CLASE Research

Research projects undertaken by the Center for Latino Achievement and Success in Education.

Our Research

Research conducted by the Center for Latino Achievement and Success in Education has helped develop new pedagogies, change the understanding of cultural adaptation and learning, and investigate how first-generation students adapt to the United States.

Here, learn more about our research projects and their long-term effects on education across the United States.

Instructional Conversation

The Center for Latino Achievement and Success in Education conducted a randomized controlled trial on the effectiveness on the Instructional Conversation pedagogy on third- and fifth-grade students from 2011-2015. The goal of the project, funded by a $2.9 million grant from the Institute of Education Sciences, was to test whether the Instructional Conversation model can improve English language students' and their peers' literacy as measured by standardized reading and other subject area tests.

To achieve this goal, CLASE developed a model of professional development involving 61 schools in 16 districts, with 121 teachers completing the study. Teachers were recruited to join one of three cohorts, with each cohort studied for a period of two years: one training/practice year and one experimental year. Teachers were randomly assigned to the treatment or control condition, with the treatment teachers receiving training and coaching support in the instructional conversation pedagogy. By the end of the project, achievement test data had been collected for 2,351 students, in addition to teacher logs (from both treatment and control teachers), videos of Instructional Conversation lessons, and other assessments of fidelity of implementation and counterfactual evidence.

Overall, the findings from the study indicate that the Instructional Conversation pedagogy improved reading standardized test scores for English language learners in the treatment group 14% above English language learners in the control group. For non-English language learners, the effect was 10% greater for reading. It may be that as a result of this general impact on reading ability, other content areas were also positively affected. Future research is needed to test this hypothesis.

Additional findings:

Treatment significantly impacted the entire sample (i.e., English language learners and non-English language learners test scores aggregated) for both reading and social studies outcome measures (p<0.05). For these two outcome measures, the Instructional Conversation intervention produced an approximate 9% and 8% increase in test scores, respectively.
When models were disaggregated by English language learning status, improved performance on reading, science, social studies, and mathematics outcomes was only found among English language learners. For English language learners, the intervention resulted in an approximately 15% increase in scores for science (p<0.01) and social studies (p<0.01) and an approximate 14% increase in reading and mathematics (p<0.01).

Taken together, the findings suggest Instructional Conversation can have a positive effect on elementary school students' reading achievement, and this in turn may positively influence achievement in other subject areas. Results discussed here are relevant to educational policy for English language learners and scaling strategies for teaching English language and literacy to elementary school students. Our conclusions should be contrasted with other commonly used approaches for countering learning and teaching gaps in public education.

Implement Instructional Conversation in Your School

We offer a variety of professional development options for schools and districts to assist with implementing the Instructional Conversation pedagogy.

Learn more

More Research on Instructional Conversations

For additional research supporting Instructional Conversations, click below.

IC Literature List

Cultural Adaptation and Development Inventory

The Cultural Adaptation and Development Inventory project integrates empirical research from interrelated social science disciplines to assess general dimensions of individual adaptation across cultures. This project is based on acculturation themes that include cultural sensitivity, efficacy, perceived discrimination, and positive adjustment and was designed to provide a multidimensional assessment for studying diverse groups' adaptation in different settings and climates. The Cultural Adaptation and Development Inventory project is unique as it is based on both dominant and non-dominant perspectives regarding lived transcultural experiences and takes into consideration identity shifts within and between groups.

This project has been over a decade in development and validation with other independent measures for establishing convergent and discriminant purposes. It consists of 30 items grouped into four factors:

Inter-cultural stress
Effort optimism
Positive inter-cultural adaptation
Inter-cultural insensitivity

Each item statement presents a view, feeling, or experience related to cultural adaptation to which the individual can respond on a five-point Likert scale. The result provides an economic and valid measure that may be used in understanding the relationships among psychosocial climate, violence, and the effectiveness of educational interventions.

Given institutional as well as national concerns with diversity and the retention of underrepresented students, this inventory may be used as part of a tool-kit for evaluating intercultural adaptation processes and vulnerability to distress. CLASE is currently using this tool and other standard indices of psychological well-being to study group-based differences in cultural adaptation among dominant and non-dominant groups across college campuses.

If you are a student or a researcher and would like to learn more about the Cultural Adaptation and Development Inventory tool, please email Dr. Pedro Portes.

Longitudinal Immigration and Education Research Study

CLASE's Longitudinal Immigrant and Education Research Study is a multi-year pilot study aimed at providing information about how post-first-generation children of immigrants, now enrolled in elementary school, are adapting to the United States. With this study, CLASE aims to assess immigrant children's socio-cultural and educational adaptation and development, especially with regard to language, culture, and identity.

Little is known about the development of this young, predominantly Latino population. This study will help determine these students' developmental processes and track those processes and other changes over time.

Data Collection

The Longitudinal Immigrant and Education Research Study uses a research design that includes the following measures:

The CLASE Longitudinal Immigrant Educational Research Questionnaire (a 68-item scale assessing immigrant children's cultural adaptation with a focus on language development)
The Harter's Self-Perception Profile for Children (a 36-item scale measuring children's self-esteem with regard to scholastic, social, and global self-worth)
The Psychological Sense of School Membership Scale (11-item scale measuring the extent to which students feel accepted, integrated, and supported in their school environment)
The Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test (a 48-item measure of nonverbal intelligence)

Participants

Eligible participants are students (male and female) enrolled in an elementary school whose parents immigrated to the United States primarily from Latin America. Presently, participants are third- to fifth-graders who vary in language proficiency (English or Spanish) and who are asked to complete surveys and interviews outside of school. Participants' families consent to share school records (test scores, grades, and other information). For now, the study is connected to CLASE's ongoing tutoring and mentoring program at Oglethorpe Avenue Elementary school, where it is used to help determine participants' cultural adaptation, academic achievement, and other factors in their development.

Request Additional Information

In time, we expect this study to expand to provide a greater understanding of post-first-generation immigrant children. This may allow policy makers, educators, and social service agencies to better design services to meet actual needs. For more information about the CLASE Longitudinal Immigrant and Education Research Study, please email Dr. Pedro Portes.

Research on the Instructional Conversation Pedagogy

Watch a video that explains how collaborative classroom interactions can increase academic achievement for all learners.

The CLASE Goizueta Foundation Graduate Assistants

The Goizueta Foundation Graduate Assistantships are funded through a generous endowment from the Goizueta Foundation and awarded annually through a national call and a competitive selection process. This team of exceptional students represents a cross-section of departments from across the Mary Frances Early College of Education and the University of Georgia. Their work within interdisciplinary collaborative project teams is invaluable to CLASE's efforts to address the institution’s and Center's tripartite mission of research, outreach and instruction.

Note: The Call for Nominations for The Goizueta Foundation Graduate Scholars Fund Assistantship is out in late Fall. We receive applications in early Spring. For more information, please refer to the Call for Nominations announcement.

Frank C. Granados Orozco

Frank Granados is pursuing a PhD in Philosophy and a Master’s Degree in Musicology. He is interested in the intersection between Philosophy for Children (P4C) and Instructional Conversation Pedagogy (IC).

Julia Duncanson

Julia Duncanson is pursuing her PhD in Language & Literacy Education. She is interested in bilingual education, dual language immersion, and supporting multilingual learners through Instructional Conversation Pedagogy (IC). She is involved in research and professional development projects with CLASE.

Jean Costa-Silva

Jean is a PhD student in the Department of Linguistics. Jean manages all CLASE social media channels, provides tech support on the CLASE platform and webinars, and is in charge of the Instructional Conversation Newsletter.

Dominique La Barrie

Dominique is pursuing a PhD in Developmental Psychology. She works to examine how CLASE impacts youth social-emotional state. Her interests are in traumas impacts on families and child emotion regulation.

Gisselle Velez

Gisselle Velez is pursuing her Master’s in TESOL and World Language Education. During her time in her program and at CLASE, she hopes to learn different strategies to help support academic gaps with multilingual learners in her future classroom. At CLASE, Gisselle will be assisting with different projects and research in order to best support our educators in Georgia.

Diego Innocencio

Diego Morgado Innocencio is a Master’s student in the Learning, Design and Technology program. He works at CLASE as a graduate assistant providing tech support, and works on different projects related to audio-visual.

Kimberly R.Chavez

Kimberly is a PhD student in the School Psychology program. She aids CLASE with administrative tasks for the IC institute. Her interests include bilingual language development and its effects on autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnosis.

Libia Jiménez Chávez

Libia Jiménez Chávez is a PhD student in the Department of History.

Our Undergraduate Team

Leslie Velasquez

Leslie Velasquez is an undergraduate student majoring in Health Promotion and pursuing an MPH in epidemiology. She supports CLASE’s outreach mission through communication channels such as social media and platform management.

Our Instructional Coaches

Beth Pridgen

Beth is a retired educator and administrator with 30 years’ experience in upper elementary and middle school. As a CLASE IC Coach, she supports teachers both in and out of the classroom. She also facilitates during training institutes.

Dianne Hall

Dianne Hall is a retired Gwinnett County teacher. She has been with CLASE since 2012. Her duties include, online coaching support, teacher observations, Webinars, lesson planning support and approval, along with Learning Labs.

Cindy Tu

Cindy Tu has 29 years of experience in education. She witnessed first-hand the impact of the IC pedagogy and the joy it brings to the learning environment. This experience has led her to join the CLASE Team to support teachers with IC implementation.

Shawn Thomas

Shawn has 25 years of experience in the classroom, teaching Kindergarten, 2nd Grade, 3rd Grade, and ESOL throughout her career. Shawn supports Gwinnett County Public Schools as well as CLASE Institutes, Renewals, Webinars, and Online Coaching.

Research Posters

Participants in our professional development workshops gain access to a library of resources to support instructional conversation pedagogy. Here are some sample downloads to familiarize yourself with the types of tools available to educators who have learned the Instructional Conversation method.

You may also download a set of Exemplar Task Cards.

Testimonials

“What an amazing experience I had at the institute in Athens! It was, without a doubt, the most impactful PL I have ever attended. As someone who facilitates professional learning on a regular basis, I was simply amazed by the way you created such a cohesive learning community in such a short amount of time. Just wow!”

— Beth McMichael, instructional coach, Barrow County Schools

“I just had the privilege of attending the Integrating Collaborative, Conversation-based Instruction into your Classroom summer session. It was by far the best professional and personal development instruction I have participated in. To put that in perspective, I’ve participated in many professional development opportunities as a teacher for 10 years, from conferences to our school’s weekly professional learning. It’s like your team has thought, “What doesn’t work for people who are learning new content, skills, and processes?” and then you removed those things from your training”

— Andrea Antepenko, teacher, Franklin County School District

“In my experience with CLASE, this summer and throughout the year, I have never been more supported in any moment of my professional career, graduate school included ... From the week this summer, to the webinars, learning labs, observations and videos with feedback, and renewals. You guys don’t just introduce us to your powerful pedagogy and send us out into the world to use it or not. You are there for us every step of the way, celebrating our successes and cheering us on through the challenges. Thank you for that!”

— Shelly Salom, ESOL Teacher, Jackson County School System

“Thank you, thank you, thank you—for making me a better teacher...and a better student! I love what you are doing! You are helping to change the world.”

— Rita Cevasco, speech-language pathologist, Mason, Ohio