The Minnesota Math Corps program is an intervention program for students in grades four through eight that uses AmeriCorps members to deliver math intervention support to struggling students. It provides schools with materials for implementing evidence-based interventions, recruits and trains tutors and school staff, and engages in ongoing coaching. The Minnesota Math Corps’ mission is to improve foundational math skills necessary for working with whole and rational numbers.
Study Goals:
The goal of the study was to evaluate:
- The impact of a math tutoring program delivered in 20 schools to students in 4th through 8th grades by community members over one academic year
- The extent to which end-of-year math achievement differed for students randomly identified to be served by the program or not served by the program.
Research Questions:
The research questions were:
- To what extent do students assigned to Minnesota Math Corps demonstrate:
- Higher test scores on a basic fact fluency measure relative to students assigned to a control group?
- Higher posttest scores on a computer adaptive measure of math achievement relative to students assigned to a control group?
- Higher posttest scores on the end-of-year state achievement test relative to students assigned to a control group?
Findings:
The evaluation found the following:
- All students increased their fact fluency scores across the academic year
- Students assigned to Minnesota Math Corps had slightly lower STAR Math scores (approximately 10 points) at pre-test relative to students in the control group. At post-test, the average score for students in Minnesota Math Corps was 11.22 scaled score points higher than the average score for students in the control group.
- Similar to their fact fluency, greater percentage of students assigned to Math Corps met the end-of-year benchmark for STAR Math (27%) relative to students in the control group (15%).
- Statistically significant and positive effects were observed for fifth through eighth grade. That is, students in later grades had significantly larger scores, which is generally consistent with the scaling of STAR Math.
For more information, download the full report.
Full report
Further information
Program/Intervention
Minnesota Math Corps
Implementing Organization
Reading & Math Inc
Intermediary(s)
Reading & Math Inc
AmeriCorps Program(s)
AmeriCorps State and National
Age(s) Studied
6-12 (Childhood)
13-17 (Adolescent)
Focus Population(s)/Community(s)
Schools
Outcome Category
K-12 success
Study Type(s)
Impact
Study Design(s)
Experimental (RCT)
Level of Evidence
Strong
Researcher/Evaluator
Codding et al.
Published Year
2019
Study Site Location (State)
Minnesota