Conducting Research on Intervention Effectiveness
The SERVE Center conducts rigorous studies that address high-priority issues that need testing to establish the effects of proposed policies, programs, or practices on academic achievement. These
randomized control trial (RCT) studies are designed to provide causally valid answers and must meet
Institute of Education Sciences (IES) standards for field tests based on experimental designs.
The SERVE Center’s two current REL-SE studies are:
The Effectiveness of a Program to Accelerate Vocabulary Development in Kindergarten (K-PAVE)
The Regional Educational Laboratory-Southeast at SERVE Center (REL-SE) conducted a randomized control trial in the Mississippi Delta to test the impact of Kindergarten PAVEd for Success (K-PAVE) on students’ expressive vocabulary. The K-PAVE intervention is a kindergarten vocabulary instruction program designed to promote kindergarten students’ vocabulary development through frequent, interactive book reading, explicit vocabulary instruction, and teacher-child conversations built around enhanced use of vocabulary. Study findings, published in this REL-SE report, showed K-PAVE had a significant positive impact for student’s vocabulary development and academic knowledge, as well as for the classroom instruction outcome of vocabulary and comprehension support. This study was the first independent test of the effectiveness of the K-PAVE vocabulary intervention, using a rigorous randomized design, and testing the intervention as it is implemented in multiple school districts.
The Effectiveness of the Alabama Math, Science, and Technology Initiative (AMSTI)
A study of the effectiveness of the state of Alabama’s Math-Science-Technology Intervention.