study won’t tell how specific programs performed.
With the results of a forthcoming federal study of educational software still under wraps, questions are arising about how it has been conducted—particularly the government’s decision not to disclose individual performance results for the 15 computerized curriculum packages being studied.
While the companies involved will receive results for their own products, the public will see only aggregated findings for the four categories of programs examined in the $10 million study. Those categories are 1st grade early reading, 4th grade reading comprehension, 6th grade pre-algebra, and 9th grade algebra.
The study, authorized by the federal No Child Left Behind Act, stands out as “one of only a few national-level, randomized-trial evaluations that the federal government has ever done,” said Michael L. Kamil, a Stanford University education researcher who is on...
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