Evaluating the Development of Secondary Writing Teaching & Learning Solutions

Mathematica provided technical assistance to Secondary Writing grantees developing automated writing feedback tools, which are platforms that provide automated formative feedback on student writing, and grantees that are developing argumentative writing curricula and instructional supports. 

The team helped build grantees’ capacity to develop and execute measurement and evaluation plans. Continuous improvement and diversity, equity, and inclusion frameworks informed the measurement and evaluation work. To support the technical assistance work, Mathematica developed a suite of tools and templates and a menu of measures vetted by a panel of experts to promote use of high-quality and common measures for key student and teacher writing outcomes. Mathematica also served as the third-party evaluator for one grantee that sought to validate the effectiveness of its tool. Finally, Mathematica developed a series of briefs to highlight the evidence generated through studies of two automated writing feedback tools.