Technical brief
Technical appendix for: Student achievement in 2021-22: Cause for hope and continued urgency
July 2022
By: Megan Kuhfeld, Karyn Lewis

Description
The purpose of this technical appendix is to share more detailed results and to describe more fully the sample and methods used in the research included in the brief, Student achievement in 2021-22: Cause for hope and continued urgency. We investigated two main research questions in this brief:
- How do achievement gains across the 2021-22 school year compare to pre-pandemic trends? Are there any initial signs of rebounding or recovery?
- How does student achievement in spring 2022 compare to pre-pandemic levels?
In addition to these two primary research questions, we also investigated one supplementary research question regarding whether achievement has become more distributed over the pandemic.
See MoreTopics: COVID-19 & schools, Equity
Associated Research
Related Topics


The purpose of this technical appendix is to share more detailed results and describe the sample and methods used in the research in Progress towards pandemic recovery: Continued signs of rebounding achievement at the start of the 2022-23 school year.
By: Megan Kuhfeld, Karyn Lewis
Topics: COVID-19 & schools, Equity


New research provides evidence that student reading and math achievement at the start of the 2022–23 school year is continuing to rebound from the impacts of the pandemic, though full recovery is likely still several years away.
By: Karyn Lewis, Megan Kuhfeld
Topics: Equity, COVID-19 & schools


Technical appendix for: The widening achievement divide during COVID-19
The purpose of this technical appendix is to share more detailed results and to describe more fully the sample and methods used in the research included in the brief, The widening achievement divide during COVID-19.
By: Megan Kuhfeld, Meredith Langi, Karyn Lewis
Topics: COVID-19 & schools, Equity


The widening achievement divide during COVID-19
New research provides additional evidence of the uneven impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic showing that students’ math and reading test scores are more variable in spring 2022 than before the pandemic in part because the divide between high and low achievers has widened.
By: Karyn Lewis, Megan Kuhfeld, Meredith Langi, Scott J. Peters, Erin Fahle
Topics: COVID-19 & schools, Equity


Longitudinal models of reading and mathematics achievement in deaf and hard of hearing students
New research using longitudinal data provides evidence that deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) students continue to build skills in math and reading throughout grades 2 to 8, challenging assumptions that DHH students’ skills plataeu in elementary grades.
By: Stephanie Cawthon, Elizabeth Barker, Johny Daniel, North Cooc, Ana Vielma
Topics: Equity, Measurement & scaling


District and school leaders’ perspectives on leading & learning during the COVID-19 pandemic
This report captures the perspectives of district, school, and teacher leaders (hereafter referred to as “local leaders”) to surface best practices for supporting student learning during COVID-19.
By: Hayley Weddle, Ayesha K. Hashim, Ogechi Irondi
Topics: COVID-19 & schools, Empowering educators


Test score patterns across three COVID-19-impacted school years
This study uses test scores from 5.4 million U.S. students in Grades 3–8 to track changes in math and reading achievement across the first 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic.
By: Megan Kuhfeld, James Soland, Karyn Lewis
Topics: COVID-19 & schools, Equity