A team of BU Wheelock faculty members are leading a new study, “The Effect of Requiring Structured English Immersion Training for General Education Teachers on Student Achievement.” Marcus Winters will serve as primary investigator, with Nathan Jones and Yasuko Kanno as co-PIs. The study is funded by the William T. Grant Foundation.

“We are very excited to move forward with this project,” says Winters. “Policies requiring specialized training for general education teachers instructing ELs are intuitively appealing and spreading rapidly, but to date we lack clear evidence of their effects.”

To examine the policy’s effect, Winters, Jones, and Kanno will use longitudinal administrative student-level and teacher-level data from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. The study will focus English learners’ academic achievement, progress toward English proficiency, attendance, and behavior, as well as potential effects spill-over to the academic outcomes of non-ELs.

“To our knowledge, our study will be the first to use a rigorous quantitative method that is capable of estimating the casual effect of such a policy on student outcomes,”  says Winters. “I also see it as part of an exciting line of work that applies modern quantitative research techniques to convincingly measure the effect of policies and practices that are targeted students who require specialized services such as ELs and students with disabilities.”

This project will mark the first time the Grant Foundation has contributed funding to a study conducted by Boston University Wheelock College of Education & Human Development faculty.