As part of an organizational self-study, Brain Hurricane contracted with the Center for Research in Educational Policy (CREP) at The University of Memphis for an independent analysis of potential student achievement gains enabled by the Supplementary Educational Services it provides. To this end, Brain Hurricane provided CREP personnel with its complete 2008/09 and 2009/10 database of student scores that were obtained on pre- and post- test administrations of age-appropriate Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) assessments. CREP followed a non-randomized quasi-experimental model and analyzed our student data for statistical significance using a T-test with an value of 0.05 to measure the effectiveness of our program. CREP personnel compared average gains between pretest scores (n1) to posttest scores (n2) via a series of dependent t-tests to determine if there was any statistical significance between the mean pre and mean post program assessment scores.
2008-2009: The Memphis researchers analyzed Brain Hurricane student outcomes in all states from the 2008/09 academic year. When taken as a single group, for all students served by Brain Hurricane across all states, statistically significant differences were observed between pretest and posttest standard score means obtained for all ITBS subtests at all grade levels: Highly significant differences (at p < .001) for Grade 1 through Grade 7, and at more traditional levels of statistical significance for Grade Eight. Expressing these gains in terms of Normal Curve Equivalents (N.C.E.s) reveals differences of between 4 and 5 N.C.E.s in the three domains tested at the lower school level. While N.C.E. gains in reading tended to be marginal (i.e., 1-2 N.C.E.s) among upper school grades, gains in mathematics proved to be substantial, however, averaging between six and seven N.C.E.s.
2009-2010: During the 2009/10 academic year, across all Brain Hurricane students tested in all states, average gains between pre- and posttest ITBS assessments were compared via a series of dependent t-tests, and revealed systematic and statistically significant differences for all ITBS subject matter assessments at all grade/test levels. With the sole exception of Grade Eight Reading (where p < .05, statistically significant), the aforementioned differences were highly statistically significant (at p < .001) and were associated with mean-difference effect sizes that minimally exceeded one half of a standard deviation (that is, d > .50) and sometimes exceeded a full standard deviation (d > 1.0). Moreover, while only grades 4 and 5 had a mean N.C.E. at or above 50 on the pretest, all grades except grade 7 had a mean N.C.E. at or above 50 on the posttest.
For more on our results, visit brainhurricane.com/tour/results.