EPSY 715 Research in Education: Impact of Year-round Schooling

You may choose any article related to education; the article should focus on a study that relates somehow to educational administration, policy and/or leadership.

• Select a scholarly article on a topic of your choice.
• Provide a citation for your selected article in APA format.
• Quote statement(s) describing the importance of the research topic.
• Quote statement(s) asserting a gap in the literature.
• Quote statement(s) explaining how the study fills the stated gap and/or a statement explaining the purpose(s) of the study.
• Quote statement(s) describing the benefits or significance of the study (as related to the study's aims).
• List what methods are used (i.e. quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods). You may also have to review the methods section of the article. 

lled for distributing the working days all throughout the year by cutting down on the long duration of the summer vacation. Basically, it called for a revision of the scholastic calendar. An estimated 46 schools in the country had switched over to the new system. Controversy erupted in the year 2007 when this Year Round School (YRS) Policy was criticized as divisive. The article is centered around this issue.

In this paper, we exploit the natural experiment created by the controversial WCPSS education policy initiative using a unique, restricted-use panel dataset from the North Carolina Education Research Data Center (NCERDC) to evaluate the impact of YRS on student achievement.

This particular statement sums up the research question of the article. Though the number of Year Round Schools have increased over the years, but there have been no evidence which shall confirm the benefits of it. Instead it has caused debates in education policy whether to retain it or not.

Compared with students who are observed in only a traditional calendar school, students observed at least once in a YRS have both statistically significant higher average math and reading test scores.

This quotation sums up the importance of the research paper. This is reflective of the fact that a thorough and impartial research had been conducted to reach at the conclusions by comparing two different sets of data.

Our results imply that dividing a long summer break into more frequent shorter breaks does not have a positive impact on achievement as measured through standardized test scores.

This quotation sums up the benefit of the study. This particular inference, which is on an overall basis can be used to justify either the retention of the traditional schooling system or to switch over to the new, Year Round School system. This shall be of great help to the policy makers while deciding upon the ideal schooling system.

The primary drawback of these early studies, however, is their failure to account for non-random student and school selection.

This quotation hints at the gap in the existing literature. The previously conducted studies had failed to take into consideration the heterogeneity in the demographic composition of the students. The article which is being analyzed, has provided the conclusion that economically and academically backward students had definitely benefitted out of the new, revised routine, while the previous researches had provided an extremely generalized account, by taking the body of students as a homogenous organic whole.

Consistent with the existing literature, our results suggest YRS has essentially no impact on the academic achievement of the average student. Moreover, when the data are broken down by racial sub-group, the evidence indicates that, contrary to some previous studies (Graves 2011), disadvantaged racial groups neither benefit, nor are harmed, by YRS.

This quotation is reflective of the attempt the study has made in filling the gap in the literature. On one hand it reinforces the inference drawn from the previously generated studies on an overall basis, but at the same time it also adds a new dimension to the body of literature in the field of enquiry by providing an account of the possible benefits and to which particular sections of the America has it reached, which was missing in the previous researches. This has benefitted the policy-makers to adopt a profound approach to reach at some decision.

With regard to the methodological aspect used in conducting the research, it can be deduced that it is mixed method. Both the quantitative and qualitative methods have been employed in reaching at the conclusion. The quantitative method accounts for the survey conducted by comparing the data, and the usage of qualitative aspect is evident in the mention of the inferences drawn from previous researches, and also of the gap in literature.

The study has indeed succeeded in living up to its objective. It is owing to the specificities that the study has attempted to harp upon and then reach at a generalized conclusion. Though the overall result matches with that of the previous results, that does not mean the study is useless. One can find both the negative and the positive aspects of the year round school system in this particular study, hence it can be concluded that the study has addressed its objective effectively.

References

McMullen, S. C., & Rouse, K. E. (2012). The impact of year-round schooling on academic achievement: Evidence from mandatory school calendar conversions. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 4(4), 230-52.