School-Based Home Instruction and Learning: A Quantitative Synthesis

Abstract

To assess research on elementary school- based programs for increasing the educationally-stimulating qualities of the home environment, the learning outcomes from 29 controlled studies, found in standard reference indexes for the period 1970 through 1980, were statistically synthesized and related to 43 characteristics of the studies such as treatment conditions, design features, and types of students. Of 121 comparisons, 109 or 91.1 percent favor treatment over control groups; the median effect size of .50 suggests that the typical program raises treatment students from the 50th to the 69th percentile of the control group distribution, although the mean effect corresponds to the 76th percentile, and the range is from the 21st to the 99th percentiles. The relative sizes of the effects are attributable to study methodologies such as reliability of treatment implementation as well as program features such as length of intervention.