In April 2000, the Open Society Institute (OSI - New York, www.soros.org), funder of the RWCT project, commissioned the American Institutes for Research (AIR) to conduct an evaluation of the project. The OSI asked AIR to examine three research questions:
To what extent do RWCT teachers maintain the fidelity of the RWCT modelin their teaching practices?
To what extent do pupils whose teachers participate in RWCT have higher critical thinking skills than pupils in a non-RWCT control group?
To what extent do RWCT teachers' and pupils' attitudes about teaching and learning differ from those of teachers and pupils in control groups?
See also Notes on Evaluation: Guidelines and Caveats (Cory Heyman and Terry Salinger) in PDF format
The following was noted when the teachers were asked about changes they had observed in the students:
"Students are taking more risks in learning and communicating."
"The classroom is a psychologically safer and more comfortable learning environment."
"Students are assuming more responsibility for learning in the classroom."
"Students appear to feel more comfortable using creative and higher-order thinking."
When asked what changes they had noted in their own teaching, the teachers observed the following:
- They spend more time planning their lessons.
- Before teaching the material, they examine it for opportunities to promote critical thinking.
- They allow students more opportunities to work alone and in groups.
- They look for additional materials to help students learn on their own.
- They wait longer to listen to what students are going to say.
- They ask open-ended questions.
- They look for ways for the students to relate what they are learning to their own experiences and prior knowledge.
- They think of ways for students to "mine" their own knowledge, instead of thinking of students only as places to "deposit" more knowledge.
- They have become more like what they want their students to become: patient, flexible, takers of risks, and analytic.
An elaborate study of the project's effects was completed by the American Institute of Research in 2001. The evaluators worked in four countries: Latvia, Kirghizstan, Macedonia, and the Czech Republic. They developed instruments that were translated into the local languages and trained local observers to administer them to control groups and experimental groups at the later-primary and early-secondary levels.
Here follow the evaluators' conclusions:
The conceptual model that guided the 2000-2001 RWCT evaluation assumes that an effective professional development intervention increases teachers' skills and changes teacher behavior and attitudes in the classroom, thereby changing pupil behavior and attitudes and improving learning outcomes. Analyses of teachers and pupils in four countries that have introduced RWCT workshops indicate that RWCT has achieved these goals:
1. RWCT teachers integrate more critical thinking principles into their teaching practices and at a deeper level and exhibit higher levels of authentic pedagogy than other teachers - skills that increase as teachers gain more familiarity with RWCT over time.
2. RWCT teaching behaviors are then associated with higher pupil scores on critical thinking assessments, scores that seem to be attributable to the facilitation of pupil-to-pupil interaction for pupils in Cohort 2 and the integration of critical thinking principles into teaching practices in Cohort 1 and Cohort 2.
3. RWCT teachers have strong positive feelings about the RWCT Project and believe that it has changed the ways in which they interact with pupils.
Source: American Institutes of Research
For the full text of AIR report see "RWCT Evaluation Report"
You can also read "Impact and Institutionalization study" by AIR
Results of impact evaluation study in Guatemala are available in Spanish language as "Executive Summary Evalution"
Impact