Simple, low-cost nudges can help teachers support student progress in math

 American students have been falling behind in math for decades—with test scores that consistently rank in the bottom 25% globally compared to students in other developed countries—and the COVID-19 pandemic made the situation worse.

Previous research has shown that interventions grounded in behavioral science that target student motivation have been effective at increasing math scores, suggesting that taking a similar “behaviorally informed” approach with teachers might have a comparable effect.

Now, a collaborative study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and led by researchers at the Behavior Change for Good Initiative (BCFG) at the University of Pennsylvania has found that behaviorally informed email messages slightly improved students’ math progress compared to control messages.

“Our results showed that simple, low-cost nudges can help teachers support student progress in math,” says Angela Duckworth, Rosa Lee and Egbert Chang Professor in Penn’s School of Arts & Sciences and the Wharton School, who led the study and co-directs BCFG. “These nudges worked across different school contexts, with effects persisting eight weeks after teachers stopped receiving the nudges.”

The key to this megastudy was the partnership with Zearn Math, a nonprofit educational platform. “Large-scale studies on teacher-focused interventions have been rare due to the high cost and logistical challenges involved. Thanks to our partnership with Zearn Math, we were able to overcome these challenges,” says co-author Dena Gromet, executive director of BCFG.

A megastudy is “a large-scale experiment in which multiple interventions are tested simultaneously on the same outcome, a tournament approach, if you will,” says co-author Katy Milkman, James G. Dinan Endowed Professor and professor of operations, information and decisions at the Wharton School and co-director of BCFG. “Because all interventions run concurrently and are compared to a common control group, this method allows for direct comparisons of their effectiveness.”

In one of the largest studies of its kind—involving more than 140,000 teachers and nearly 3 million elementary students—the researchers compared the impact of 15 different interventions to a reminder-only message.

“These messages were behaviorally informed, meaning they were based on prior insights from behavioral science. For instance, one intervention asked teachers to make a specific plan for how they would use Zearn Math that week, an approach backed by research showing that people are more likely to follow through when they make detailed plans. Another intervention appealed to teachers’ empathy for their students, which previous research has demonstrated is supportive of student success,” Duckworth says.

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Co-authors Katy Milkman (left) and Angela Duckworth are committed to dig deeper into what makes these kinds of interventions work and how to make them even more effective over time.

Specifically, the research team found that, compared to standard email reminders, behaviorally informed email messages improved students’ math progress during the four-week intervention period by 1.89%. The most effective intervention, which increased student math progress by about 5.06%, encouraged teachers to log into Zearn Math weekly for an updated, personalized report on their students’ progress.

“One especially promising takeaway is that personalized nudges—those that referenced progress updates about a teacher’s own students—were more effective than nonpersonalized ones,” Duckworth says.

The researchers note that though they are promising, the effects were small. “These results suggest the need for more intensive support than the light-touch email nudges we tested,” Milkman says. “And they underscore how hard it is to change human behavior.”

These findings, Milkman says, suggest several additional valuable avenues for future research, including “more random-assignment field experiments to confirm the causal benefits of teacher-targeted nudges and studies to probe the longer-term effects of behaviorally-informed interventions.”

Additional research is also needed, Duckworth says, “to confirm and explain the benefits of referencing personalized data when nudging teachers. It may be that capitalizing on teachers’ intrinsic motivation to help their students is a distinct and potentially cost-effective approach that can complement other interventions, such as offering performance bonuses and other extrinsic incentives.”

Next steps for researchers are to dig deeper into what makes these kinds of interventions work and how to make them even more effective over time. Future studies are needed to look into the long-term effects of nudges and explore why some interventions are more effective than others.

“The better we understand why something works, the more powerfully we can use it to create positive change,” Duckworth says. “Ultimately, this line of research could help shape smarter, more effective education policies.”

Teaching kids about bugs benefits the environment

 

Pro-environmental behaviour increases among school students who participate in insect-related citizen science projects, according to new research from the University of Adelaide.

Students who participated in citizen science project Insect Investigators, which engages students in the discovery of new insects, not only expressed an intention to change their personal behaviour but also to encourage others to protect nature.

“As a result of their involvement in this program, students expressed intentions to further engage in insect–science–nature activities,” says the University of Adelaide’s Dr Erinn Fagan-Jeffries, who contributed to the study.

“In addition, teachers reported increased intentions to include insect-related topics in their teaching, which was positively associated with students' own intentions for pro-environmental behaviour change.

“This suggests students’ response to the project influenced their teacher’s decision to include citizen science in their lessons.”

School-based citizen science projects facilitate authentic scientific interactions between research and educational institutions while exposing students to scientific processes.

“Teachers’ motivations for providing citizen science experiences to students was to create hands-on learning opportunities and to connect students with real science and scientists,” says Professor Patrick O’Connor AM, Director of the University’s School of Economics and Public Policy.

“Teachers reported interactions with researchers as invaluable. These interactions could take the form of in-person visits by team members, or even instructional videos and curriculum-linked teacher lesson plans.”

Incorporating insects into school-based citizen science projects can challenge widespread human misconceptions about insects and their roles in ecosystems, and foster human–insect connections.

“Given global concerns of rapid insect declines and the overarching biodiversity crisis, insect-focused, school-based citizen science projects can ultimately contribute towards equipping students with knowledge of, and actions to promote, insect conservation,” says lead author Dr Andy Howe, from the University of the Sunshine Coast.

“In Australia, approximately 33 per cent of insects are formally described, the remainder exist as ‘dark taxa’, to the detriment of environmental and biodiversity management initiatives.

“Encouraging more young people to engage in science not only engenders positive feelings in them towards the environment, it will also help to build the next generation of scientists who will fill in the vast knowledge gap that exists in the world of insects

High school sports: How family background can help lead to athletic success

 Americans have long believed that sports are one area in society that offers kids from all backgrounds the chance to succeed to the best of their abilities.

 

But new research suggests that this belief is largely a myth, and that success in high school and college athletics often is influenced by race and gender, as well as socioeconomic status, including family wealth and education.

 

“We often think about sports as level playing fields that reward people who earn their success, but that’s not the whole story,” said Chris Knoester, co-author of the studies and professor of sociology at The Ohio State University.

 

“Success depends a lot on the advantages young people have when they grow up.”

 

These results may seem surprising to a lot of people, said Kirsten Hextrum, lead author of the research and assistant professor in the School of Language, Culture, and Society at Oregon State University.

 

“We want to counter the common notion that an individual person’s ability, drive and interest are what lead to who becomes the best athletes in our society,” Hextrum said.

 

“We found that high school and college sports are profoundly shaped by one’s socioeconomic status and other factors unrelated to talent.”

 

In two studies, Knoester, Hextrum and James Tompsett, a PhD graduate in sociology from Ohio State, analyzed data from a nationwide study of high school students in the 10th grade who were followed up with again in the 12th grade. Nearly 10,000 students from 800 different schools were studied in 2002 and 2004.

 

To complement these inquiries, Hextrum led analyses of in-depth interviews with 49 Black and white athletes at one college who were on rowing or track and field teams but who typically played multiple sports in high school.

 

One of the studies was published in October in the journal Leisure/Loisir. The second study was published recently in the Journal for the Study of Sports and Athletes in Education.

 

A comprehensive examination of the high school athletes showed how large an impact their family socioeconomic status (SES) had on their athletic participation and success.

 

While 70% of students from high SES families played a high school sport, only 43% of those from low SES families played.

 

Success also depended on family SES. Findings showed that while 27% of students from high SES families reported being a captain of a sports team, the rate was only 8% for those from low SES families.

 

Students from high SES families were also more likely to play multiple sports and persist in playing from 10th to 12th grade.

 

The research also found racial and ethnic differences in family SES and who attended wealthier schools, with white students being more privileged, Knoester said.

 

Boys were more likely to play sports in high school than girls and to play persistently, the study found.

 

How race shapes sports participation was a striking theme in the in-depth college athlete interviews that Hextrum led.

 

She found that Black athletes felt more comfortable in track and field than majority-white sports. Conversely, white athletes felt comfortable playing all types of sports, and did not believe their race influenced their athletic selections.

 

“Black participants were very explicit that they felt their race had routed them into track and field,” she said.

 

One Black athlete that Hextrum interviewed ended up in track and field after trying sports that were dominated by white players.

 

“Malcolm described track and field as a sport where he could just breathe. It was a place where he felt he wasn’t constantly being challenged or questioned about who he was,” Hextrum said.

 

“Race was not a factor at all for white students in my study. They never felt they had to think about their race when they were making these athletic decisions.”

 

As far as socioeconomic status, there are obvious ways that growing up in a high SES family helps young people get ahead in their sports, the researchers said. Parents with higher SES have the ability to pay for more sports for their kids, pay for specialized training and club sports outside of school, and live in neighborhoods with better fields and courts and other resources.

 

But another, more subtle, advantage is what the researchers called the “intensive parenting” that goes on in, and is enabled by, higher SES homes.

 

It starts at the very beginning, with parents introducing their young children to sports, and to specific sports.  Hextrum said nearly every athlete in her study said their parents initiated their entry into sports.

 

“When you intensively parent, you have more resources to invest in your child’s athletic future, and that’s not just money.  It is time, emotional investment and educational investment,” Hextrum said.

 

For parents with high SES, intensive parenting means using their education and knowledge and leisure time and resources to constantly work on behalf of their children, Knoester added.

 

“These parents have the knowledge and comfort in figuring out systems and pathways to provide advantages for their children,” he said.

 

“They can find the best coaches, help choose the sports that offer the best opportunities for their children, they can figure out the hidden rules and strategies that aren’t available to everyone.”

 

Knoester and Hextrum emphasized that advantaged parents aren’t trying to harm others in advocating for their children. Instead, they are pursuing what they think is their family’s own best interests, trying to provide the best possible situation for their own children as they grow up.

 

But the end result is that it perpetuates the inequalities already in society and makes it more difficult for others to maximize their athletic talents.

 

“We can’t say that the only reason people from disadvantaged backgrounds aren’t playing or having athletic success is because they don’t care enough or aren’t good enough or aren’t working hard enough,” Knoester said.

 

“Our research suggests that sports aren’t always a meritocracy. Some people have built-in advantages outside of their athletic skills that will help them succeed.”

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Journal

Journal for the Study of Sports and Athletes in Education

DOI

10.1080/19357397.2025.2470116 

Adolescents engaged in fewer external risky behaviors but increasing mental health concerns

 

Between 1999-2021, U.S. adolescents steadily desisted from risky behaviors such as substance use and violence, and from reporting a combination of both risky behaviors and mental health symptoms. Yet a comparatively small but growing proportion of youth demonstrated elevated symptoms of depression, according to a report to be published in the April 2025 issue of Pediatrics.

The study, published online on March 18, and titled “Trends in Mental and Behavioral Health Risks in Adolescents: 1999-2021,” analyzed data from the national biennial Youth Risk Behavior Surveys distributed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A total of 178,658 students in the 9th-12th grades nationwide were analyzed across the entire research timeline. Results revealed that most adolescents — and increasing proportions over cohorts — ceased risky behavior such as substance use, unsafe sexual activities, and violence, and did not display signs of mental health problems such as depression, according to researchers at Boston College and San Diego State University.

However, a small group of adolescents — representing less than nine percent of those surveyed — reported heightened mental health concerns such as increased symptoms of hopelessness and suicidality, and an even smaller proportion reported both heightened risky behavior and mental health problems, necessitating additional public health measures to intervene and promote enhanced wellbeing.

The research was led by Rebekah Levine Coley, a professor and the Gabelli Family Faculty Fellow in the Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology department at Boston College’s Lynch School of Education and Human Development, in collaboration with Jane Leer, an assistant professor of Psychology at San Diego State University’s Department of Psychology, and Lindsay Lanteri, a Ph.D. candidate at the Lynch School.

“Perhaps the most important finding from this work highlights the dominant and increasing prevalence of adolescents with low levels of internalizing behaviors who are also abstaining from multiple types of behavioral health risks,” said Coley, who also directs BC’s Center for Child and Family Policy. “Simultaneously, the relatively modest but increasing number of youth reporting elevated indications of depression points to target populations for prevention and treatment efforts, which is critical information for policymakers and health practitioners seeking to optimize the well-being of U.S. adolescents.”

Reading Comprehension Strategy Interventions for Struggling Readers: A Meta-analysis

 Based on 52 studies with samples mostly from English-speaking countries, this study used Bayesian network meta-analysis to investigate the intervention effectiveness of different reading comprehension strategy combinations on reading comprehension among students with reading difficulties in 3rd through 12th grade, focusing on commonly researched strategies: main idea, inference, text structure, retell, prediction, self-monitoring, and graphic organizers. 

Results showed (1) instruction of more strategies did not necessarily have stronger effects on reading comprehension; (2) there was no single reading comprehension strategy that produced the strongest effect; (3) main idea, text structure, and retell, taught together as the primary strategies, seemed the most effective; and (4) the effects of strategies only held when background knowledge instruction was included. 

These findings suggest strategy instruction among students with reading difficulties follows an ingredient-interaction model—that is, no single strategy works the best. It is not “the more we teach, the better outcomes to expect.” Instead, different strategy combinations may produce different effects on reading comprehension. Main idea, text structure, and retell together may best optimize the cognitive load during reading comprehension. 

How Versus Where to Educate Students With Disabilities in America's Schools

 For decades, there have been competing visions of how and where to educate students with disabilities (SWDs) in America's K-12 schools. One conception is that general classrooms can accommodate the learning needs of virtually all children. A second approach calls for multiple placement options. Over the years, the context in which this disagreement has played out has changed as educators have shifted from a reliance on special classes to trust in general classes to enthusiasm for intensive instruction beyond the general class. 

Such variation in practice has influenced how researchers have explored relations between SWDs' placement and their academic performance. Some of this research has been weak, producing unreliable findings. Some has generated more trustworthy results. All stakeholders would benefit from distinguishing the weaker studies from the stronger ones. Yet, to date, there has been an absence of such effort. 

This paper provide sa concise history of placement-achievement research and then reviews evidence spanning 50 years, bearing on how and where to educate SWDs. 

The authors conclude that the research on where to teach has generally been weak and inconclusive; the research on how to teach, stronger and more certain. Implications for educating SWDs are discussed.

Effects of Closing the Digital Divide During COVID-19 on Student Engagement and Achievement

 Equitably expanding technology access among K-12 students is viewed as critical for equalizing educational opportunities. But these interventions may influence students’ academic outcomes in unexpected ways. Evidence suggests key technological resources, like broadband Internet, are a double-edged sword, conferring both educational benefits and distractions for children. Technology-oriented educational investments have received substantial investment in the last five years, spiking during the COVID-19 remote learning period, when high-speed Internet access became indispensable to instruction. How did expanding Internet access influence students’ academic outcomes? 

Thiis study leverages Chicago Public Schools’ pandemic-era broadband expansion initiative to assess whether overall levels of, and equity in, educational engagement and achievement improved with increased technology access. 

Analyses reveal a skill-technology complementarity: broadband program participation boosted remote learning engagement and achievement for previously high-performing students and reduced engagement and achievement for low-performing pupils. Similar heterogeneity patterns remained upon the return to classroom instruction. 

The authors conclude that increased technology access may come with greater costs for low-achieving students and benefits for high-achieving ones— contributing to widening pandemic-era educational inequities. Continued investments in expanding technology access without complementary supports for vulnerable students may further fuel these inequities; counterbalancing the negative effects of technology for low-achieving students is thus imperative. 

Complete report