Project CIVIS

Abstract

This article presents findings from a large-scale curriculum development, quasi-experimental study. Participating teachers implemented four U.S. history units in their diverse middle-grade classes; these units were developed to engage underachieving students in challenging history and democratic citizenship curriculum and instruction featuring discussion and inquiry. Initial results show that students in the treatment classrooms had significantly higher mean scores on a National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)–based pre–post assessment than their peers in comparison classrooms.

Keywords

middle school enrichment quasi-experimental talent development underachievement

Introduction

The middle grades are often referred to in such unappealing terms as the “Bermuda Triangle of Education” or as complete “chaos” or students as “hormones with feet” (Conklin, 2009, p. 220). Many teachers, parents, and members of the lay public do not believe that middle-grade students are capable of performing complex and challenging tasks due to beliefs that students in this age group are going through many physical, biological, and social changes (Conklin, 2011, 2012). As a result, teachers often do not challenge students to perform at the level of intellectual work they are capable of, especially students who are also deemed “at risk” or “underachieving.” This is in part why student achievement often plateaus or even regresses during the middle grades. In particular, students in largely urban and lower income districts are not provided the same opportunities to engage in high-quality and challenging curriculum in their social studies classrooms, nor do they have the same opportunities for civic engagement deemed important for their development as democratic citizens (Kahne & Middaugh, 2008).

There is also a dearth of research into middle-grade instruction and curriculum provided for middle-grade students in the social studies, with a few notable exceptions (e.g., Barton & Levstik, 2003; Oliver & Shaver, 1966). This is particularly true for research conducted on middle-grade students in low socioeconomic status (SES) communities and in schools viewed as “at risk” of not meeting the goals set by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB; U.S. Department of Education, 2001) legislation. In one of the few recent books focused on middle school citizenship education, Levinson (2012) examines the “civic achievement gap” that exists in U.S. schools, and in particular for students from urban and historically marginalized school populations. In these predominantly low socioeconomic schools that are deemed failing, NCLB testing has focused on efforts largely in mathematics and literacy, and access to high-quality social studies curriculum in the middle grades is limited.

Despite devoting approximately 60% of weekly instructional time to reading and language literacy, results from the Nation’s Report Card, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), found that average reading scale scores for students in Grade 8 have flat-lined since 2002, up 1 miniscule point from 264 to 265 (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2011). A 2009 Common Core report titled, Why We’re Behind: What Other Nations Teach Their Students That We Don’t, suggested that the nine nations that often outscore the United States on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) have one thing in common: “Each of the nations that consistently outranks the United States on the PISA exam provides their students with a comprehensive, content-rich education in the liberal arts and sciences” (National Center for Education Statistics, 2011, p. iii). In light of these issues, it should not be surprising that results from a recent NAEP suggested that only 17% of students in Grade 8 and 12% in Grade 12 scored at the “Proficient” level on the 2010 U.S. History assessment (NCES, 2011). In addition, only 1% of students in Grade 8 and Grade 12 scored in the “Advanced” range. Those percentages have remained unchanged since 1994.

With the implementation of the new Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts occurring in most states across the country, there is also the real risk that social studies time will be spent more on literacy instruction than on the history or civics that promote the deliberation of controversial issues or emphasis on civic engagement (Common Core, 2010; Gilles, Wang, Smith, & Johnson, 2013). Furthermore, there have been few attempts at developing history curriculum that works explicitly toward goals of democratic citizenship, especially for students who often do not get the same kinds of cultural and political capital and civic experiences as their more affluent peers, with the exception of conceptual models or individual teacher case studies (e.g., Apple & Beane, 1995; Freedman, 2009; Levinson, 2012).

The perception that middle school students are not ready for challenging experiences is thought to be grounded in the teachers’ views about what students are able to do cognitively at this age level (or sometimes based on SES or other factors), their beliefs about subject matter, and their own self-efficacy in shifting their schema and pedagogy to a more constructivist style of teaching and learning (Conklin, 2008; Gregoire, 2003). These perceptions contribute to a deficit view of middle-grade students, especially those from diverse backgrounds, on the part of the teacher. In other words, teachers believe they must “fix” students’ deficits rather than enhance their strengths. This deficit model view adds to teachers’ own lack of self-efficacy for teaching using more authentic pedagogy and assessment (e.g., Newmann, King, & Carmichael, 2007). Furthermore, the impact of high-stakes testing in states where social studies is tested has reinforced a more traditional rote-style of teaching focused on preparation for tests with low expectations of intellectual work (e.g., memorization, comprehension) instead of encouraging teaching and assessment that work toward higher order thinking (Au, 2007; Saye & Social Studies Inquiry Research Collaborative [SSIRC], 2013).

Perhaps most importantly, Conklin (2008, 2012) reminds us that many middle-grade teachers are also not well trained to engage their students in challenging and rigorous intellectual work that is also disciplinary appropriate. This is because unlike elementary and high school teachers who have relatively defined programs of teacher preparation, middle-grade teachers can be licensed through multiple pathways: elementary programs with middle school endorsements, middle school specialist programs, and secondary social studies programs. As Conklin has shown in multiple studies focused on these various pathways, all seem to be lacking in some aspect of pedagogy or subject knowledge necessary for engaging middle-grade students in challenging and rigorous curriculum (Conklin, 2008, 2009, 2012). Furthermore, given the wide variety of ways in which social studies is constructed and taught in various states, many social studies teachers have not been prepared in methods related to historical inquiry or historical thinking, or in how to engage students in controversial issues or high-quality discussions.

Project CIVIS

We designed Project CIVIS to address three of these specific issues: lack of access to high-quality curriculum, lack of challenge in the existing curriculum and instruction in the middle grades, and a need to immerse students in the tenets of democratic citizenship and historical inquiry. In addition, curricula for the four core units were developed based on principles of differentiated instruction (Tieso, 2005; Tomlinson, 2014; VanTassel-Baska & Stambaugh, 2005) and the Association for Middle Level Education (AMLE; 2010) guidelines to create curriculum that involves students by providing choices, is integrative in that the units integrate intra- and interdisciplinary concepts, and is relevant in that all major concepts link to political, social, and cultural issues of today. Furthermore, we challenged teachers and students to engage with curricula designed according to the tenets of enrichment (Reis & Renzulli, 2014) and complex, conceptual curricula (VanTassel-Baska & Stambaugh, 2005) by addressing standards meant for students in Grades 8 to 12. Most importantly, curriculum development focused on the skills of the historian: developing a perspective for the time period and its actors, interpreting primary resources, engaging in historical thinking and historiography, and developing the skills of dialogue, discussion, and debate while struggling with ethical or controversial issues that link the past to the present. Therefore, we set two specific goals for the project:

Develop high-quality and challenging curriculum focused on historical inquiry and democratic education that provides opportunities for all students to be engaged, challenged, and supported.

Develop an inclusive and culturally relevant curriculum framework that combines best practices from history and democratic education with models of cognitive scaffolding and differentiation for students from all backgrounds (e.g., English language learners [ELL], historically marginalized groups).

To understand the impact of this curriculum development research project, we sought to answer the following research questions:

Research Question 1: What effect does the Project CIVIS curriculum intervention have on students’ achievement on standardized history assessments?

Research Question 2: What impact does this curriculum implementation have on students’ progress in learning skills related to historical inquiry and democratic education?

The overall project model has two distinct elements: (a) an iterative curriculum development process that designed and refined four (approximately 3-week) units, taught in State 1 (fifth and sixth grades) and State 2 (sixth and seventh grades), and (b) a quasi-experimental research design with multiple iterations, data collection, and feedback, as well as longitudinal assessment of students using performance and content assessments.

The Curriculum

The curriculum consists of four units (Robbins & Tieso, 2014a, 2014b, 2015a, 2015b) designed to be taught over 2 years of the middle school U.S. history curriculum (Figure 1): (a) American Revolution (AR); (b) U.S. Civil War (CW); (c) Post-Reconstruction, Industrialization, and Migration (PR); and (d) U.S. Civil Rights Movement (CR). We selected these units because they aligned with the core concepts of conflict and democratic citizenship (described below), were universal in content across states, addressed key components of the Common Core State Standards, and presented the opportunity to challenge students’ preconceived understandings and assumptions about these events within the context of U.S. history—especially as it is taught generally as a story of progress and quest for freedom (Foner, 1998). The units also provided opportunities to include the perspectives of historically marginalized groups and build in the development of explicit academic skills and skills for active democratic citizenship alongside the curriculum content. It is this inclusion of the perspectives, issues, and events of historically marginalized groups; the explicit development of academic skills and skills for challenging the status quo; and making the curriculum relevant (AMLE, 2010) to students that are key to a more culturally responsive teaching and for teaching history for the “common good” (Barton & Levstik, 2004).

Figure 1.

Example unit lessons by instructional strategies.

The curriculum is grounded in history education and democratic education research, with one of the primary goals being the production of active or transformative citizens (Banks, 2008). Democratic education is a term that refers to the explicit development of humanistic citizens for active democratic participation. The classes that most directly fill this role in schools are history and social science, but other courses and extracurricular activities could also address the goals of democratic education. Therefore, in each of the four units, we utilize core instructional strategies (e.g., historiography, Socratic seminar) that provide opportunities and support student development of an epistemological view of history as being interpreted and constructed (e.g., Barton & Levstik, 2004; Wineburg, 2001). In other words, we wanted students to examine critically their content in terms of accuracy and lack of bias. Also, we wanted them to view history as an author’s interpretation of events rather than a simple statement of fact. For example, we embed controversies not only between settlers and First Americans, but between tribes of First Americans in an attempt to relay that intragroup philosophical differences may be more substantial than those between groups. We utilize a second example in the controversy over tactics between Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and various African American ministers in Birmingham, Alabama. In addition, we use the critical thinking strategies to engage students in the deliberation, analysis, and discussion of issues from the past that promote democratic citizenship (e.g., Engle & Ochoa, 1988; Hess, 2009; Parker, 2003). Finally, a third example from the CR unit includes a synthesis and evaluation question: “Did the Civil Rights Movement end with the election of Barack Obama?” Students in the comparison groups who used their regular textbook encountered a critical thinking activity that asks them to “review your notes and make a timeline of events.”

The core instructional strategies include historical inquiry and historiography (e.g., Levstik & Barton, 2005; Stoddard, Hofer, & Buchanan, 2008), concept formation (Parker, 1988; Taba, 1967), deliberation using a version of the structured academic controversy (SAC) model (Johnson & Johnson, 1988; Parker, 2003), and seminar discussions of key texts (Larson & Keiper, 2007; Parker, 2003) as well as case study of landmark U.S. Supreme Court Cases. These particular unit topics allowed for explicit ties across themes of the evolving nature of citizenship, key race and civil rights tipping points, and landmark U.S. Supreme Court cases, themes that also lent themselves to the integration of instructional models focused on developing skills for conducting inquiry, participating in discussions, and deliberating controversial historic issues. For example, there is some form of a seminar discussion of a key historical document related to citizenship and democracy in each unit, from the Declaration of Independence in the AR unit to Martin Luther King Jr’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail in the CR unit. Through these lessons, we focus on developing student skills in interpreting historical texts and participating in discussions, as well as help students build conceptual ties across units. Similarly, we were able to examine the progression of the relationship between the struggle for African American rights and issue of race through the study of documents from the Declaration of Independence (AR), the experiences of Dred Scott and the battle over slavery (CW), the perspectives of W. E. B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington (PR), and U.S. Supreme Court rulings on equality and segregation (PR & CR; see the appendix for an example lesson plan).

To further develop students’ understanding of connections across time and place, the curriculum is framed around two core concepts and central questions to provide coherence within and across units (Caron, 2005; Onosko, 1992). The core concepts that cross all four units are conflict and democratic citizenship; students are asked to examine their interrelation and evolution from unit to unit (e.g., Who counts as a citizen? How should democratic citizens respond to conflict?). The combination of core concepts and core instructional strategies works toward goals within and across the four units based on intended content and performance outcomes (Wiggins & McTighe, 1998). Similar approaches to curriculum design have shown success when working with students in diverse settings, who are often turned off by a version of history taught as a long string of facts, dates, and events or one focused solely on a nationalistic narrative (e.g., Rubin, 2012).

Most importantly, we focus on questions and issues that force students to take both analytic and moral stances to the past (Barton & Levstik, 2004). For example, the SAC lesson for the PR unit asks students to deliberate “Was Reconstruction successful?” which forces them to consider evidence and perspectives of how aspects of reconstruction era programs were successful and unsuccessful. This also lays groundwork for the study of Jim Crow era laws and the Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) Supreme Court ruling found later in the unit, and the study of the effects of Brown v. Board of Education (1954) using SAC in the Civil Rights Unit. We use engaging instructional strategies and topics important to students to motivate and activate learning and to reach underachieving and disengaged students who often do not see themselves or their history in the curriculum (Epstein, 2009). Given that the primary populations of students with whom we were working with were African American and new immigrants, we integrated African American history and the histories of immigration and immigrant groups throughout the units.

Scaffolding and Differentiation

Finally, given that the intended population of students for this curriculum are those who rarely have access to high-quality curriculum (e.g., low SES, ELL) and who are often not provided opportunities to participate in challenging curriculum, we have gone to great lengths to integrate forms of hard and soft scaffolding (Saye & Brush, 2002), differentiated materials, and explicit skill development with formative assessment and feedback. Many lessons include readings at different levels, modern translations of historic documents, audio files of documents, options for graphic organizers, and modified data sheets so that all students can be engaged successfully in the core instructional strategies. For the seminars and deliberation, explicit discussion skills are taught and students are prepared to participate. For example, teachers go through discussion norms, model discussion behaviors, and post and share a list of starting phrases to use during the discussion (e.g., “I think he or she is right because . . .”). The goal was to make sure not only all students are challenged and supported but also that all students are engaged in discussing, deliberating, or inquiring into the big questions and problems from the past that are posed. We had to make the assumption, given what we knew about the schools and teachers, that many if not most of the participating students had not participated regularly in class discourse, let alone in seminar discussions or deliberations.

Procedures

Pre- and postassessment data were collected from 3,184 students enrolled in seven school districts in two Southeastern states for Year 1 and from 637 students enrolled in two school districts in one state for Year 2, and analyzed using descriptive and multivariate techniques to address the following research questions:

Research Question 1: What effect does the Project CIVIS curriculum intervention have on students’ achievement on standardized history assessments?

Research Question 2: What impact does this curriculum implementation have on students’ progress in learning skills related to historical inquiry and democratic education?

Participants: Year 1

Participants from schools who had previous professional relationships with the university, from one Southeastern and one mid-Atlantic state and seven school districts, were invited to participate in this intervention study (Table 2). In three school districts (Sunny, Talent, and Jackson) in the Southern state, students in Grades 5 and 6 studied U.S. history. In the four other school districts (Farley, Nottingham, Washington, and Willard), located in a mid-Atlantic state, students in Grades 6 and 7 studied U.S. history. Local liaisons provided the names of teachers who were willing to participate. From that list, researchers attempted to match schools based on size and SES (percentage of students who received free or reduced lunch). Then, research staff randomly assigned teachers to either the treatment or comparison conditions. Due to this random selection, several anomalies occurred. First, an inordinate number of teachers from high SES schools were assigned to the comparison groups. In addition, one of the comparison classrooms was actually a self-contained class of identified gifted students. Of the participant school districts in Year 1, the two largest districts were considered exurban or extra-urban, communities that lay just outside the commuter ring or suburbs; three districts were considered suburban; and two districts were labeled as urban. Schools ranged in size from approximately 300 to 1,150 students. At the time of initial preassessment and prior to implementation of the units, the sample consisted of 48 classrooms and 3,184 students in 20 schools.

Participants: Year 2

After federal funding was cut in Year 2, the sample size included three teachers and 496 students in 3 schools. Three school districts (Sunny, Talent, and Jackson) were located in one of the two states and were eliminated in Year 2 due to budget constraints. All of the remaining schools in the second state had an opportunity to continue in the study without additional stipends or professional development. Of those 26 schools, teachers in three classrooms agreed to continue their participation. Participants were located in two large, suburban and exurban districts in the mid-Atlantic state. Because there was no additional funding for participants, comparison groups were eliminated in Year 2.

Curriculum Development

As mentioned earlier, the curriculum consists of four concept-based units designed taught over 2 years of middle school U.S. history curriculum (Figure 1): (a) AR, (b) CW, (c) PR, and (d) CR. Treatment units were developed, piloted, and evaluated by external reviewers from the history department and our community partners over the course of an academic year. Partners included educators from a local historical site, and instructors from TEACHING Tolerance (http://www.tolerance.org/) and Street Law (http://www.streetlaw.org/en/home). Students in the comparison classrooms used their assigned textbook and addressed standards from similar units. When researchers examined the difference between units taught in the treatment and comparison classes, several major differences were found. First, there was no indication of overarching concepts that were threaded through all of the units (Erickson, 2006); there were few primary documents and, if they existed, they were simplified or annotated; there were few opportunities for creative and critical thinking; and there was a general focus on lower level thinking skills and content.

The AR and CW units were taught during fall and spring semesters, in Grade 5 or 6, depending on the state, for approximately 45 to 60 min per day for 3 weeks. Teachers implemented the PR and CR during two different semesters, in Grade 6 or 7, for approximately 45 to 60 min per day for 3 weeks. Each unit contained at least eight lesson plans, many of which continued for 2 or 3 days. Participant teachers were provided lesson plan outline forms to assure treatment fidelity (Azano et al., 2011). Comparison teachers taught their regular textbook units that paralleled the same content as the treatment units. In addition, researchers observed classrooms at random, and videotaped lessons with the participants’ approval. All curriculum units were developed and piloted through multiple iterative processes by history and gifted education specialists and their graduate students (Tieso, 2013). In addition, all four units were evaluated by university specialists in Early American, CW, and CR professors for content and bias.

Data Generation and Analysis

All achievement data collected to address our research questions were derived from a 35-item test of retired NAEP items, available at the NAEP website at ed.gov and supported by specific rubrics to address constructed-response items. Items were chosen from Grades 4, 8, and 12 to create variation in scores and avoid a ceiling effect for the high achieving students.

U.S. History Achievement

The assessment covered each unit area of content in approximately equal parts, and subscales included critical thinking strategies including Historical Perspective (HP) and Evidence (HE), Comprehension (RC), and Data Analysis (DA). Reliability analyses, calculated for this sample and study, suggested that the overall NAEP instrument was strong psychometrically (α = .94) and that the skills-based subscales were adequate (α = .59-.89).

The NAEP items align with the state and national curriculum standards used to develop the curriculum, and align with the types of thinking we attempted to develop throughout the curriculum, but none of the items that measure analytical skills or interpretation relate directly to content used in the actual curriculum. Therefore, these items are useful for measuring both content knowledge and the application of skills related to history for students in the comparison and treatment classrooms. The test includes a variety of items, from selected response items reminiscent of many of the state tests that rely on memory, to higher order items focused on analysis or interpretation. We constructed the initial assessment with 80 items, conducted a content validation, and further refined it to reach 40 items. After an additional content review, we decided on 35 items that were spread across the four curriculum units, with several items that feature noncontent specific analytical or critical thinking skills. Of the 35 items, 7 are open-ended (more below on scoring these items), 2 include map analysis, 7 include analysis or comprehension of a quote or excerpt, 5 include interpretation of an image, and 6 focus on analysis of other types of data (e.g., table, chart). See Tables 1 and 2 for a further breakdown of the number of items in each content area and by subscale, as well as sample items.

Table 1.

Factors, Sample Questions, Number of Questions, and Alpha Reliabilities of the NAEP Skills Subscales.

Factor	Sample question	Number of items	Cronbach’s alpha
Historical perspective	The speaker dreamed that one day children would not be judged by the color of their skin. What did the speaker probably mean by this?	3	.59
Historical perspective	Explain what was going on in the country that made the speaker’s wishes only “dreams.”	3	.59
Historical evidence	You are writing a history report about an old town. What kinds of historical things could you learn about the old town from its cemetery? Name two historical things you could learn.	12	.86
Data analysis	The following questions refer to the first census of the United States, shown below.	4	.65
	The information in the census could be used to answer which question?
	A. Which state had the highest official population?
	B. How many people moved to the United States in the year 1790?
	C. Which state was the largest in area?
	D. How many more male than female slaves were there in 1790?
Comprehension	“We hold these truths . . .”	16	.89
	1. The quotation is from the
	A. Articles of Confederation
	B. Constitution
	C. Declaration of Independence
	D. Missouri Compromise

Note. NAEP = National Assessment of Educational Progress.

Table 2.

Frequencies for Districts, Schools, Teachers, and Students: Years 1 and 2.

Variable		Classrooms n		Students^a n		Free/reduced lunch (%)	Type of district
District		Y1	Y2	Y1	Y2	Free/reduced lunch (%)	Type of district
1	Sunny	17	—	872	—		Exurban
11	101	1	—	53	—	51.0
	201	2	—	147	—	33.0
	301	6	—	167	—	18.0
	401	1	—	56	—	20.1
	501	1	—	23	—	37.0
	601	4	—	61	—	65.0
	701	1	—	85	—	56.0
	801	3	—	280	—	37.0
2	Talent	2	—	118	—		Urban
12	601	2	—	118	—	86.0
3	Jackson	2	—	60	—		Suburban
13	801	2	—	60	—	55.0
4	Farley	14		984	330		Exurban
21	101	5	—	396	—	63.6
	201	4	1	407	330
	401	2	—	60	—
	501	2	—	36	—
	601	1	—	85	—
5	Nottingham	1	1	53	67		Urban
22	401	1	1	53	67	66.7
6	Washington	9	1	951	99		Suburban
23	501	4		796	—	58.1
	601	4		155	—	47.5
	801	1	1	—	99
7	Willard	3	—	146	—		Suburban
24	801	3	—	146	—	25.0
Total		48	5	3,184	496

Students with full data sets. — = Did not participate.

All teachers were administered identical NAEP assessments as pretest and posttest. The open-ended NAEP items were scored by Project CIVIS staff using a standard scoring rubric acquired from NAEP http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/itmrlsx/. In addition, prior to scoring the actual assessment, raters evaluated the interrater reliability until a satisfactory correlation of at least .80 was attained. Figure 2 illustrates a sample item that was coded as derived from the Revolutionary War Unit period and as an item in the subscale of Historical Evidence. The item asks students to analyze an etching of Phyllis Wheatley, a famous Boston area slave who was also a poet. They are asked to identify “TWO ways that Phyllis Wheatley (1753-1784) was different from most slaves in the American colonies.” The scoring guide rewards students who analyze particular items from the image and use them as evidence in comparing the Wheatley etching with what they know about the lives of the majority of slaves. The item is scored as appropriate if they notice characteristics such as her clothing, the fact that she is holding a pen (representing literacy), that she lived in Boston, and worked/lived in what appears to be a house. Scoring guides for all retired NAEP items are available at https://nces.ed.gov/NationsReportCard/nqt/

Figure 2.

Sample NAEP open-ended item and scoring guide.

For the students in our study, a response scored as appropriate, which translated to a score of 3, included a student who wrote “She could write and read” and “She was well dressed.” A student who earned a partial rating, which translated to a score of 2, wrote “She was treated better” and “Had nicer servant.” By contrast, a student who scored as inappropriate, scoring a 1, wrote “One of the oldest slaves” and “She wore a hat.” Students who left the item unanswered or provided an answer that was completely irrelevant were given a 0 score. The 35-item NAEP assessment is available from the authors upon request.

Results

Our initial analysis of the NAEP achievement data from Year 1 focused on an analysis of group means on the pre- and postassessments for the treatment and comparison groups. Even though teachers and their students were selected randomly from among the volunteers, we had some anomalies (e.g., a comparison classroom made up of gifted students). Due to these concerns, we utilized ANCOVA to compare the overall impact of the curriculum on the achievement scores of the two groups after controlling for initial differences between students who received the innovative curricula and those who received their typical curriculum (Table 3). We then conducted a MANCOVA to examine the overall significance across the different subscales. This analysis helped us to understand the impact of the curriculum on particular aspects of historical understanding, including the ability to recognize historical perspectives, the use of historical evidence, ability to comprehend, and skills in data analysis. The reader should use caution in interpreting these results as sample sizes were highly unequal due to the loss of funding.

Table 3.

Correlations Between the NAEP Mean Scores and Demographic Variables.

Measure	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
1. NAEP	1	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
2. Gender	−.043	1	—	—	—	—	—	—
3. Ethnicity	−.010	−.007	1	—	—	—	—	—
4. Grade level	.224**	−.039	.239**	1	—	—	—	—
5. Treatment group	.316**	−.092**	.145**	.196**	1	—	—	—
6. Student status	.657**	.202	−.529**	−.682**	.126	1	—	—
7. Teacher	.238**	−.073*	.266**	.536**	.466**	−.605**	1	—
8. School	−.318**	.062*	−.166**	−.212**	−.688**	−.065	−.146*	1
9. District	.272**	−.086**	.272**	.528**	.617**	−.544**	.979**	−.286**	1

Note. NAEP = National Assessment of Educational Progress. — = Did not participate.

p < .05. **p < .01.

Year 1 Results

Overall, we found that students who participated in the curriculum as part of the treatment classes reached a level of achievement significantly higher than that of our comparison groups. This was reflected in the overall group means on our pre- and posttest, as well as in significant differences based on the subscales focused on specific skills and content areas. ANCOVA results suggested that the treatment group had significantly higher mean scores on the posttest than did the comparison group after controlling for initial pretest differences, F(1, 1205) = 26.78, p = .001, d = 8.16. This suggests that treatment students gained in both content knowledge and the development of disciplinary-related, critical thinking skills significantly over students in the comparison class, which reflected the treatment classes overall in terms of demographics. The effect size for posttest results from Year 1, favor the treatment over the comparison groups (d = 8.16).

In addition to the overall means, students in the treatment classes also illustrated a significant difference in their development of skills and comprehension related to the subscales. Results of the MANCOVA suggest that the treatment group had significantly higher overall mean scores than the comparison group on the NAEP subscales after controlling for initial differences, F(1, 1205) = 11.97, p = .001, η² = .04; Table 4). Follow-up univariate ANCOVAs suggested that students in the treatment groups had significantly higher mean scores than their peers in the comparison group on all four skills’ subscales (Table 5): Historical Perspective (d = 0.39), Historical Evidence (d = 0.59), Reading Comprehension (d = 0.88), and Data Analysis (d = 0.42; Table 4), all critical skills in understanding history as well as other nonfiction texts. In light of the Common Core focus on reading nonfiction or factual texts, the results for reading comprehension and analyzing historical evidence are promising. This analysis reflects the impact on students’ skills and ability to apply those skills to a variety of data sets rather than relying solely on memory and reading comprehension, two things often emphasized on state standardized tests that lead to a lowering of expectations on student intellectual work in the social studies.

Table 4.

Means, Standard Deviations, and One-Way ANCOVA for Effects of Treatment Group on NAEP Subscale Posttest Scores for Year 1.

Participants	Comparison			Treatment			ES	ANOVA
Participants	M	SD	n	M	SD	n	d	F	p
Group	23.68	6.78	244	30.41	8.43	963	0.88	26.78	.001
Historical perspective	3.18	1.09	244	3.64	1.25	963	0.39	14.24	.001
Historical evidence	8.55	4.36	244	10.96	3.87	963	0.59	26.82	.001
Data analysis	3.15	1.10	244	3.66	1.35	963	0.42	8.81	.003
Reading comprehension	8.81	3.10	244	11.92	3.96	963	0.88	29.65	.001

Note. NAEP = National Assessment of Educational Progress. ES = Effect Size.

Table 5.

Multivariate and Univariate ANOVA for NAEP Higher Order Thinking Skills by Ethnicity and Student Status: Year 1.

Source	Multivariate		Univariate
Source	df	F ^a	Historical perspective^b	Historical evidence^b	Reading comprehension^b	Data analysis^b
Ethnicity	4	1.691*	1.63	0.658	3.07*	0.266
Student status	14	1.807*	1.73	0.960	0.956	3.78**
Ethnicity × Student status		2.01**	0.871	0.977	3.11*	0.733
MSE	226.71		0.522	4.63	6.14	0.848

Note. Multivariate F ratios were generated from Wilks’s Lambda statistic. Univariate significance levels were adjusted for multiple comparisons: Bonferroni. NAEP = National Assessment of Educational Progress.

Multivariate df = 4, 74.

Univariate df = 4, 77.

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. MSE = Mean Square Error.

Many schools were not willing to provide information to us regarding student ethnicity or status, or in some cases, budget cutbacks had eliminated the staff members who were to provide these data (Tables 6 and 7). This inability to access critical demographic data was a factor in selecting Year 2 teachers. We selected teachers to participate in Year 2 from schools that were willing to provide demographic data (these schools had already done this in Year 1). In addition, because our funding was cut, we decided only to invite teachers and their students who had participated in Year 1 in the treatment conditions to continue this participation in Year 2, so that we had an opportunity to examine the impact on at least a portion of students who participated in all four units (Stoddard & Tieso, 2010).

Table 6.

Means and Standard Deviations for NAEP Subscales by Ethnicity: Year 1.

Participants	NAEP total		Historical evidence		Historical perspective		Reading comprehension		Data analysis
Participants	1	2	1	2	1	2	1	2	1	2
African American
M	24.10	32.04	9.52	13.56	3.00	3.98	10.35	12.85	3.02	3.96
SD	8.96	8.96	4.81	4.19	1.25	0.90	3.60	3.31	1.29	1.18
n	138	53	136	52	131	49	138	53	129	51
Asian/Pacific Islander
M	27.42	32.33	10.99	13.90	3.19	3.91	10.5	12.80	3.52	3.93
SD	7.46	7.51	3.96	3.56	1.11	1.07	5.05	3.59	1.26	1.04
n	211	120	211	120	208	119	34	34	206	116
Caucasian
M	28.59	34.01	11.61	14.50	3.39	3.99	11.61	13.30	3.62	4.18
SD	8.93	8.05	4.53	3.75	1.15	0.95	3.56	3.43	1.25	1.08
n	447	185	445	185	436	182	446	185	435	181
Hispanic
M	20.77	21.69	10.05	12.14	3.18	3.49	9.77	10.99	3.01	3.56
SD	11.1	14.2	4.23	4.16	1.87	1.10	3.51	3.78	1.19	1.07
n	123	123	352	166	338	160	354	166	339	158
Multiracial
M	25.58	31.40	10.44	13.51	3.15	3.83	10.48	12.23	3.30	3.90
SD	9.55	7.90	4.97	3.94	1.24	0.96	3.60	3.34	1.32	1.01
n	161	53	159	53	153	52	161	53	153	51

Note. Listwise deletion was used to address missing data; sample size was reduced from 1,531 to 731. 1 = pretest; 2 = posttest. Total scores: NAEP = 5. NAEP = National Assessment of Educational Progress.

p < .05.

Table 7.

Means and Standard Deviations for NAEP Subscales by Student Status: Year 1.

Participants	Historical evidence		Historical perspective		Reading comprehension		Data analysis
Participants	1	2	1	2	1	2	1	2
LD
M	10.26	6.82	3.15	2.89	9.15	7.59	2.26	4.10
SD	4.66	5.34	1.49	1.54	3.01	3.01	1.62	0.88
n	27	17	26	9	27	17	27	17
BD/SED
M	7.67	10.70*	2.66	3.40	7.25	10.4	2.61	3.60
SD	5.27	2.87	1.08	0.55	3.56	2.70	0.944	0.949
n	27	10	35	5	5	17	33	10
ELL
M	8.50	—	2.75	—	7.0	—	2.25	—
SD	1.29	—	1.50	—	3.56	—	1.26	—
n	4	0	4	0	4	0	4	0
Gifted
M	12.64	16.29	3.71	4.21	11.71	15.07	3.64	4.93
SD	3.93	1.44	0.99	0.80	2.89	3.93	1.50	0.616
n	14	14	14	14	14	14	14	14

Note. Missing student status data greatly reduced sample size from pre to post. 1 = pretest; 2 = posttest. NAEP = National Assessment of Educational Progress; ELL = English language learners. LD = Learning Disability. BD = Behavior Disorder. SED = Sever Emotional Disorder. — = Did not participate.

p < .05.

Year 2 Results

For the Year 2 data, our initial analysis consisted of producing group means reported by demographic groups that help us to begin to understand the impact on students from different racial/ethnic groups of students, and members of special groups such as ELL. These descriptive statistics provide some initial insights into the impact on students in Year 2, and in particular the groups of students we hoped to engage with the curriculum and strategies emphasized in Project CIVIS.

We used a Repeated-Measures Analysis of Variance (RMANOVA) to analyze effects of the treatment curricula on students’ achievement over time as measured by the retired NAEP items. For this analysis, we used listwise deletion to analyze data from students who had completed both the pre- and posttest; because students in the comparison group did not complete both pre and post, this analysis was essentially a paired t test with Bonferroni adjustment for multiple analyses. There was a significant main effect over time for students in all groups (F = 5.82, p = .017, d = 0.23).

We conducted a MANOVA on NAEP pretest and posttest with no significant omnibus effect for ethnic group. We also conducted RMANOVA with respect to ethnicity and the four sets of critical disciplinary skills (Historical Evidence, Historical Perspective, Data Analysis, and Reading Comprehension), but there was no significant interaction between time and ethnic group (Table 6). Remember that many of these items do not measure the ability of students to memorize historical knowledge, but to apply historical understanding and analytical skills. In particular, we found it promising to see positive gains in group means for the African American and Hispanic students. In Year 1, students of color made significant gains in overall achievement (t = 7.312, p < .001, d = 0.19) and in mean reading comprehension (t = 6.69, p < .001, d = 0.32) from the pretest to the posttest. There were no statistically significant differences over time for students of color in Year 2 (Table 8); however, in most cases, their mean scores improved and, more importantly, there was no backsliding in U.S. History achievement and reading comprehension over the summer between the two academic years. Because the four curriculum units were integrated and contained skills and content appropriate to students’ developmental levels, we are pleased by the fact that students’ learning gains in Year 1 were sustained throughout Year 2. In other words, higher level critical and creative thinking skills were introduced in the first year (AR, CW) units through the use of Socratic seminar and developed and advanced in the two later units (PR, CR) with the SAC. In light of the current Common Core emphasis on reading in the content areas, these findings are promising as we attempt to close the achievement between students of color and their peers.

Table 8.

Means and Standard Deviations for NAEP Subscales by Ethnicity: Year 2.

Participants	NAEP total		Historical evidence		Historical perspective		Reading comprehension		Data analysis
Participants	1	2	1	2	1	2	1	2	1	2
African American
M	24.66	24.35	10.68	11.81	3.14	3.24	11.00	12.10	3.15	3.51
SD	12.3	14.3	4.83	4.78	1.43	1.21	4.54	4.03	1.51	1.34
n	71	71	59	59	59	59	59	59	59	59
Asian/Pac Islander
M	24.53	25.78	10.12	12.32	2.79	3.30	10.5	12.80	3.41	3.38
SD	12.4	13.8	5.20	4.56	1.37	0.97	5.05	3.59	1.76	1.26
n	40	40	34	34	34	34	34	34	34	34
Caucasian
M	26.04	26.43	10.19	13.05	3.13	3.54	11.15	13.52	3.46	4.00
SD	12.6	15.1	5.52	3.94	1.39	1.05	4.77	3.57	1.66	1.25
n	115	115	93	93	93	93	93	93	93	93
Hispanic
M	20.77	21.69	8.48	11.14	2.57	3.06	8.95	11.00	2.87	3.31*
SD	11.1	14.2	5.09	5.03	1.43	1.25	4.33	4.20	1.49	1.48
n	123	123	99	99	99	99	99	99	99	99
Multiracial
M	24.21	28.42	9.24	12.35	2.53	3.47	10.18	13.53	3.18	4.00
SD	13.1	13.8	5.98	3.57	1.66	0.80	5.67	2.83	1.88	1.00
n	19	19	17	17	17	17	17	17	17	17

Note. Listwise deletion was used to address missing data; sample size was reduced from 646 to 426. 1 = pretest; 2 = posttest. Total scores: NAEP = 50. NAEP = National Assessment of Educational Progress.

p < .05.

The real highlight from the Year 2 analyses is the apparent gains made by the ELL (d = 0.47 for HE; d = 0.42 for RC) and students with identified learning disabilities (effect sizes range from 1.17 to 1.52; Table 9). A major focus for the implementation of the curriculum was in using scaffolding and differentiation to make sure that all students could engage in activities such as discussions, deliberations, and interpreting historical evidence. It is promising to see the gains made by these two populations in particular (ELL and LD) as a result of the ways in which the teachers were able to engage their students in these high-level activities and provide evidence to support teachers’ comfort level in making curricular decisions to engage all students in these types of activities and not just gifted or honors classes.

Table 9.

Means and Standard Deviations for NAEP Subscales by Student Status: Year 2.

Participants	Historical evidence		Historical perspective		Reading comprehension		Data analysis
Participants	1	2	1	2	1	2	1	2
LD		1.17		1.45		1.38		1.52
M	5.70	10.70*	2.0	3.60*	8.2	13.8*	2.20	4.10*
SD	5.27	2.87	1.49	0.70	5.39	2.70	1.62	0.88
n	10	10	10	10	10	10	10	10
ELL		0.47		0.38		0.42		0.09
M	8.77	11.17*	2.58	3.09	9.47	11.38*	3.01	3.29
SD	5.29	4.89	1.46	1.20	4.95	4.13	1.66	1.41
n	151	151	151	151	151	151	151	151
Gifted		0.53		—		0.30		—
M	14.23	15.32	4.14	4.0	14.86	15.82	4.27	4.32
SD	2.39	1.73	0.77	0.53	1.78	1.37	1.16	0.72
n	22	22	22	22	22	22	22	22

Note. Missing student status data reduced the sample size from 646 to 303. 1 = pretest; 2 = posttest. NAEP = National Assessment of Educational Progress; ELL = English language learners. — = Did not participate.

p < .05.

Summary of Findings

There were significant differences in overall U.S. history for Year 1, as measured by the NAEP assessment, between students in treatment and comparison classes after controlling for initial differences on the pretest. There were significant differences overall between students in the treatment groups and those in the comparison groups for the four critical thinking subscales of the NAEP assessment, with students in the treatment group scoring significantly higher on each of the subscales of Historical Evidence, Historical Perspective, Reading Comprehension (nonfiction), and Data Analysis. With respect to gender in Year 1, there were no significant differences between males and females on the overall NAEP and its skills’ subscales. We examined mean differences among students with special learning needs and found that teachers had identified only 85 students as having learning issues even though one option was “no learning issues.” This was disappointing in light of the multiple requests for such identification. Some teachers failed to collect demographic data from students or failed to identify students who may be underachieving or those who had an Individual Educational Program (IEP). In several cases, the local district liaison was unable to secure those data from the central office. Finally, there were significant differences among ethnic groups on the NAEP and all critical thinking subscales (Table 6).

Two critical findings emerged as we analyzed data from the four NAEP administrations. First, for students who experienced 2 years of the treatment curricula and pedagogy, there were statistically significant gains (pretest–posttest) made by students of color on the overall NAEP achievement test and, specifically, on the reading comprehension subtest.

For Year 2, there was no comparison group, so we examined differences over time for students in the treatment groups. Students in the treatment groups scored significantly higher on the NAEP assessment over time. Although there were no significant differences among students of color or those with a special learning status, there were mean gains over time.

Limitations

There are several key limitations to the study and results should be examined with caution, as sample sizes were fairly large and highly unequal between groups. Given the issues both with our funding and abilities to continue the study, and the political and economic situation during the period of implementation, the data set presented many challenges. We had a number of teachers drop out or provide incomplete data sets. We had support personnel who were supposed to provide us with data related to student demographics, but were unable to follow through due to transfers or position cuts during key points of data collection. We also had policy changes occur in some buildings that made it difficult for participating teachers to fully implement the curriculum. This included administrative directives to limit time for social studies because of the need to prepare for tests in math and literacy, district benchmarking tests that limited the time the teachers had for particular units, and common lesson planning and pacing guides in some schools that required teachers to utilize the same lessons and assessments and eliminated teachers if their whole grade level did not agree to participate. However, given the level of significance on many of these subscales (p < .01), we have confidence in the results, which suggest a significant impact on students who had the opportunity to participate in challenging social studies curriculum. In addition, findings from Year 2 must be examined with caution as sample sizes were much smaller than those of Year 1 and there was a large discrepancy in sample sizes for students in treatment and comparison groups. Furthermore, although the intent was to have students followed through 2 years of the curriculum, the organization of many of the participating schools meant that students switched schools (e.g., students moved from an intermediate to a middle school) during the middle of their 2-year U.S. history sequence. This made it more difficult to follow students who would participate in all four units over 2 years. In spite of these challenges, we believe we have significant findings that may affect the manner in which U.S. history is taught in middle schools.

Discussion and Implications

For teachers, these findings support the belief that powerful and challenging curricula, supported by lesson plans that require students to examine issues from multiple and diverse perspectives, may be used to supplant low-level intellectual work or a focus on teaching to the test as the primary pedagogy of middle-grade classrooms. In addition, results may suggest that critical and creative thinking skills should be taught within the context of rich, concept-based curricula and not in isolation. These findings are particularly important during this era of limited teaching of social studies or the “teach to the test” nature of pedagogy that persists in states with high-stakes testing (Au, 2007). Furthermore, students who are least likely to have access to high-quality curriculum tend to be either in lower level tracked classes or within schools with high numbers of low-income students or students of color. In addition, by implementing challenging and engaging curriculum, students of color and those with special learning issues may make significant gains in reading comprehension without using the typical low-level, uninspiring reading passages (Ravitch, 2003). Finally, these findings support our contention that a model that focuses on developing students’ talent may be more successful in improving students’ achievement than one that focuses on remediating students’ deficits.

Furthermore, we hope that these findings provide impetus to educators to push for an approach to instruction and curriculum that focuses on engagement in challenging and higher order intellectual work. Similar to findings reported by the SSIRC (Saye & SSIRC, 2013) and Grant (2003) with high school students, we found that these students did as well or better than students in the comparison conditions on items similar to what appear on high-stakes exams. We are currently trying to acquire state achievement testing data for our participant schools so that we can compare their scores with performance on our measures to examine the relationship between instruction and high-stakes testing. Anecdotally, we know that one of our teachers who participated in both years had a 100% pass rate on the state exams despite the fact that the test was changed during the 2-year study, a change that reduced average scores across the state. This suggests that teaching at a higher, conceptual level, coupled with an explicit focus on skill development, prepares students to perform on both standardized tests and more challenging tasks.

Similarly, for education policymakers, these results take on more urgency as they approach the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). As NCLB and now the Common Core assessments become institutionalized and administrators urge teachers to focus classroom time on math and reading, the study of social science, especially U.S. history, has suffered in the middle grades. Furthermore, the current reforms that focus on teacher evaluation using value-added models present the risk that rote teaching-to-the-test pedagogy will be further reinforced. These results suggest that more authentic and challenging work in the middle grades, when well scaffolded and differentiated for classroom populations, can be successful for both the goals of high achievement/pass rates and the development of high-level skills and knowledge for secondary/post-secondary education and citizenship. These results are promising given Conklin’s (2009, 2012) findings on the need for more rigor and intellectual challenge in the middle grades.

However, these beliefs about teaching social studies need to be reinforced among building level administrators, department chairs, and teachers. Furthermore, for many teachers, it is not a simple choice of teaching at a higher or lower level of intellectual work. Instead, the decision is based on the teachers’ training and comfort level in regard to teaching with strategies that are more student-based and open-ended, as well as the access to curriculum that can be implemented easily in the classroom and that is aligned with state and local curriculum goals. This shift in pedagogy is not a simple task and will require training, support, and the freedom to take risks—aspects of teaching not currently taking place in many states under current policy and practice. Although not simple, we have found that this shift in practice had a powerful impact on students’ academic outcomes, in terms of overall achievement and improvement in vital critical and analytical thinking skills.

Footnotes

Appendix

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

About the Authors

Jeremy D. Stoddard is associate professor of history and social science education at the College of William & Mary and has a strong background and experience in social studies methods and qualitative analyses.

Carol L. Tieso is professor of gifted education and associate dean for academic programs at the College of William & Mary. Drs. Stoddard and Tieso served as co-principal investigators for Project CIVIS.

Janice I. Robbins is adjunct instructor of gifted education at the College of William & Mary. Dr. Robbins served as project manager for Project CIVIS.

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