10/31/2011
Tashia Abry, a doctoral student in the Curry School’s Educational Psychology doctoral program, has been invited to speak for an occasional symposium series offered through the Center for Assessment and Research Studies at James Madison University on November 4.
Abry will discuss her work with the Responsive Classroom Efficacy Study, a randomized controlled trial of the Responsive Classroom® (RC) approach to elementary teaching. The RC approach is an intervention developed by the Northeast Foundation for Children, designed to integrate social and academic learning and improve the capacity of teachers to manage their classrooms effectively. The efficacy study, which is funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute for Education Sciences, involves 24 schools. Data collection for the three-year longitudinal study began in January 2008. Children and their teachers are being followed from grades 3 through 5, with a special emphasis on the extent to which the RC approach relates to classroom quality during mathematics instruction and ultimately, children’s math achievement.
Abry’s talk will focus on findings from the first two years of data collection, including the impact of RC training on teachers’ implementation of RC practices and improvements in teacher-student interaction quality, as well as a unique approach to assessing the active ingredients of RC and their relation to student achievement outcomes.
Abry is conducting her research under the mentorship of Sara Rimm-Kaufman, Curry School associate professor, director of the U.Va. Social Development Lab, and the study’s principal investigator.
Last September, Abry and fellow doctoral students from the Social Development Lab, Erin Ottmar, Eileen Merritt, and Marissa Grigg, presented papers at the annual conference of the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness in Washington, D.C.
