External Evaluation of Project
CS4NorCal was a federally funded research project. Components of the research included impact and implementation studies. The project benefited from the regular involvement of an external evaluator, the director of the Research Excellence in Education (REEd) program within the Department of Education at UC Davis. She provided ongoing feedback throughout the life of the project and produced two reports that are available for others considering similar work:
Computer Science in Rural California: Final Impact Study Findings
Access to high-quality computer science education remains uneven across the United States, with rural schools facing persistent barriers including limited staffing, outdated infrastructure, and constrained professional development opportunities. Computer Science in Rural California (branded as CS4NorCal) sought to address these disparities by implementing a two-year professional development program for teachers and school leaders to support the implementation of CS instructional pathways. The study targeted grades 4–8 and evaluates the impact of CS instruction on student achievement in mathematics and science and examines fidelity of implementation.
Key findings included:
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There was a statistically significant impact on science achievement with students in treatment schools narrowing the distance from standard gap by an average of five points compared to peers in comparison schools.
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The effect on mathematics achievement was positive but not statistically significant
Computer Science in Rural California: Summative Impact Study Findings
Computer Science in Rural California (branded as CS4NorCal) was launched in fall 2019 as an Early-phase Education Innovation Research grant from the U.S. Department of Education (ED). EIR is a tieredprogram to generate and validate solutions to persistent educational challenges and requires both an implementation study and an impact study conducted by an independent, external evaluator. The scope of evaluation for this project also included formative data collection and evaluation. The purpose of this report is to integrate and summarize key findings from the formative and implementation evaluation conducted in years 1 (2021-2022) and 2 (2022-2023) to provide general insight, conclusions, and recommendations for how to promote and support computer science instruction in small and rural schools.