Describe Project Follow Through and its findings

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Project Follow Through, a federal education project, was implemented beginning in the late 1960s and was the largest organized experiment in the history of education. It involved nearly 100,000 students in 170 communities across the country and cost nearly $1 billion (Watkins, 1997). The goal of Project Follow Through was to identify models of instruction that could close the gap in academic achievement between economically disadvantaged students and those from higher-income families. Researchers tested nine instructional models including Direct Instruction. Each was implemented in at least three schools, and each model school was paired with a similar control school. Outcome measures included three domains: (a) basic academic skills such as word knowledge, spelling, and math computations; (b) cognitive outcomes such as reading comprehension, math concepts, and math problem solving; and (c) affective outcomes such as responsibility and self-esteem.
Direct Instruction was the only model that demonstrated large positive effects in all three domains. The data indicate that Direct Instruction can be effective with students who are economically disadvantaged and that it can improve not only basic skills but also complex cognitive and affective outcomes. Students taught using the Direct Instruction model significantly outperformed students taught using the other models. In fact, the Direct Instruction students performed close to the 50th percentile, an outstanding feat considering the 50th percentile is the median for students of all income levels in the United States.