Summer learning loss is a perennial concern for educators and parents alike. However, researchers have recently questioned whether summer learning loss is just a statistical artifact driven by how achievement is measured across the school year. In this study, we empirically investigated a plausible critique of summer learning loss research, namely that students do not put forth their best effort on the fall test compared with the spring test. While we cannot conclude based on our findings that students do in fact lose ground during the summer, we did not find evidence that seasonal differences in test effort are a main driver of summer learning patterns estimated with MAP Growth assessments.
AlexanderK. L.EntwisleD. R.OlsonL. S. (2007). Lasting consequences of the summer learning gap. American Sociological Review, 72(2), 167–180.
2.
AtteberryA.McEachinA. (2021). School’s out: The role of summers in understanding achievement disparities. American Educational Research Journal, 58(2), 239–282.
3.
AugustineC. H.McCombsJ. S.PaneJ. F.SchwartzH. L.SchweigJ.McEachinA.Siler-EvansK. (2016). Learning from summer: Effects of voluntary summer learning programs on low-income urban youth. RAND Corporation.
BormanG. D.D’AgostinoJ. V. (1996). Title I and student achievement: A meta- analysis of federal evaluation results. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 18, 309–326.
6.
BurkamD. T.ReadyD. D.LeeV. E.LoGerfoL. F. (2004). Social-class differences in summer learning between kindergarten and first grade: Model specification and estimation. Sociology of Education, 77(1), 1–31.
7.
CooperH.NyeB.CharltonK.LindsayJ.GreathouseS. (1996). The effects of summer vacation on achievement test scores: A narrative and meta-analytic review. Review of Educational Research, 66(3), 227–268.
8.
EntwisleD. R.AlexanderK. L.OlsonL. S. (2000). Summer learning and home environment. In KahlenbergR. D. (Ed.), A notion at risk: Preserving public education as an engine for social mobility (pp. 9–30). Century Foundation Press.
9.
KeeslingJ. W. (1984). Differences between fall-to-spring and annual gains Chapter I programs. Advanced Technology.
10.
KimJ. S. (2006). The effects of a voluntary summer reading intervention on reading achievement: Results from a randomized field trial. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 28(4), 335–355.
11.
KuhfeldM.CondronD.DowneyD. (2021). When does inequality grow? A seasonal analysis of racial/ethnic disparities in learning in kindergarten through eighth grade. Educational Researcher, 50(4), 225–238.
12.
KuhfeldM.SolandJ. (2020). Using assessment metadata to quantify the impact of test disengagement on estimates of educational effectiveness. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 13(1), 147–175.
RiosJ. A.GuoH.MaoL.LiuO. L. (2017). Evaluating the impact of careless responding on aggregated-scores: To filter unmotivated examinees or not?International Journal of Testing, 17(1), 74–104.
16.
SchnipkeD. L.ScramsD. J. (2002). Exploring issues of examinee behavior: Insights gained from response-time analyses. In MillsC. N.PotenzaM. T.FremerJ. J.WardW. C. (Eds.), Computer-based testing: Building the foundation for future assessments (pp. 237–266). Lawrence Erlbaum.
SlavinR.KarweitN. L.MaddenN. A. (1989). Effective programs for students at-risk. Allyn and Bacon.
20.
SolandJ. (2018). The achievement gap or the engagement gap? Investigating the sensitivity of gaps estimates to test motivation. Applied Measurement in Education, 31(4), 312–323.
21.
SolandJ.ZamarroG.ChengA.HittC. (2019). Identifying naturally occurring direct assessments of social-emotional competencies: The promise and limitations of survey and assessment disengagement metadata. Educational Researcher, 48(7), 466–478.
von HippelP. T.HamrockC. (2019). Do test score gaps grow before, during, or between the school years? Measurement artifacts and what we can know in spite of them. Sociological Science, 6, 43–80.
25.
von HippelP. T.WorkmanJ.DowneyD. B. (2018). Inequality in reading and math skills forms mainly before kindergarten: A replication, and partial correction, of “Are Schools the Great Equalizer?”Sociology of Education, 91, 323–357.
26.
WiseS. L. (2015). Effort analysis: Individual score validation of achievement test data. Applied Measurement in Education, 28(3), 237–252.
27.
WiseS. L. (2017). Rapid-guessing behavior: Its identification, interpretation, and implications. Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, 36(4), 52–61.
28.
WiseS. L.DeMarsC. E. (2006). An application of item response time: The effort-moderated IRT model. Journal of Educational Measurement, 43(1), 19–38.
29.
WiseS. L.KongX. (2005). Response time effort: A new measure of examinee motivation in computer-based tests. Applied Measurement in Education, 18, 163–183.
30.
WiseS. L.KuhfeldM. (2021). Using retest data to evaluate and improve effort-moderated scoring. Journal of Educational Measurement, 58(1), 130–149.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
