ABSTRACT
The Promoting Science among English Language Learners (P-SELL) efficacy study and the P-SELL effectiveness study described in the previous chapters (Lee, O’Connor, & Hass, this volume; Maerten-Rivera, Llosa, & Lee, this volume)
are among the largest studies conducted to date on the effectiveness of science interventions in elementary school, and the largest that focused specifically on ELLs. A recent research synthesis of elementary science programs from 1980 to 2012 found only 23 out of 332 studies reviewed that met inclusion criteria for rigorous designs (Slavin, Lake, Hanley, & Thurston, 2014) and, of those studies, only a couple were of the scale of the P-SELL studies (in terms of numbers of schools and students), and none focused specifically on ELLs.
