Claims

Three weeks of explicit language-focused strategy instruction produced no significant word-problem gain in this study

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · causal r1 · q2
Currency · newest study 1998 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person
Evidence quality · No study behind this claim is a peer-reviewed article with a DOI: it rests on an ERIC document (a report, conference paper or thesis). It is kept because 2 design pages cite it; treat it as a lead to check, not an established finding.

Subclaims

Reading the evidence codes

q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.

This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.

q2 i? After a three-week explicit strategy instruction period, the difference between word problem pre-test and post-test means was not statistically significant. → Stein 1998

Evidence

Stein 1998

Stein, Mary G. (1998). Strategic Learning: The Implications of Language in Successful Math Problem-Solving. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED416501

q2 · i? · causal · r1

A single-classroom pre-test/post-test comparison of 10-item word problem tests followed three weeks of daily 20-minute explicit strategy instruction. The pre-test mean was 47.08 (SD 21.77) and the post-test mean 55.42 (SD 24.13); "a t of -1.26 was computed, indicating that no significant gain was made."

"Applying statistical tests to determine the difference,a t of -1.26 was computed, indicating that no significant gain was made between the twotests."

Studies bearing on this claim

Does explicitly teaching a strategy or plan for word problems improve how learners set up and solve them? This table gathers the studies behind this claim and the 4 narrower claims that bear on it: 3 distinct studies (3 causal), q1–q2, 0 of 3 with an effect size coded. One row per study, codes as each entry records them; no effect is averaged and no verdict is drawn. Built by scripts/synthesize_claim.py from eval/synthesis/; a row that looks wrong is fixed on the claim it comes from.

Study Design Effect as recorded Bears on this claim through
Stein 1998 q2 · causal · r1 i? this claim
Bassler 1972 q1 / q2 · causal · r2 i? Polya Method students outscore Dahmus Method students on the equation criterion for verbal (qualifies); Polya and Dahmus methods do not differ on the problem solution criterion (qualifies); Dahmus Method students translated phrases successfully but failed to combine them into a s (qualifies)
Zambo 1994 q2 · causal · r1 i? Sixth graders scored significantly higher on posttests that included the seven-step proble (supports)

Discussion

Learner Variables

Page metadata
Field Value
type claim
id explicit-strategy-instruction-no-significant-gain
title Three weeks of explicit language-focused strategy instruction produced no significant word-problem gain in this study
description Three weeks of explicit language-focused strategy instruction produced no significant word-problem gain in this study
status review
evidence_strength moderate
newest_evidence 1998
generated by claude/unspecified on 2026-09-25
trust unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
sources 1 — stein-1998

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