An Integrated Data Approach to Exploring Racial Differences in Reading Intervention Effectiveness

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PROJECT SUMMARY Persistent, intractable challenges with reading acquisition present critical educational and health concerns as reading is a known indicator of lifetime earnings, general health, and overall wellbeing (OECD, 2012). Decades of educational research has contributed to the development and testing of supplemental reading interventions that provide intensive, targeted support to promote achievement for students with or at-risk for reading disability (RD). However, to date, there has been no comprehensive exploration of racial differences in reading intervention effectiveness. National data indicate that only 18% of Black students read at or above proficient levels in fourth grade, compared to 45% of their White peers (NAEP, 2019). This gap does not narrow with age (15% and 42% at eighth grade), nor has it narrowed over time (NAEP, 2019). Furthering our understanding of these disparities in reading achievement requires scientific inquiry that disentangles the role of race in determining intervention effectiveness. The exploration of racial differences has been dissuaded in part by a lack of representation of Black students in educational and psychological research (e.g., Graham, 1992; Graves et al., 2021; Lindo, 2006), and a predominantly race neutral approach to intervention development and testing. Thus, the overall goal of the proposed project is to aggregate data from rigorous studies of supplemental reading interventions for students with or at-risk for RD to investigate the presence of differential intervention effects between Black and White students. We use a cross-disciplinary framework that integrates bioecological systems theory, which recognizes sources of individual difference that stem from dynamic interactions within and between our social environments, with QuantCrit, a methodological subfield of critical race theory. Taken together, this framework recognizes that our interventions are likely not race neutral and complex systems may differentially affect the effectiveness of these interventions for certain groups of students. The proposed integrated dataset, representing more than 39 million dollars in federal research investment, will be archived and shared on the LDbase data repository. By leveraging the existing infrastructure of LDbase and making use of previously committed NIH resources, we are uniquely situated to address the overall goal of the research project through three specific aims (SA). First, we will assemble an integrated dataset with data from rigorous reading intervention studies (SA1). Second, we use the integrated data to determine whether there are differential intervention effects for Black students compared to their White peers (SA2). And finally, we identify characteristics of students, interventions, and outcomes that explain differential response to reading intervention for Black students as compared to their White peers (SA3).