Education researcher Angela Duckworth recently led a study in partnership with Zearn Math to explore how to motivate teachers to use an online math platform to help them improve their students’ academic performance. The study involved sending various email prompts to 140,000 teachers, aiming to increase their engagement and improve student performance. The messages included things such as teaching tips, learning goals, and celebrity endorsements. Despite the efforts, the results were modest; the most effective email intervention, which encouraged teachers to log into Zearn Math for an updated report on how their students were doing that week, led to only a 5% increase in student math progress. Duckworth noted: “It would be naïve to think that you could radically change behavior with these like light touch interventions.” The findings highlight the complexity of changing teacher behavior and the need for more rigorous research to enhance math education in the U.S., especially as recent assessments show significant declines in student math scores.
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