Texting parents about tests, homework and lesson content produced a small positive effect on maths attainment (ES 0.067) in a cluster RCT¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · causal r2 · q3 · i0 negligible
Currency · newest study 2016 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i0 Children whose parents received PEP texts experienced about one month of additional progress in maths compared to control children, a small positive effect (ES 0.067, 95% CI 0.041–0.092). → Miller 2016

Evidence¶

Miller 2016¶

Miller, S., Davison, J., Yohanis, J., Sloan, S., Gildea, A. and Thurston, A. (2016). Texting Parents: Evaluation report and executive summary. Education Endowment Foundation. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED581121

q3 · i0 · causal · r2

Results table of a two-armed multi-site cluster randomised controlled trial (randomisation at Key Stage level) reporting the maths outcome for 5,613 analysed pupils: an effect size of "0.067" with confidence interval (0.041, 0.092), equivalent to about one month of additional progress.

"Maths 5,613 0.067 (0.041, 0.092) +1"

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• The PEP texting intervention showed no evidence of an impact on science attainment — related
• Texting parents reduced pupil absenteeism (ES -0.054, about half a day) even though no texts concerned attendance — related
• The small positive English attainment effect (ES 0.033) is at risk of bias from missing baseline data and cannot be reliably concluded — related
• The Tips by Text intervention did not produce significant improvements in children's early reading-related skills (YARC) relative to control — related
• Text-message alerts to parents about incomplete middle-school homework raise student performance — related
• Parent-delivered READY4K! text messages improve preschool children's early literacy performance — related
• Parental involvement has a small to moderate, practically meaningful relationship with students' academic achievement — a broader claim this one bears on
• The absenteeism reduction appeared larger in the Key Stage 4 cohort than in Key Stage 3 — related
• Assigning K–2 nonresponders to gamification plus parent text messages, rather than gamification alone, raised one fall reading-comprehension subscore; the overall MAP gain was marginal — related