Impact Evaluation of scaling-up of action research findings from FE sector maths teachers

Centres for Excellence in Maths (CfEM) is seeking a research agency to evaluate the impact of scaled-up interventions in GCSE and Functional Skills resit classes in the Further Education sector in England. The project will run from July 2022 to February 2023. The research is required to inform further trials prior to any national roll out and to identify how interventions can work best across multiple FE settings. Findings from 3 or 4 Action Research projects that took place in the academic year 2021/22 will be shared and tried out across the CfEM network.

The design of the evaluation is open to discussion. However, it should focus on (a) learners' progress on Level 2 exam-type questions and (b) wider causal factors linking the intervention to its impacts. Coordinators in each of the 21 CfEMs will assist with training and recruitment. Ideally, each of the 3 or 4 interventions will be done for four weeks in the Autumn term by approximately 30 teachers and approximately 1000-1500 learners. At this stage, we envisage a pre- and post-intervention assessment and questionnaire for learners and a post-intervention questionnaire for teachers, the content of which will be developed by ETF, working collaboratively with the appointed research agency. Research outputs will be a short written report and anonymized raw and tabulated data.