MCPER has been awarded a $4 million federal grant to launch a national network to investigate how to better merge behavior support within reading and mathematics interventions.
The new initiative, Behavior and Academic Supports: Integration and Cohesion (Project BASIC), is led by Principal Investigator Nathan Clemens. The award is through the Institute of Education Sciences Research Networks competition, which brings together research teams to “advance the field’s understanding beyond what an individual team could do on its own. Combined, these research teams are charged with creating a body of knowledge and assisting policymakers and practitioners who need to use such information to strengthen education policies and programs to improve student education outcomes,” according to the Institute of Education Sciences website.
Studies have shown that academic and behavioral difficulties are linked. This problem is no secret to educators, but merging intervention for academic and behavior skills has proven to be challenging. To investigate this issue, Project BASIC—already up and running in 10 elementary schools in Austin Independent School District—will examine how to more cohesively integrate behavior support strategies within reading and mathematics interventions for struggling learners in second and third grades. Across the first 2 years, Project BASIC will target the integration of behavior support within reading interventions. During years 3 and 4 of the project, the focus will shift to the integration of behavior support within mathematics interventions. A particular focus of the behavior support will be on academic engagement, which stands at the intersection of learning and behavior. The research team will use a sequential, multiple assignment, randomized trial (SMART) to evaluate whether an adaptive intervention that embeds behavioral self-regulation strategies within increasingly intensive reading and math interventions leads to positive effects on academic and behavioral skills for students.
For more information about Project BASIC, contact the team at utprojectbasic@gmail.com.