Isolated and combined effects of intervention components on mathematic fluency

Abstract

Scope and Method of Study: The scope of the study was to compare empirically supported math fluency interventions to a control group as well as each other. The intervention components were isolated to investigate their initial strength as well as adding them together to investigate if the combined intervention was actually stronger or more efficient than the isolated components added together. Design was a pre-test/post test control group design. Analysis chosen included an ANCOVA and the development and evaluation of a strength ratio.

Findings and Conclusions: Results indicated that all treatment interventions were considered significant when compared against the control group. ANCOVA pairwise comparisons also indicated that the ET (explicit timing) condition and the ET + PFB + GS+ were significantly different from each other. The evaluation of the strength ratio revealed that the ET + PFB + GS+ offered the largest strength ratio. When the isolated components were broken into their individual strength ratios and summed, the sum of the strength ratios was actually larger than the combination intervention's strength ratio indicating that the effects were considered an example of diminishing returns. Therefore, the ET + PFB offered the most cost efficient or "strong" intervention.