Principal Investigator
Colleen F. Manning – Goodman Research Group, Inc.
Project Description
This is a pre-post study of Young Mathematicians-Worcester (YM-W), a preschool math program serving young children and their caregivers in Worcester, MA. The program provides families with games and other activities to support the development of children’s early math skills, including number sense, geometry, and math reasoning. This report describes program implementation and changes in self-reported math-related attitudes and competencies based on survey responses from the following sample members who were involved in the project during the 2020 and/or 2021 program implementation period: (i) approximately 110 educators (e.g., Head Start teachers) who completed surveys before the program and at year-end, (ii) 80 parents who completed year-end surveys, (iii) 11 Family Math Leaders focus group participants, and (iv) seven representatives from partner organizations who completed mid-year interviews.
Research Questions
- To what extent is the project making progress in carrying out project development, implementation, and activities as proposed?
- To what extent does the partnership promote an increased understanding of the importance of math for families and an increase in family reports of positive attitudes toward math?
- To what extent does the partnership/program promote an increased understanding of the importance of early math and an increase in educators’ reports of confidence and positive attitudes toward math?
- To what extent does the program increase the quality of educators’ math instruction and family math engagement practices?
- To what extent does the project increase educators’ knowledge of math and math learning and reduce educators’ math anxiety?
- To what extent does the partnership promote children’s math learning?
- What is the Net Promoter Score for the family math learning community stakeholders?
- To what extent does the family math learning community partnership (YM-Worcester) expand and connect children, families, and educators to math learning and engagement opportunities?
Key Findings
YM-W promoted an increased understanding of the importance of math for families; families showed increased interest in and knowledge of early math, increased comfort helping their children with math, and an improved ability to come up with fun math activities to do with their children. Parents also reported the YM-W materials helped them feel less anxious about helping their children with math. Educators also grew in their confidence supporting families to engage their children in math at home and demonstrated increased knowledge of children’s development of number concepts. The study was limited in understanding to what extent YM-W promoted children’s math learning.
Study Citation
Manning, Colleen F. Young Mathematicians-Worcester: Final Evaluation Report. Goodman Research Group, Inc., March 2022. Retrieved from https://youngmathematicians.edc.org/ymworc-year2-report/.
The Key Findings above were reproduced from the published report and do not necessarily reflect interpretation of Overdeck Family Foundation staff.
