The impact of distributed practice schedules within a classwide computation intervention: A randomized control trial

Abstract

Given the number of students demonstrating math difficulties nationally, efforts to optimize instruction and intervention strategies to maximize schools' resources (e.g., personnel, time) are necessary. One method to increase practice opportunities and flexibility for educators is to space instruction across the day. We employed a randomized controlled trial to evaluate whether different practice schedules would impact the short- and long-term effects of a classwide Cover-Copy-Compare math intervention targeting simple and complex math computation problems. We also investigated whether students' average number of opportunities to respond, teachers' ratings of intervention usability, and students' ratings of treatment acceptability differed across the randomly assigned conditions. Thirteen classrooms from two school districts in the Southeast participated. The total dosage per day was held constant across conditions. When compared to students who practiced math facts during one session, students who participated in two or three practice sessions spaced throughout the day had higher math performance on simple computation problems (i.e., subtraction) after a four-week follow-up (g = 0.15 to g = 0.36). Students who practiced math facts during one 10-min session had higher performance on complex computation (i.e., 2 × 2 subtraction) problems (g = −0.30 to g = 0.11) in comparison to students who participated in two or three sessions. Teachers and students perceived the overall intervention and procedures to be acceptable with some variability across grade and condition. Implications for research and practice are discussed with recommendations for educators to consider when designing effective instructional tasks.