Just as Headsprout Reading Basics adjusts to the needs of learners, Headsprout learning scientists have built flexibility into the program itself to ensure that those needs are met as effectively and certainly as possible. When Headsprout assures parents that their children will depart each episode with a new skill in hand, it does so with the confidence that comes from unparalleled user testing. Headsprout Reading Basics, which has been developed and shaped by the behavior of actual children, may be the only product of its kind to have undergone such rigorous testing and revision cycles.
Whereas any reading program may undergo scientific evaluation (as recently mandated by Congress in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001), this does not mean the program was developed scientifically. Indeed, such programs may not have even been based upon principles derived from scientific research. Accordingly, there are three possible development or formative evaluation approaches and three outcome or summative evaluation approaches. The design approach may be one of writing a program based on a philosophy of teaching or personal experience, it can be writing a program based on scientific research and principles (Anderson et al., 2000) or it may be one of painstaking developing a program in accord with rigorous control/analysis scientific procedures (Markle, 1967, Sidman, 1960). The latter approach does not simply incorporate past scientific research, but employs a scientific approach throughout the development cycle. Once produced, each approach's program can be evaluated in accord with the three summative evaluation approaches described in the accompanying Table.
Headsprout has chosen to develop its program according to a strict scientific protocol from the beginning. Every portion of Headsprout Reading Basics has been measured and evaluated, from the most basic level of instruction through the complete interlocking sets of skills and strategies. Three phases of empirical testing were used: developmental testing (developing a workable instructional program), validation testing (verifying that the instruction reliably produces its intended results), and field-testing (maintaining effectiveness across larger and more diverse groups).
Learning scientists, educators, and instructional designers observed more than 250 children interacting with the program in Headsprout's learning laboratory. Under scrutiny were the basic instructional components, the appeal of the cartoon characters and various program activities, the learners' comprehension of instructions, and their willingness to interact vocally with the program (a factor that precludes the need for voice recognition software).
Above all, Headsprout measured the effectiveness of the lessons for teaching fundamental reading skills. Pretests and posttests of essential skills helped learning scientists and instructional designers measure the acquisition, application and, just as importantly, the retention of skills from episode to episode. Headsprout then made the required adjustments to ensure instructional reliability and effectiveness. This process was repeated until learners were completely successful with the lesson. Over 10 million interactions have been recorded and analyzed to modify, test, and retest each learning routine used in the program until that routine proved effective. Over the course of development, Headsprout made over 10,000 data based program revisions. No change, no matter how seemingly insignificant, has made it into the final product without having been empirically tested and demonstrated effective.
Headsprout designed the program as one might design a new airplane or space vehicle. We did not write it and then test it out to see if it worked. That is, to carry our airplane analogy a step further, we did not build it and then see if more of our airplanes got off the ground and stayed aloft longer than a control group flapping their arms. Instead, we did the careful wind tunnel experiments on the design, tested how the bolts were applied and the materials were used, evaluated how the overall aerodynamics was implemented, and finally answered the question, "Did it fly?" Like an airplane, we felt that a reading program should work on its first test flight, and that changes that came from test flights serve to improve stability and reliability even more. It is not acceptable that the "mean" Headsprout child perform better than the "mean" control group child, just as we would not get in a "mean" airplane. The program must fly with individual children, one at a time. And, as a result of our Internet deployment strategy, Headsprout continues to collect data on every child, which allows the learning scientists and instructional designers to continually improve the product. As more data are gathered, improvements are designed, tested and immediately deployed over the Internet -something even the aerospace industry cannot do.
3X3 Matrix. The level of rigor for each type of evaluation is indicated by the letters A - C for formative evaluation, with row C representing the most rigorous; the numbers 1- 3 indicate the level of rigor for each type of summative evaluation, with column 3 representing the most rigorous. Cell C-3 represents the most rigorous intersection of formative & summative evaluation.
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