Dyson Hannah, Solity Jonathan, Best Wendy, Hulme Charles
Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London (UCL), London, UK.
Optima Psychology, Leamington Spa, UK.
Int J Lang Commun Disord. 2018 Sep;53(5):947-958. doi: 10.1111/1460-6984.12404. Epub 2018 Jun 7.
Children's vocabulary knowledge is closely related to other measures of language development and to literacy skills and educational attainment.
To use a regression discontinuity design (RDD) to evaluate the effectiveness of a small-group vocabulary intervention programme for children with poor vocabulary knowledge.
METHODS & PROCEDURES: The vocabulary knowledge of children (N = 199) aged 6-9 years was assessed in six classes. Based on scores at the initial assessment, children with low vocabulary scores for their age were assigned to an intervention group (43 children), with the remaining 156 children assigned to a control group. Children in the intervention group received two to three small-group weekly teaching sessions over a 10-week period. All children were retested post-intervention on the same measures of vocabulary knowledge.
OUTCOMES & RESULTS: The intervention group showed significant improvements in their knowledge of the meanings of the taught words at post-test (an additional 3.95 words learned [95% confidence interval (CI) = 2.70-5.20] compared with the control group; d = 1.20), but the effects did not generalize to untaught words.
CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS: A small-group vocabulary intervention programme is effective for teaching word meanings to 6-9-year-old children with poor vocabulary skills. This study provides further evidence that the RDD is an effective method for evaluating educational interventions.
儿童的词汇知识与语言发展的其他指标、读写能力和学业成绩密切相关。
使用回归断点设计（RDD）评估针对词汇知识薄弱儿童的小组词汇干预计划的有效性。
对六个班级中199名6至9岁儿童的词汇知识进行了评估。根据初始评估得分，将年龄组中词汇得分较低的儿童分配到干预组（43名儿童），其余156名儿童分配到对照组。干预组的儿童在10周内每周接受两到三次小组教学课程。干预后，所有儿童都接受了相同词汇知识测试的重新测试。
干预组在测试后对所教单词的含义知识有显著改善（与对照组相比，多学习了3.95个单词[95%置信区间（CI）=2.70-5.20]；d=1.20），但效果并未推广到未教的单词。
小组词汇干预计划对于教授词汇技能较差的6至9岁儿童的单词含义是有效的。本研究进一步证明RDD是评估教育干预措施的有效方法。
