Provider: Littera Education
Program Description
Littera Education provides virtual tutors who work online with groups of 3 middle school students during the school day. Tutors use an edtech product’s diagnostic to group students and its personalized math materials to teach. The study also tested a lower-cost edtech-only model, in which students worked independently on the same edtech product without a tutor. Both models were scheduled during homeroom for 30 minutes, three times a week, over 20 weeks.
Findings
- Significant positive effect: Students offered virtual tutoring scored higher on end-of-year math tests than control students (+0.10 SD), and the effect for students who attended tutoring was +0.11 SD (p = 0.006), equal to about 32% of a year of middle school math learning.
- 92% of students offered tutoring attended at least one session, averaging 20 sessions against a target of 60. Edtech take-up was similar: 89% of students, averaging 20 sessions.
- No results by student subgroup were reported;
- No cost analysis was reported. Control students continued homeroom as usual, and some used other edtech platforms during that time.
- The edtech comparison was weakened because 12% of control students received the edtech intervention, some control students may have used other edtech during homeroom, and the edtech and control groups differed at baseline on race and grade.
| Research Partner | University of Chicago Education Lab |
| Study Year | 2023-24 |
| Study Location | Greenville County Schools, South Carolina, across 3 middle schools |
| Modality | Virtual Synchronous |
| Study Design | RCT (Randomized Controlled Trial) – students randomized within homerooms to virtual tutoring, edtech only, or control |
| Total Sample | 2,009 randomly assigned (1,878 in the final analysis): 623 tutoring, 629 edtech only, 626 control |
| Characteristics of Treatment Group | Male: 53% Black: 29% Hispanic: 58% White: 9% Multiracial: 4% Other: 1% English Language Learner: 42% Diverse Learner: 19% Economically Disadvantaged: Not reported (Control group; groups were balanced) |
| Subject | Math |
| Grades | 6, 7, 8 |
| Average Actual Dosage | 9.3 hours |
| Scheduled Dosage | 30 hours |
