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Study from math learning platform shows difficulty in motivating teachers to change behaviors

In March 2025, Duckworth and University of Pennsylvania researchers published a megastudy involving 140,000 teachers who received different email prompts to check student progress on Zearn Math's platform.
The megastudy responded to urgent concerns about declining math achievement in U.S. students, highlighted by a 13-point drop in 2022 PISA results and a 2024 NAEP score decline since 2019.
Teachers receiving behaviorally informed emails nudged student math progress by 1.9%, and emails referencing teacher-specific data boosted progress by 2.3%, with students completing roughly 80,424 extra lessons during the intervention.
Duckworth noted that substantial impacts are quite uncommon, highlighting that straightforward messages like 'Hey, your students' data are available, remember to log in' were the most effective, although their influence was much smaller than anticipated.
The findings underline the complexity of changing teacher behavior and signal a strong need for large-scale, rigorous research to effectively boost math achievement amid pandemic-related setbacks.

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Study from math learning platform shows difficulty in motivating teachers to change behaviors | News Channel 3-12

Study from math learning platform shows difficulty in motivating teachers to change behaviors Like an online retailer trying to woo a customer back by offering a 10% discount on the boots they’ve been eyeing, education researcher Angela Duckworth wanted to understand how to incentivize teachers to log in regularly to an online math platform that aims to help them improve their students’ academic performance. “Today is perfect for checking your P…

6 days ago

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Study from math learning platform shows difficulty in motivating ...

7 days ago·Fort Worth, United States

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Study from math learning platform shows difficulty in motivating teachers to change behaviors

The 74 reviewed a Zearn Math and University of Pennsylvania’s Behavior Change for Good Initiative study, which found nudging educators to use an online math platform did surprisingly little to increase usage or student success.

7 days ago

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