Analyze EL outcomes by years-as-EL subgroups rather than treating ELs as one group¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 1 claim (1 for) · 1 study (1 associational), q2 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 1 claim rests on one study

Description¶

The article argues that research treating English learners as a single group misses important variation, and improves on previous research "by addressing this dimension of heterogeneity and reporting detailed by-subject analyses." The approach disaggregates EL students by time spent as an EL and examines course-taking separately by subject, revealing heterogeneity that pooled EL-versus-non-EL comparisons cannot show.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Requires student-level data recording how long each student was classified as an EL, plus course-taking records disaggregated by subject

Constraints¶

• The article's evidence comes from one California district; the abstract does not claim the approach generalizes elsewhere

Target Learners¶

• English learners in secondary school

Target Learning Goals¶

• Equitable access to academic coursework and accurate interpretation of EL outcome data

Claims¶

• More than half of LTEL7 students were in their 7th, 8th, or 9th year of being classified as EL, and more than 20,000 had been classified for 12 or more years [+W]

Related Strategies¶

Examples¶

-

Key Sources¶

• Angela Johnson. (2019). A matter of time: variations in high school course-taking by years-as-EL subgroup. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 41 (4), 461-482. https://www.nwea.org/research/publication/a-matter-of-time-variations-in-high-school-course-taking-by-years-as-el-subgroup/