American Educational Research Journal

Month XXXX, Vol. XX, No. X, pp. 1–41

DOI: 10.3102/0002831220929638
Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions
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Putting PjBL to the Test:

The Impact of Project-Based Learning on
Second Graders’ Social Studies and Literacy
Learning and Motivation in Low-SES School
Settings
Nell K. Duke
University of Michigan
Anne-Lise Halvorsen
Michigan State University
Stephanie L. Strachan
Western Washington University
Jihyun Kim
Lehigh University
Spyros Konstantopoulos
Michigan State University

This cluster randomized controlled trial investigated the impact of project-

based learning with professional development supports on social studies
and literacy achievement and motivation of second-grade students from
low–socioeconomic status school districts. At random in within-school pairs,
48 teachers were assigned to the experimental or comparison group.
Experimental group teachers were asked to teach four project-based learning
units designed to address nearly all social studies and some literacy stand-
ards. Comparison group teachers were asked to teach social studies as they
normally would except to teach a target number of lessons. The experimental
group showed higher growth in social studies and informational reading but
not writing or motivation. Greater consistency with project-based learning
session plans was associated with higher growth in writing, motivation,
and reading.

KEYWORDS: high-poverty school districts, informational reading and writing,

low-SES, project-based learning, social studies

T he ideas driving project-based learning (PjBL) have a long history in

American education dating back to the early 20th century during the
Progressive Era (Kliebard, 2004). The progressive educator John Dewey
Duke et al.
helped popularize, at least in theory, approaches to education that were
student-centered, had practical meaning and application, and, in his view,
promoted democracy by providing students with more educational opportu-
nities and by teaching citizenship (Dewey, 1902)—all characteristics associ-
ated with PjBL. Another progressive educator, sociologist David Snedden,
advocated the use of practical projects to engage students in learning
by doing in the field of vocational education (Snedden, 1916). William
Kilpatrick (1918) encouraged the use of projects, such as designing a kite or
presenting a play, in which students developed knowledge and skills and
engaged in activities that, he argued, prepared them for life. Progressive edu-
cators disagreed on essential aspects of a project-based approach, but they
all viewed projects as a compelling alternative to traditional instructional
approaches they considered to be dry, fact-based, disconnected from
students’ lives, and teacher-centered.
Throughout the 20th and into the 21st century, PjBL has been a presence
in the educational literature. Much of the existing research on PjBL shows
promise for the approach, yet there has been relatively little research testing
its impact, particularly at the elementary level. Reviews of research on PjBL

NELL K. DUKE is a professor in Literacy, Language, and Culture and in the Combined
Program in Education and Psychology at the University of Michigan, School of
Education, Room 4109, 610 East University Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA;
e-mail: [email protected]. Her research interests are in early literacy development,
particularly among children living in economic poverty, with a focus on informa-
tional text reading and writing, comprehension development and instruction, and
issues of equity in literacy education.
ANNE-LISE HALVORSEN is an associate professor in the Department of Teacher Education
and PhD Coordinator of the Curriculum, Instruction, and Teacher Education Program
at Michigan State University. Her research interests are the history of social studies
education, elementary social studies education, historical inquiry, project-based
learning, the history of education, the integration of social studies and literacy, and
teacher preparation in the social studies.
STEPHANIE L. STRACHAN is an assistant professor in the Woodring College of Education at
Western Washington University where she serves as the Director of the Language,
Literacy, and Cultural Studies Program. Grounded in sociocultural frameworks of
learning and development, her research explores the intersections of young child-
ren’s language, literacy, and content area learning within project-based learning
and inquiry approaches.
JIHYUN KIM is an assistant professor in the Educational Leadership program at Lehigh
University. Her research interests include teaching quality, teacher evaluation, policy
evaluation, policy implementation, and principals’ leadership. She focuses on
evidence-based practices and schools as social organizations.
SPYROS KONSTANTOPOULOS is a professor of quantitative methods in the College of
Education at Michigan State University. His methodological research interests include
multilevel models, experimental design, statistical power analysis, and meta-analysis.
His substantive work focuses on class size, teacher, and school effects, and educa-
tional evaluation and policy.

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 PjBL Impact
reveal that the majority of studies have taken place in middle and high
school classrooms and have not been designed in such a way as to draw
clear causal conclusions about the impact of PjBL—although they have cer-
tainly made other important contributions to our understanding of the
approach (Condliffe, 2016; Holm, 2011; Kokotsaki et al., 2016; Thomas,
2000).
There is a particular need to study the effects of PjBL on social studies
and informational reading and writing achievement and for students from
underrepresented racial-ethnic groups and students living in economic pov-
erty. In the United States, social studies and informational reading and writ-
ing are neglected in the primary-grade school settings, particularly in low-
socioeconomic status (SES) classrooms (Duke, 2000b; Fitchett & Heafner,
2010; Jeong et al., 2010; McGuire, 2007; Pace, 2012; VanFossen, 2005;
Vogler et. al, 2007). Although there is no research on the degree to which
students in low- versus high-SES settings experience PjBL, as detailed later,
research has found that some key practices related to PjBL are less likely
to occur in low-SES school settings.
Given the longevity of PjBL, the promise of the approach, the lack of
efficacy studies with young learners, and the need to investigate strategies
for addressing inequity in certain educational opportunities, we set out to
study the impact of PjBL for second graders in low-SES schools in the
United States. We did so by conducting a cluster randomized controlled trial
comparing social studies and literacy (in particular, informational reading
and writing) achievement and motivation of students engaged in PjBL to
that of students whose teachers taught social studies and literacy as they nor-
mally would except with a promise to teach a target number of social studies
lessons.

Theoretical Framework
This study is grounded in a view of learning as driven by the desire for
human connection. We learn largely in order to understand the social world,
to enable our interactions with others, and to show others that we have
learned. As such, the social and cultural context around our learning is
paramount to whether and how learning occurs (National Academies of
Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2018). As would be expected, a wide-
ranging body of research points to the impact of teacher-student relationships
on student learning (Howard et al., 2020). Instructional approaches that
endeavor to capitalize on the need for human connection are often found to
be more effective than instruction that is less intentional in that regard. For
example, research continues, as it has for decades, to document the benefits
of cooperative structures for learning (Kyndt et al., 2013).
Learners do not rest passively as the social context washes over them, tak-
ing them where it may. Rather, they are actively constructing understandings

3
Duke et al.
within their social contexts (Vygotsky, 1978). Indeed, our approach to social
studies and literacy education is, in part, consistent with traditional premises
of constructivism. However, like Fitzgerald and Palincsar (2019), we ascribe
a much greater role of the social and cultural context of learning than is tradi-
tionally the case in constructivist theory. These scholars’ concept of sensemak-
ing captures our thinking well: ‘‘Sensemaking entails being active, self-
conscious, motivated, and purposeful in the world. It is an activity that is
always situated within the cultural and historical contexts in which we interact
with others and with the aid of tools’’ (p. 227). They document that a common
implication of instructional studies on individuals’ sensemaking is the need to
create the social conditions in which sensemaking is fostered, including
opportunities for students to inquire, interpret, elaborate, and link new learn-
ing to their prior knowledge and experiences.
Put another way, our view of learning involves elements of both socio-
cultural and cognitive theoretical perspectives (e.g., Danish & Gresalfi, 2018;
Purcell-Gates et al., 2004). It is not simply constructivism in context, how-
ever. We are compelled by the common finding in research regarding the
central role that more knowledgeable others play in fostering learners’
sensemaking. For example, in a meta-analysis of 37 studies examining the
impact of inquiry-based science education, Furtak et al. (2012) found that
although inquiry-based pedagogy is effective in general, with an overall
mean effect size (ES) of 0.50, approaches that included teacher-led activities
had mean ESs approximately 0.40 higher. Similarly, in our approach to social
studies and literacy education, each session includes a teacher-led compo-
nent, often with explicit teaching of concepts and/or skills, in addition to
a substantial block of time for primarily student-led activity, with the teacher
serving as a ‘‘guide on the side.’’

Project-Based Learning
Project-based learning is an instructional approach designed to capitalize on
students’ drive for sensemaking (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering,
and Medicine, 2018). Educational researchers have defined PjBL in varying
ways (e.g., Barron et al., 1998; Krajcik et al., 1998; Thomas, 2000).1 In recent
years, a large international consortium of education leaders and stakeholders,
including researchers, have sought to define high-quality PjBL using a consensus
process. They have identified six characteristics of high-quality PjBL: intellectual
challenge and accomplishment, authenticity, a public product, collaboration,
project management, and reflection (HQPBL, 2018).
There is considerable overlap between these characteristics of high-qual-
ity PjBL and the conceptualization of learning presented earlier. Intellectual
challenge and reflection foster sensemaking, and collaboration and a public
product capitalize on the drive for human connection. Authenticity calls for
establishing the relevance of school learning by reflecting what happens in

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 PjBL Impact
the social world outside of school and by connecting to that world through the
project’s impact on other people and communities.
Our conceptualization of PjBL foregrounds authenticity in PjBL because
it both invites active and purposeful sensemaking and allows human con-
nection not only within but also beyond the classroom, into other social
and cultural worlds of the learner (e.g., Newmann et al., 1996; Purcell-
Gates et al., 2007). We designed each of the project-based units tested in
this study to have an overarching authentic purpose, such as to improve
a local park or to raise money for a valued cause. Students’ work then has
a purpose beyond satisfying school requirements or expectations: address-
ing an authentic problem, need, or opportunity in their community or the
larger world. We also viewed PjBL as requiring that the project be developed
over an extended period of time and be the primary driver of learning
throughout a unit. These features increase the likelihood that the social pur-
pose of the project will drive learning throughout the unit and that there will
be sufficient time and space for students to engage with the learning. Each
activity in which students engaged during each of our project-based units is
carried out not for its own sake, or because the teacher told them to do it,
but rather to contribute to meeting the project’s goals either directly or indi-
rectly by developing knowledge and skills needed to carry out the project.
Although we foreground authenticity in our conceptualization of PjBL,
we do address other elements of high-quality PjBL (HQPBL, 2018): intellec-
tual challenge and accomplishment, collaboration, reflection, and a public
product. We seek to incorporate intellectual challenge and accomplishment
through our attention to grade-level standards and complex tasks in our
projects (e.g., learning about the history of a site in the community by exam-
ining photographs and conducting interviews). The structure of our daily
sessions sets aside a time for collaboration as well as a time for reflection.
Each of our projects involves development of one or more public products
(see the Experimental Group section for further explanation). The only ele-
ment from HQPBL that we do not address is project management, which did
not occur to us as a priority for students this age, although it is possible that it
could be.
To illustrate how students learn within the project-based approach we
have outlined, take the case of students learning about the map key. (As
we describe this case, we use parentheses to point out the five elements
of high-quality PjBL and key aspects of the view of learning we presented
earlier.) In one of our project-based units, students are engaged in writing
brochures about their local community to try to persuade people to move
to or visit their community (authenticity). The class shares their brochures
with prospective visitors to or residents of their community, for example,
via a local realtor (public product, human connection). Each student’s bro-
chure persuades in part by including descriptions of the student’s favorite
natural and human characteristics in the community (cultural context) and

5
Duke et al.
is to include a map and map key (cultural and historical tools) showing
where those sites are located. The teacher provides explicit instruction in
what a map key is and how it works (teacher-led activity, more knowledge-
able other). Students then reread an informational text about map keys in
small groups. They answer questions on a handout asking them to identify
particular symbols used in the maps in the text and interpret maps in the text
using the map keys (collaboration, social conditions for sensemaking). They
then use this experience to imagine a characteristic they might include on
their own map and draw the symbol they might use for that characteristic.
That process launches students in working individually or with a small group
to make a full map key for their brochure and to place the key symbols in the
appropriate locations on their brochure’s map (collaboration, student-led
activity). Students also engage in whole-group review and reflection, which
can include the sharing of student work on their map keys and discussion
about the progress the students have made toward the public product
(reflection). At the end of this series of experiences, the second-grade stu-
dents have a strong grasp of how to not only use but also create map
keys (intellectual challenge and accomplishment).

Curriculum Materials
Fitzgerald and Palincsar (2019) pointed to the particular role that curric-
ulum materials can play in fostering sensemaking, provided those materials
are ‘‘rich enough to support this complex work’’ (p. 244), and curriculum
materials are implicated throughout accounts of effective contexts for stu-
dent learning (National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine,
2018). In many contemporary implementations of PjBL, there is detailed
guidance for teachers available, including unit descriptions and individual
lesson plans. For example, Learning Reviews (2018) recommended 18
resources for ‘‘Project Based Learning Lesson Plans and Examples,’’ such
as the Buck Institute for Education (now PjBLWorks) and Edutopia. PjBL
may also involve use of curriculum materials not originally designed for
a PjBL context, such as textbooks in Parker et al.’s (2018) PjBL model or
children’s trade and school market books in ours.
Scholars have long established that there is a complicated relationship
between what is written in curriculum materials and what actually happens
in the classroom. In a review of research, Remillard (2005) presents a frame-
work in which a participatory relationship between curriculum materials
and the teacher (e.g., teacher knowledge, teacher identity), influenced by
context, leads to a planned curriculum. Context exerts its influence again,
as do the students themselves, to lead to the enacted curriculum. Davis
et al. (2017) identified several factors that influence how teachers enact cur-
riculum, including the strengths and limitations of the materials, their rele-
vant content knowledge (in their case, science knowledge), the students

6
 PjBL Impact
in the classroom, and time. Teachers adapt curriculum materials to meet their
needs. Indeed, in the present study we focus on teachers’ consistency with
the primary ideas within lesson plans, rather than a rigid notion of ‘‘fidelity’’
to a lesson script, in recognition of the reality that quality instruction involves
curricular adaptation.
In sum, students engage in sensemaking both driven and shaped by the
social and cultural context around them. PjBL seems well-suited to capitaliz-
ing on these forces in learning. Curriculum materials have the potential to
support teachers in fostering students’ sensemaking through PjBL, but there
is a complex relationship between curriculum materials and teachers’ actual
enactment of curriculum, suggesting that scholars should consider the
degree to which curriculum materials are taken up when examining the
impact of providing project-based curriculum materials and professional
development (PD).

Review of Literature
In the following section, we discuss the degree to which opportunities
to learn in the ways described in the Theoretical Framework section are
equally available to students across SES groups. We then discuss efforts to
institute such instruction through project-based approaches, in particular
in the domain of social studies education. Finally, we turn to the question
of what the field currently knows about the impact of PjBL approaches on
young children.

Curricular Opportunities for Students in Low-SES School Settings

Like any approach to enacting curriculum, PjBL positions teachers and
learners in specific ways and conveys particular cultural values (e.g., valuing
inquiry and local contexts, constraining transmission and passivity; Au, 2012;
Eisner, 1985). There is no research to indicate whether this approach is more,
less, or equally common in low- as compared to high-SES settings. However,
there are practices associated with PjBL that have been shown to be less
common in primary-grade classrooms in low-SES school settings. In over
10,000 minutes of observation in second-grade classrooms, Billman (2008)
found 0 minutes devoted to inquiry in social studies in low-SES classrooms
but 82 minutes of inquiry activities observed in high-SES classrooms.
Similarly, Anyon’s (1981) classic work found fewer opportunities for inquiry
in lower SES schools. Additionally, she found that those schools positioned
social studies more as a matter of facts to be remembered than conceptual
understandings to be built. Strachan (2016) found that during social studies
instruction, students in primary-grade classrooms in low-SES settings were
less likely than those in high-SES settings to engage in student-led activities,
to read or write extended text, or to write for an audience other than the
teacher.

7
Duke et al.
As in social studies education, in literacy education there is evidence of
less frequent use of practices consistent with PjBL. For example, Duke
(2000a) found that first-grade students in low-SES school districts were less
likely than students in high-SES districts to have opportunities to engage
in literacy in the content areas, to make choices in their reading, to exert
a high degree of authorship in their writing, or to read or write for audiences
beyond the teacher alone. Research on teachers who are unusually effective
at fostering literacy achievement in students of poverty and students of color
often find that such teachers emphasize meaning making, higher order ques-
tioning, and higher order discussion to a greater extent than typical teachers
(e.g., Taylor et al., 2000; Turner, 2005). Teale et al. (2007) argue that there is
a literacy curriculum gap by SES such that students in low-SES settings expe-
rience more emphasis on basic reading and math skills and less attention to
content building, conceptual understanding, comprehension, and writing.
Like others (e.g., Center on Education Policy, 2006), they attribute this gap
in part to the policies of the No Child Left Behind Act.
Opportunity gaps observed in social studies and literacy curriculum and
instruction are set in the context of larger opportunity gaps by race and SES.
These gaps are evident not only in the practices but also in the systems, pro-
cesses, structures, and policies that shape U.S. schooling (Milner, 2012). For
example, research has also long indicated that educators have, on average,
lower expectations for students of lower SES and students of color (Dusek &
Joseph, 1983). Those lower expectations likely explain, at least in part, the
relatively less intellectually ambitious instruction in school settings with
high proportions of students of low-SES and students from underrepresented
racial and ethnic groups.

Project-Based Learning in Social Studies Education

Social studies is a multidisciplinary field comprising many disciplines
from the social sciences and the arts and humanities. The disciplines in
the projects tested in this study, which are the disciplines most frequently
taught at the elementary and secondary level (National Council for the
Social Studies [NCSS], 2013), are economics, geography, history, and political
science (which is called civics and government, or civics, at the school
level).
Collectively, social studies as a school subject is highly compatible with
PjBL because of the subject’s foci on helping students (1) recognize and
work to address societal problems, needs, or opportunities; (2) conduct
inquiry, in particular, asking and exploring complex questions about the
world around us; (3) use critical thinking, problem solving, and collaborative
skills; (4) explore authentic issues and problems; and (5) take informed
action (NCSS, 2013).

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 PjBL Impact
Each social studies discipline, as described in the C3 Framework (NCSS,
2013), is also compatible with PjBL. The central goals of civics and govern-
ment are helping students develop (1) knowledge about government and (2)
civic efficacy, or the capacity and willingness to take on the roles of citizen-
ship. PjBL, with its attention to authentic issues and concerns, is a natural fit
with civics and government. Economics deals with people’s choices and rea-
soning regarding resources and how to make informed decisions. Projects
entail complex decision making, often with limited resources such as time
and materials; thus, economic decision making is often used in the process
of PjBL. Geography focuses on knowledge of the Earth’s human and natural
characteristics—both the local and the global. Geographic thinking involves
understanding the Earth’s many interdependent relationships. PjBL’s focus
on societal problems and needs is compatible with geography, as many of
today’s most pressing needs are geographic (e.g., climate change; food
and water security). History, with its focus on events, developments, move-
ments, and individuals from the past (and not from students’ daily lives),
may seem an unlikely fit with PjBL’s focus on addressing societal needs
and opportunities, which tend to be contemporary in nature. However,
these contemporary problems are deeply rooted in events of the past:
History education provides contextual understanding. PjBL, with its focus
on sustained inquiry or exploration, when used in history education, allows
students to develop their skills in perspective taking, cause and effect, chro-
nology, contextualization, and evaluation of sources, among others, to
understand the causes and conditions of current issues (e.g., MacArthur
et al., 2002).
Each of these disciplines cannot be enacted without literacy skills, most
notably informational text reading and writing. The dominant national
framework for social studies education (NCSS, 2013) asks teachers to engage
students in developing disciplinary literacy skills along with content knowl-
edge via an inquiry arc. The PjBL approach that is the subject of this study
involves informational text reading and writing as well as attention social
studies content.
Research with older students has demonstrated the suitability and prom-
ise of project-based approaches for social studies disciplines. For example,
Parker et al. (2011) found, in their mixed-methods design experiment with
314 students across 12 classrooms in three high schools (eight classrooms
used an alternative approach to Advanced Placement (AP) U.S.
Government and Politics and four classes used a traditionally taught AP
approach), that students in the alternative approach classes earned the
same or higher scores on the AP exam and performed better on a
complex-scenario test of deep conceptual learning, compared to students
in a traditionally taught AP course. Parker et al. (2013) found, in their
mixed-methods design experiment with 289 students in 12 classrooms across
four schools, that students in the classrooms using an alternative approach to

9
Duke et al.
AP U.S. Government and Politics were more likely to earn a high pass on the
AP exam than students in classrooms using traditionally taught AP
approaches, and they also scored higher on a complex-scenario test, an
open-ended assessment designed to assess students’ abilities to apply
knowledge from the course to investigating real-world problems in politics
and government.
The approach to PjBL employed by Parker et al. (2011; Parker et al.,
2013; Parker et al., 2018) had five key principles: ‘‘rigorous projects as the
spine of the course, quasi-repetitive project cycles (looping), engagement
first, teachers as co-designers, and an eye for scalability’’ (Parker et al.,
2011, p. 538). The projects included in their PjBL curriculum also followed
an inquiry-based learning approach; a ‘‘master question’’ unified all the proj-
ects, and as students progressed through the projects, they revisited and
attempted to answer the master question (Parker et al., 2013). As in our
approach to PjBL, students worked both collaboratively and independently
through an extended engagement with authentic issues.
Problem-based learning, an approach related to though distinct from
PjBL, has also been applied to social studies disciplines. For example, Saye
and Brush (2007) describe the results of their 9-year research program on
problem-based historical inquiry, used with a series of small samples of
high school students. Across studies, the researchers concluded that their
approach to problem-based learning increased engagement, empathy, and
attention to sources of knowledge but did not always improve deep knowl-
edge or critical reasoning. They attributed the success of their work to
‘‘authenticity of tasks and deliberate support for active learning’’ in addition
to the digital tools they built to support inquiry (p. 210). Economics has also
been addressed through a problem-based approach, yielding positive results
(Mergendoller et al., 2006).
Although these and other studies have focused on older students, there
is no evidence to suggest that younger students are incapable of engaging
with the real-world problems, needs, or opportunities that drive learning
within a project-based framework. For example, in a justice-oriented eco-
nomics unit (although not one best characterized as project-based),
Sylvester (1994) found that a third-grade class could grapple with authentic
social and economic issues: homelessness, entrepreneurship, economic
competition, and unemployment. Mitra and Serriere (2012) found that fifth
graders in a socioeconomically diverse school who learned the ABCDEs of
youth development—agency, belonging, competence, discourse, and (civic)
efficacy—could engage successfully in school life and civic life by identify-
ing and addressing a local issue. Indeed, as Chi et al. (2006) argue, ‘‘In many
ways, the elementary level is an ideal time to create a strong and meaningful
foundation for the civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions needed to pre-
pare and engage students as active citizens . . .’’ (p. 24). We provide further

10
 PjBL Impact
evidence that even young children are able to engage with authentic prob-
lems, needs, or opportunities that drive PjBL in the following section.

The Impact of Project-Based Learning in the Primary Grades

Although a number of studies have examined the causal impact of PjBL
in middle, high school, and postsecondary contexts (e.g., Boaler, 1997; Geier
et al., 2008; Harris et al., 2014; Parker et al., 2011; Parker et al., 2013), finding
positive impacts on learning and motivation, few studies have been con-
ducted with younger students, particularly those in the preprimary and pri-
mary grades.
Some studies of PjBL with young children have focused on effects on
overall development (e.g., Habok, 2015), but most have focused on PjBL
in relation to specific domains. Aral et al. (2010) examined Turkish children’s
acquisition of basic concepts (e.g., colors, shapes) in one classroom that
used the typical preschool curriculum and another classroom in the same
school in which teachers taught the concepts using PjBL (SES unspecified).
PjBL was employed once per week for 12 weeks. Few other details were
provided. In contrast to the other studies reviewed in this section, in this
study there was no evidence of an advantage for a project-based approach.
Focusing on science content knowledge, Robinson et al. (2014) ran-
domly assigned teachers in 70 classrooms in low-income schools in the
United States, Grades 2 through 5, to an experimental group who experi-
enced a PjBL curriculum along with more than 100 hours of PD over 2 years
(including a summer institute and weekly coaching) or to a comparison
group who taught science as usual for the year. Although results for the
full sample have not been published, Robinson et al. compared the learning
gains of students labeled as gifted in both groups, concluding that those stu-
dents who participated in the PjBL condition made statistically significantly
greater learning gains in science process, concepts, and content knowledge
than the comparison group. The randomized design allowed a strong causal
inference regarding the relative efficacy of the experimental and control con-
ditions; however, within the experimental condition it is difficult to parse out
the effects of PjBL as compared to the large number of hours focused on PD
that sometimes dealt with science content, technology, and differentiation as
opposed to only PjBL.
Also focused on science learning was a study by Dresden and Lee (2007)
involving first-grade students in a low-SES school in the United States.
Science learning was examined in one classroom before and after participat-
ing in a teacher-directed unit on different types of animals and then again
after participating in a PjBL unit on chicks. Assessments asked students to
discuss an animal of their choice—or specifically a chick following the
PjBL unit—and to provide facts about that animal, as well as draw and label
a picture of the animal. The researchers found that students used statistically

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Duke et al.
significantly more words to describe their animal following the PjBL unit and
had higher levels of detail and accuracy in their writing at that point.
However, the improvements might have stemmed from the fact that the
PjBL unit on chicks followed a unit on different types of animals in which
important conceptual groundwork may have been set. Chicks is also a nar-
rower topic than animals, which may have contributed to the findings.
Motivation, as well as science content learning, was the focus of the
Kaldi et al. (2011) study, involving students in ethnically diverse classrooms
(SES unspecified) in Greece just above the primary grades (Year 4; ages 9
and 10). Using a single-group pretest-posttest design, the researchers exam-
ined students’ knowledge of sea animals as well as motivation and attitude
toward environmental studies following participation in a PjBL intervention
lasting between 2 and 3 months in six classrooms. Interviews with teachers
and students showed statistically significant pre- and posttest differences for
science content learning as well as motivation in this learning domain. They
concluded that the students in the study ‘‘found [PjBL] amusing and more
motivational in comparison to traditional teaching methods (direct instruc-
tion, teacher talk, studying from their own textbooks)’’ (p. 43).
Also focused on science motivation as well as learning was the Karacxalli
and Korur (2014) study. In this study, which the researchers identified as
quasi-experimental, 143 fourth-grade students in Turkey (SES unspecified)
experienced 4 weeks of 1-hour daily experience learning about electricity
in daily life. The experimental and comparison groups experienced the
same presentation materials and explanations. The experimental group
applied their learning in the form of an ongoing project, whereas the control
group answered questions about material and prepared questions to ask of
their friends. Students in the PjBL group had better achievement and reten-
tion of the material taught, but unlike in the Kaldi et al. (2011) study, did not
display effects on motivation (a measure of attitudes toward science and
technology).
We were able to locate only two studies examining the effects of PjBL in
relation to social studies learning in the primary grades. In one study, seven
students ages 6 to 7 from a special education class in Turkey (SES unspeci-
fied) participated in a project-based unit for 1 to 2 weeks (Guven & Duman,
2007). Students improved in their understanding of bakeries (which could be
considered social studies content) following the unit and field trip. In a sec-
ond study, second-grade students in low-SES schools in the United States
made statistically significant gains in social studies knowledge and informa-
tional reading and writing following engagement in two project-based units,
one focused on economics and the other on civics and government
(Halvorsen et al., 2012). In addition, students’ postscores were statistically
the same as postscores of students in high-SES schools who had not experi-
enced the units, suggesting that PjBL may help to narrow the achievement
gap. However, as in nearly all of the studies discussed in this review, this

12
 PjBL Impact
study did not use a randomized controlled trial (RCT) design that would
afford a strong causal inference.
Some additional studies of PjBL in the preprimary or primary grades
examine teacher, student, and/or parent perceptions of the approach (e.g.,
Beneke & Ostrosky, 2009; Chu et al., 2011; Tretten & Zachariou, 1995) or
teacher implementation. For example, Chu et al. (2011) examined teachers’,
parents’, and students’ perceptions of the impact of PjBL in science and
social studies over 19 weeks on students’ information technology or infor-
mational literacy (e.g., internet searching) skills on four classes of P4 (9-
to 10-year olds, just outside of the primary-grade age range) students in
Hong Kong. All groups thought that students’ skills were improved, and stu-
dents expressed that the skills were important to their work.
The relatively small number of studies that have examined effects of
PjBL in the primary grades have, with one exception, found evidence of
promise of the approach for general development and content learning
and mixed evidence of promise with respect to motivation. However, only
one of the studies, focused on science, has employed an RCT design, which
is best suited to drawing causal conclusions. Four reviews of research on
PjBL (Condliffe, 2016; Holm, 2011; Kokotsaki, et al., 2016; Thomas, 2000)
have also noted the dearth of studies with an RCT design.

Summary
Our theoretical framework calls for opportunities for students to engage
in sensemaking driven by their social contexts, particularly by extended
engagement with authentic problems, needs, or opportunities in their com-
munity or the larger world. Our review of literature documents that such
opportunities are less common in school settings with high proportions of
students of color and students of low SES. PjBL can, at least theoretically,
provide such opportunities and is well suited to social studies education.
Studies with older students engaged in PjBL in social studies have had prom-
ising results, as have studies involving young children in PjBL largely within
other domains. A causal study of PjBL in social studies in the primary grades
would provide insights into whether PjBL can fulfill this promise.

Research Questions
The present study addressed these gaps by examining the impact of PjBL
on social studies and literacy achievement and motivation in the primary
grades in low-SES school settings using a cluster randomized controlled trial
design. The study was carried out with a sample of teachers during their first
and only year of implementation who had, except for one, never carried out
PjBL—among the most challenging contexts in which PjBL has ever been
tested. The research questions were the following:

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Duke et al.
Research Question 1: What is the impact of being in classrooms of teachers ran-
domly assigned to implement, with some PD support, an integrated, project-
based approach, as compared to business-as-usual (but with a promise to
teach a target number of lessons) instruction, on the (a) social studies learning,
(b) informational reading, (c) informational writing, and (d) motivation of
second-grade students in low-SES school settings?
Research Question 2: Among teachers randomly assigned to implement inte-
grated, project-based units, is greater consistency with unit session plans
associated with greater student learning and motivation?

Method
Study Design
This study was a cluster randomized experiment in which 48 teachers
were assigned randomly to an experimental (n = 24) or a comparison
(n = 24) group within second grade in each school. Teachers in the exper-
imental group were provided with one initial professional learning work-
shop, three follow-up recorded webinars, coaching, and detailed session
plans for 80 sessions within four project-based units, one each for econom-
ics, geography, history, and civics and government. Comparison teachers
were asked to teach their regular social studies curriculum (which in no
case involved PjBL). They were asked, and agreed, to teach 80 lessons
over the course of the year so that the amount of social studies instruction
could be held constant across conditions. Teachers in both groups were sys-
tematically observed. To measure student growth, near the beginning and
end of the school year, we administered pre and post standards-aligned
measures of social studies, informational reading, and informational writing,
and a Likert-type scale motivation survey about social studies, literacy, and
integrated instruction.

Participants
Participants were second-grade teachers (N = 48) and their students (N =
684; comparison group = 289, experimental group = 395) from 20 elemen-
tary schools (16 schools with two participating second-grade classrooms
and 4 schools with 4 participating second-grade classrooms) in 11 school
districts. Classrooms were drawn from schools that met the following crite-
ria: (1) at least 65% of the student population qualified for free or
reduced-priced lunch; (2) below state average student performance on state
exams in social studies (assessed in Grade 6 in this state), reading (assessed
in Grade 3), and writing (assessed in Grade 4); and (3) location within an
hour’s drive of either of the university sites where the principal investigators
were located. The reported free or reduced-priced lunch rates of participat-
ing schools ranged from 65% to 100%, with a mean of 80.350%.

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 PjBL Impact
All second-grade teachers within qualifying schools were invited to par-
ticipate; at least two teachers in each school needed to agree to participate in
order to be included in the study. Teachers were paired within second grade
in each school; one member of each pair was randomly assigned to imple-
ment four units of our integrated, PjBL approach to teaching social studies
and informational reading and writing (the experimental [E] group) whereas
the other was asked to teach social studies using the approach they normally
would during any other school year (the comparison [C] group). As detailed
later in this section, for 15 of the 24 comparison group teachers, this involved
using a (non–project-based) curriculum developed by two state education
organizations, and for nine of the 24 comparison group teachers, this
involved using a national social studies textbook series. The remaining
two comparison group teachers used self-designed (non–project-based) les-
sons. Comparison group teachers were asked to promise to teach at least 80
social studies lessons over the course of the year, considerably more than
they likely would normally have taught. In that sense, they too were partici-
pating in an intervention—to increase the amount of social studies instruc-
tion provided in schools.
Table 1 provides information for evaluating initial experimental versus
comparison group comparability. There were no statistically significant dif-
ferences between experimental and comparison group teachers in years of
teaching experience or having received PD in PjBL. Even among those
reporting having received prior PD in PjBL, there was no indication from
observations and questionnaires that comparison group teachers actually
used a PjBL approach to teach social studies, nor, from interviews, that
any but one experimental group teacher did so prior to the study year.
All students within participating classrooms were invited to participate
through a parent/guardian consent form. The two whole class–administered
assessments were collected from all students whose parents provided con-
sent. The two individually administered assessments were given to only
a randomly selected subset of students due to budgetary and thus personnel
constraints. Despite this, sample sizes at posttest for each assessment were
adequate: social studies: E = 305, C = 257; reading: E = 307, C = 252; writing:
E = 358, C = 270; motivation: E = 343, C = 265. A total of 47.937% percent of
students had a mother or guardian with higher than a high school education.
Among these students, 17.120% of students had a mother or guardian with
an associate’s degree. The majority of participating students, 57.048%,
were from underrepresented racial-ethnic groups. Additional demographic
information about students and participating teachers, as well as students’
baseline/preassessment scores, can be found in Table 1. As this is a cluster
randomized experiment, with teachers randomly assigned to condition,
data reported in Table 1 are all aggregated and t tests conducted at the
teacher level (the unit of random assignment). Measures are after attrition
took place. As the independent samples t tests show in the last column of

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Duke et al.
Table 1
Demographic Information About Teachers and Students at the Teacher/Class
Level and Raw Premeasure Results

M SD n

E C E C E C t Test

Teacher characteristics
Years of teaching experience 16.67 17.29 2.01 1.74 24 24 0.24
PD in PjBL 0.13 0.29 0.07 0.09 24 24 1.42
Student characteristics
Mother’s/guardian’s education 0.490 0.493 0.104 0.172 24 24 0.089
Female 0.491 0.540 0.137 0.143 24 24 1.222
Underrepresented racial-ethnic group 0.574 0.587 0.243 0.291 24 24 0.156
Primary language other than English 0.065 0.102 0.127 0.236 24 24 0.670
Student preassessments
Social studies 0.253 0.251 0.051 0.035 24 24 0.159
Informational reading 0.264 0.268 0.070 0.065 24 24 0.167
Informational writing 0.204 0.194 0.056 0.059 24 24 0.634
Motivation 0.786 0.801 0.043 0.048 24 24 1.159

Note. Mother’s/guardian’s education, female, underrepresented racial-ethnic group, and

PD in PjBL are dummy variables. Mother’s education = 1 if a student’s mother or guardian
has higher than high school diploma. Mother’s education alone was used because 25% of
father’s education data were missing. Mother’s education is more highly correlated with
achievement (e.g., Murnane et al., 1981). Female = 1 if a student is female and 0 if a student
is male. Underrepresented racial-ethnic group = 1 if a student is from a racial group under-
represented in U.S. higher education (not White or Asian) and 0 otherwise. In the sample,
40.337 % of the students were White, 32.975% were Black or African American; 15.491%
were multiracial; 5.368% were Asian; and 4.448% were Hispanic or Latino. Pre-and post-
measures are expressed as percentage scores that each student achieved compared to the
highest possible scores. Student characteristics and preassessments are aggregated at the
teacher level, and t tests were conducted at the teacher level, as that is the unit of random
assignment. Measures are after attrition took place. E = experimental; C = control; PD =
professional development; PjBL = project-based learning.

Table 1, the experimental and comparison groups were comparable on aver-

age in terms of demographic variables and preassessments. Variances on
preassessments in the two groups were also statistically equivalent for all
measures as determined by F tests. Thus, we can assume that the randomi-
zation of our study was realized as intended.
It is noteworthy that there was no attrition at the teacher level. In terms
of student attrition rate, the overall attrition rate was 7.895%. The differential
attrition rate for the experimental group was 9.367%, and 5.882% for com-
parison group—a difference of less than 4 percentage points. Although
the attrition rate for the experimental group was higher than that of the

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 PjBL Impact
comparison group, the descriptive analysis and baseline equivalence of
covariates from before attrition were very similar to those reported in
Table 1. That is, overall the sample of participating students was similar to
the sample of students initially assigned to experimental or comparison con-
ditions. Combined with the low overall and differential attrition, we find no
evidence that attrition had any influence on our estimation of the treatment
effect.

Experimental Group Condition

The four project-based units used in this study were designed to involve
students in PjBL as described earlier in this article. We used a design-based
research approach to develop the units, field testing and obtaining feedback
from teachers (not involved in the present study) throughout the process
(see Halvorsen et al., 2012; Halvorsen et al., 2018, for a description of the
methodology). The four PjBL units, taught in the following order, were (1)
Producers and Producing in Our Community (economics), (2) Brochure
About the Local Community (geography), (3) Postcards About the
Community’s Past (history), and (4) The Park/Public Space Proposal
Project (civics and government).
Each unit involved a project that had an authentic purpose with a public
product developed in part through collaboration on intellectually challeng-
ing tasks with regular opportunities for reflection—all characteristics of high-
quality PjBL discussed earlier in the article (HQPBL, 2018). Although the unit
and session plans were premade and the same for all classrooms, they were
unlike traditional lesson plans in that they were written to embed opportu-
nities for connections to the local community in which the unit was taught
and for teacher and student voice and choice. Every project involved teacher
and student voice and choice and opportunities for extended informational
text reading and writing. The project for the economics unit involved creat-
ing an informational flier about a local business for that business’ use and
creating and selling their own good or service to raise money for a cause.
The business chosen, the good or service created and sold, and the cause
were all decided by each class. The geography project involved developing
a brochure to persuade people visiting or considering settling in the local
community that it has compelling natural and human characteristics. The
local community varied by district, and the natural and human characteristics
were chosen by each child—for example, one child might choose to feature
the local athletic center, whereas another might choose to feature the local
public library. In the history unit, the project involved students developing
postcards about the history of the local community to display or sell in a local
institution, such as a library or historical society, with the teacher and/or stu-
dents deciding which historical sites to feature, whether to sell or display
their postcards, and the location(s) where postcards were shared. The civics

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Duke et al.
and government project involved developing a proposal, conveyed in letters
and in a group presentation, to persuade the local city government to make
improvements to a local park or other public space selected by the teacher
and/or teacher and students collectively. See Supplemental Appendix A for
abstracts of each project (in the online version of the journal).
In addition to characteristics of PjBL described earlier in the article, proj-
ects included explicit instruction threaded throughout the units but always
presented in the service of the project rather than as material to be learned
for the sake of satisfying school requirements. Projects also involved
domain-specific, research-supported instructional practices and were closely
aligned to standards. Specifically, units addressed nearly all social studies
standards for the state, which were largely aligned with national standards
(the C3 Framework; NCSS, 2013) and a subset of standards from a national
English Language Arts and Literacy standards document (National Governors
Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers
[CCSSO], 2010), particularly those involving informational reading and writ-
ing. However, it was understood that, unlike the social studies standards, the
literacy standards should also be addressed in other parts of the day/outside
our units, including in reading, writing, and science instruction.
Each of the four units comprised 20 sessions designed to take approxi-
mately 45 minutes of instructional time each. (We use the term sessions rather
than lessons because only a portion of each session is what might tradition-
ally be considered a lesson, much of the session time involved small-group
and individual work on the projects.) We designed session plans to clearly
indicate learning objective(s) and standards addressed, any materials
required, key vocabulary terms and definitions critical to the sessions,
instructional steps of the session, and additional notes for the teacher
(e.g., potential pitfalls to avoid). With few exceptions, each session followed
a similar format: (1) whole-group instruction and discussion to generate and
sustain student interest and excitement about the project as well as to pro-
vide explicit instruction (~10 minutes); (2) guided small-group or individual
instruction in which students have opportunities to work individually, in
pairs, or in small groups (~20–30 minutes); and (3) whole-class review
and reflection, which included clarifying any confusions and reviewing
key terms (~10 minutes). For example, a session might involve the teacher
reading aloud a text related to the unit project, with instruction in social stud-
ies content as well as literacy skills, such as how to use an index. In small
groups, students might then use information learned from the text and other
materials to complete portions of a graphic organizer that would guide their
writing of the unit’s final product. Then students might then come back
together to share their graphic organizers and review with the teacher key
content from the beginning of the session. In addition to unit plans, teachers
were provided with any texts, artifacts, or other materials, beyond typical
school supplies, that were needed to carry out each unit.

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 PjBL Impact
Although we recognize that PjBL is initially challenging to implement
(e.g., Marx et al., 2004), we were cognizant of the limited amount of support
many districts or schools are likely to provide when introducing a new cur-
riculum when a research team and grants are not involved. In an attempt to
maintain a high level of ecological validity, we were relatively austere about
the amount of outside-the-classroom PD provided with the PjBL units: (1) 3
hours of initial PD that introduced participants to PjBL, to our research ini-
tiative, and to the first project-based unit; (2) three recorded webinars rang-
ing between 22 and 40 minutes introducing the next three units; and (3)
added for a subset of the classrooms, a brief five-minute video of several
experimental teachers discussing strategies for addressing some common
challenges with units. In contrast, inside the classroom we did provide sub-
stantial support in the form of, on average, 11 visits from research assistants
(RAs) who provided coaching for unit implementation after the session they
observed, with additional communications, as necessary, by phone and/or
e-mail. We believed that coaching support had a high degree of ecological
validity given the prevalence of instructional coaches in high-poverty school
districts. Coaches interacted with teachers only after sessions (during ses-
sions they were taking observation notes, as explained later in this section)
and were instructed to restrict their interaction with teachers to implementa-
tion of what was in the unit or session plans, rather than larger issues of
instruction or classroom management that may affect PjBL implementation.
Finally, the project unit and session plans that we developed had a high
degree of detail regarding the structure and content of the project sessions
and included educative curriculum features, such as child-friendly defini-
tions of key terms. Scholarship has demonstrated that curriculum materials
have the potential to serve as a form of PD in their own right (Davis &
Krajcik, 2005; Drake, et al., 2014).
Teachers signed a letter of consent in which they committed to teaching
80 lessons over the course of the year, but the mean number of lessons/ses-
sions taught by experimental group teachers was 65.917, with a standard
deviation of 9.184 and a range of 48 to 86. Four teachers, two in the exper-
imental group and two in the control group, taught the full 80 lessons/ses-
sions. In general, experimental group teachers who did not teach a full 80
lessons/sessions did not teach the civics and government unit (n = 6), taught
an abbreviated version of that unit (n = 13), or taught an abbreviated version
of the history unit (n = 13), but did teach up to four review sessions we
provided.

Comparison Group Condition

As indicated previously, teachers in the comparison group were asked
to teach social studies as they normally would during any other school
year except to increase their instruction to a goal of teaching 80 social studies

19
Duke et al.
lessons over the course of the year. Of the 24 total teachers in the compar-
ison group, 15 teachers taught social studies using a curriculum developed
through two state education organizations by educators from school districts
and subject area consultants and aligned to the state social studies standards.
Typical units in this curriculum comprised several open-ended questions to
guide inquiry during the course of study, key vocabulary concepts, and
a series of one to nine lesson plans. Common activities included reading
aloud children’s literature, writing anchor charts, class discussion, small-
group activities, analyzing maps or timelines, video clips, vocabulary
work, worksheets, and assessments. None of the units was project-based.
Two teachers using these units supplemented them with magazines
(Social Studies Weekly; Scholastic News), two teachers added an extended
teacher-created unit at one point in the year, and two other teachers impro-
vised all text-based lessons because they were not provided the texts called
for in the unit plans.
Seven of the remaining nine teachers not using the curriculum described
in the previous paragraph utilized district-created lessons or social studies
textbooks as the primary mode of instruction, including TCI (Social
Studies Alive!), MacMillan/McGraw Hill, and Scott Foresman. The social stud-
ies textbooks were not specifically aligned with this state’s standards, but
there appeared to be considerable overlap with state expectations.
Lessons consisted of discussing content vocabulary, reading the textbook,
watching videos, completing worksheets or written assignments, whole-
class discussion, and small-group work. The remaining two comparison
teachers taught self-designed lessons as their schools did not provide any
social studies curriculum or materials. Much like the lessons designed by
the two state organizations, teacher-created lessons typically consisted of
vocabulary instruction, whole-class discussion, read-alouds, independent
reading, graphic organizers, visual aids, group work, and written activities.
Neither the textbook-based instruction nor the teacher-designed instruction
was project-based.
Teachers signed a letter of consent in which they committed to teaching
80 social studies lessons over the course of the year. As noted earlier, two
experimental group teachers and two comparison group teachers actually
taught that number of lessons. The mean number of lessons taught by com-
parison group teachers was 51.375, with a standard deviation of 17.118 and
a range of 30 to 85. This is statistically significantly fewer lessons than taught
by the experimental group teachers (M = 65.917 lessons, t = 215.217, p \
.001). However, as explained in the Discussion section, dosage analyses
indicate that the 14.5-lesson difference in mean number of lessons taught
is not sufficient to explain the advantage of the experimental group over
the comparison group in study results.

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 PjBL Impact
Assessments
Our four outcome measures were (1) a standards-aligned social studies
assessment administered one-on-one, (2) a standards-aligned informational
reading assessment administered one-on-one, (3) a writing assessment com-
prised of a group-administered paper-and-pencil persuasive-writing assess-
ment and informative/explanatory writing assessment; and (4) a group-
administered paper-and-pencil motivation survey. All measures were devel-
oped by our team due to the lack of social studies or informational reading
and writing assessments aligned with state standards and the lack of a moti-
vation measure that addressed social studies, informational reading and writ-
ing, or integrated instruction. Sample items from each assessment are
provided in the paragraphs that follow (space limitations preclude append-
ing the instruments, but they are available upon request from the first
author). Validity and reliability of each assessment are reported in the para-
graphs that follow. Students were assessed near the beginning and end of
the school year. Items from all assessments were piloted and refined before
administration.

Social Studies Assessment

The social studies assessment was aligned with state content expecta-
tions and the C3 Framework (NCSS, 2013). Ten items with multiple subparts
measured student achievement in economics, geography, history, civics and
government, and public discourse, decision making, and citizen involve-
ment. Some questions were open-ended, such as ‘‘What services does the
local government provide?’’ and ‘‘Why do we use time lines?’’ Others were
close-ended, such as showing a map with a key and asking, ‘‘Tell me which
direction you would go to get from the child’s house to the park?’’ and
a question that required students to sort pictures of items involved in the
production of pizza into the categories of natural, human, and capital resour-
ces. Each item corresponded to all or part of a state standard for social stud-
ies for second grade. Without knowledge of whether a given assessment
came from a child in the experimental or comparison classrooms (i.e., blind
to condition), we scored the responses of the 11 questions on scale of 0 to 3,
with a score of 3 indicating fully meeting the standard, for a total possible
score of 30 (two questions measured the same standard and were thus aver-
aged for one score for the standard, for a total of 10 items).
To examine assessment validity, five reviewers with expertise in social
studies were asked to identify the question(s) that best aligned with each
content expectation; they had 96% agreement with our determination of
the alignment of standards and assessment questions. With regard to reliabil-
ity, project members established a high inter-rater reliability at Fleiss’s kappa
= 0.883 for scoring the assessment, and the 10 social studies items had an
acceptable internal consistency (a = .715).

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Duke et al.
Informational Reading Assessment
This assessment comprised a total of 31 items that measured student
achievement of six of the 10 second-grade CCSS for Reading Informational
Text (Standards 4–9). Sample questions included ‘‘What are reasons the
author gives to support her point?’’ (CCSS for Reading Informational Text
8) and ‘‘What is the writing under a picture called?’’ (CCSS for Reading
Informational Text 5). The research team scored questions blind to condition
on a scale of 0 to 3 with a score of 3 meaning fully meeting that CCSS expec-
tation. This provided a total possible score of 87 (not 93 because one trio of
questions all dealt with one text feature and therefore were scored together
on the 0–3 scale).
To examine validity, five experts in the field of early literacy reviewed
the assessment and were asked to identify which CCSS in Reading
Informational Texts corresponded with each assessment item. There was
95.5% agreement between these experts’ reviews and our own identification
of which CCSS best addressed each assessment item. With regard to reliabil-
ity, research team members established a high interrater reliability of Fleiss’s
kappa = 0.874 when scoring this assessment, and items had high internal
consistency (a = .863).
Informational Writing Assessment
This assessment measured student achievement of writing for two dis-
tinct purposes detailed in the CCSS: to opine or persuade (Writing
Standard 1) and to inform or explain (Writing Standard 2).

Persuasive writing. This prompt asked students to write independently

for 30 minutes about ‘‘something you think people should change and
why.’’ Students were given a purpose and audience for the writing: ‘‘My
friends and I will read what you write to get ideas about things we should
try to change’’ and were provided with a list of potential areas of change.
Responses were scored blind to condition using a rubric aligned to expect-
ations in CCSS Writing Standard 1 for second grade as follows: introduction
(on a scale of 0–2), opinion (0–2), reasons (0–3), linking words (0–1), and
concluding statement (0–2), for a total possible score of 10.
Informative/explanatory writing. This prompt asked students to write
an article for up to 30 minutes about a community job (e.g., firefighter)
for a class magazine. This topic was chosen because it was not addressed
in the project-based units so would not inappropriately advantage students
in the experimental group and because students would likely to be able to
draw on considerable background knowledge/information in responding
(thus it would serve as a test of informational writing skill, not knowl-
edge/information). Students were provided with a list of potential jobs.
Their responses were scored blind to condition using a rubric aligned to

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 PjBL Impact
expectations in CCSS Writing Standard 2 for second grade: introduction (0–
2), information (0–3), definition (0–1), and concluding statement (0–2), for
a total possible score of 8.
An overall informational writing achievement score was created by com-
bining scores for responses to the persuasive and informative/explanatory
prompts for a total score of 18. With regard to validity, an interrater reliability
of Fleiss’s kappa = 0.734, which is considered high, was established by pro-
ject members for scoring of this assessment. Internal consistency reliability
was borderline (not surprising in prompted writing assessment) at .661.

Motivation Surveys
To investigate motivation, we developed a survey modeled after, but dis-
tinct in all items from, a validated reading motivation survey (e.g., McKenna
& Kear, 1990). We surveyed students about their attitudes toward engaging
and participating in (1) social studies learning, (2) literacy learning, and
(3) integrated social studies and literacy learning (there were also items on
PjBL, but those were not included in analyses given that students in the com-
parison group did not participate in PjBL). Students were read 24 statements
such as, ‘‘When I use maps to learn new things, I feel . . .’’ and ‘‘When our
class learns about social studies and reading at the same time, I feel . . .’’ After
each statement, they were asked to circle one of four images of a character,
depicting an emotional state ranging from ‘‘very happy’’ to ‘‘very upset.’’
Responses were scored on a scale of 1 (very happy) to 4 (very upset).
Cronbach’s alpha reliability for the assessment was .884.

Other Data
Other data collected include students’ demographic/background infor-
mation (underrepresented racial-ethnic group, gender, and mothers’/guard-
ians’ education level), teacher background characteristics (years of teaching
experience and whether they received PD in PjBL), and interviews with
experimental group teachers (with the interviews not included in this article
except with respect to teachers’ responses regarding their experience with
PjBL prior to the data collection year and number of sessions taught; see
Revelle, 2019).

Observational Data
In order to most meaningfully address the first research question, we
needed to ascertain that the experimental group was using a project-based
approach and the comparison group was not. Thus, classrooms in both con-
ditions were observed with a protocol that included the item ‘‘Degree to
which the lesson appears to be set in project-based context’’ on a scale of

23
Duke et al.
1 to 3 (from does not appear to be set in project-based context to appears to be
set in project-based context).
To address the second research question, we needed to know the degree
to which experimental group classrooms were implementing PjBL as intended.
For that purpose, our observation protocol had three items for observations in
experimental classrooms requiring ‘‘Ratings for consistency with session plans,’’
one each for whole-group instruction and discussion, guided small-group or
individual instruction, and whole-group review and reflection. Each item was
rated on a scale of 1 to 3, with 1 = follows fewer than 50% of the steps in the
session plan for that section of the session, 2 = follows 50% to 80% of the steps,
and 3 = follows 80% or more of the steps for that section of the session. ‘‘Follows’’
meant that the teacher engaged in the primary action identified in the step (e.g.,
explaining a concept, providing information about or communication from the
target audience; allocating time for students to carry out research). Raters were
directed to count steps as partially followed if part of a complex step was fol-
lowed and not to give a lower rating for an altered order or addition of steps but
only for steps being missed entirely during that session (e.g., not inviting stu-
dents to reflect on the process of producing the good or service). The raters
did not take into account the degree to which teachers adhered to specific sug-
gested wordings in the plans or the like. As explained earlier, our session plans
were unlike traditional lesson plans in that they were written to embed oppor-
tunities for teacher and student voice and choice and connections to the local
community in which the unit was taught. For example, one session plan calls
for giving students an opportunity to generate questions they want to include
in their survey about the park or other public space that is the focus of the pro-
ject. Given that the park or other public space will vary and the questions stu-
dents want to ask in the survey will vary, it makes sense for our ratings to focus
on consistency with the general instructional move called for rather than word-
ing or other details of enactment of that move.
The observation protocol was used by RAs, who observed full sessions
(their coaching conversations with teachers occurred after the sessions;
teachers perceived them as having the dual roles of observing instruction
and providing [only] project-related coaching support as needed). RAs
were trained in using the observation protocol using videos. Live observa-
tions of sessions by two raters achieved a mean interrater reliability of
.658 in Fleiss’ Kappa, which indicates substantial agreement. In total, RAs
carried out an average of 11.208 and 5.458 visits to experimental and com-
parison classrooms respectively.

Data Analysis
Descriptive Statistics
We used descriptive statistics to examine student achievement and moti-
vation in the experimental and comparison groups and inferential statistics (t

24
 PjBL Impact
tests) to determine any significant differences in raw scores on preassess-
ments of student achievement and motivation between students in the
experimental and comparison groups. We also generated descriptive statis-
tics regarding consistency with unit session plans in the experimental group.

Hierarchical Linear Modeling

To take into account the nested relationships in the study (i.e., students
nested within teachers), we used hierarchical linear models (Bryk &
Raudenbush, 1992). Using a two-level hierarchical linear model (Level 1: stu-
dent and Level 2: teacher), we explored the effects of the intervention (con-
trolling for female status, underrepresented racial-ethnic group, mother’s/
guardian’s education, and preassessment) on social studies achievement,
informational reading, informational writing, and motivation and, for the
experimental teachers, the relationship between consistency with unit ses-
sion plans and social studies achievement, informational reading, informa-
tional writing, and motivation. The two-level model matches the research
design and is appropriate for the data. This analytic strategy and the detailed
data we collected about instruction in the experimental classrooms meant
that analyses could examine not only the impact of the project-based units
by condition but also whether students showed greater gains in social stud-
ies achievement in classrooms in which the teacher implemented project ses-
sions with a higher degree of consistency with unit session plans.
First, we examined the treatment on treated effects of the intervention
(i.e., using the analytic sample of students). The first-level model for student
i of teacher j is

Yij 5b0j 1b1j (FEMALE)ij 1b2j (UNDERREP)ij 1b3 j (MOTHER EDU)ij 1b4j (PRE Y)ij 1eij ;

where Yij represents four outcomes of interest (i.e., social studies learning,
informational reading, informational writing, and motivation) for student i
of teacher j. FEMALEij is a dummy variable for gender, and UNDERREP is
a dummy variable for underrepresented racial-ethnic group status.
MOTHER EDUij is equal to 1 if a student’s mother/guardian has higher
than a high school diploma. PRE_Yij is the preassessments of the outcome.
A student-specific residual is eij. At the second level the teacher-specific
intercepts are modeled as b0j = g00 1 g01(EXPERIMENTAL)j 1 m0j in which
g00 is the average outcome of students in the comparison group and m0j is
a teacher-specific random effect. The variance of m captures the nesting of
students within teachers. EXPERIMENTAL is a dummy variable equal to 1
if a student was in the experimental group. The coefficient g01 represents
the average difference in the outcome between the two groups (adjusted
for covariates).

25
Duke et al.
Second, we examined the relationship between consistency with unit ses-
sion plans and the outcomes. As explained earlier, each major component of
each session observed was rated on a scale of 1 to 3, for a total score of 9 for
a session that was quite consistent with key components of the session plan
and a total score of 3 for a session that was not. The model used for the anal-
ysis was the same as the previous one shown in the previous section except
that (1) we dropped the EXPERIMENTAL variable, (2) included only experi-
mental group students for the analysis, and (3) added the CONSISTENCY vari-
able at the teacher level (i.e., the second level).

Results
Our report of results is organized into two sections. The first addresses
the first research question (about impact) and the second addresses the sec-
ond research question (about relationship between consistency with session
plans and student growth).

Comparing Achievement
All experimental group teachers attended initial PD, received the project
unit and lesson plans, and accepted coaching. All teachers implemented at
least three out of four of our project-based units; all but six teachers imple-
mented all four units to at least some degree. As intended, none of compar-
ison group teachers did any of these things. Observation data indicated that
teachers randomly assigned to the comparison group did not implement
project-based-learning (mean score of 1.1 on the 1–3 scale described ear-
lier). Collectively, these data reflect several types of fidelity identified by
Hill and Erickson (2019). Put another way, the experiment tested what it
was designed to test.
Descriptive statistics for experimental and comparison group students
for all variables used in the multilevel analysis are reported in Table 2 at stu-
dent level. Results of the multilevel analyses are reported in the paragraphs
that follow.

Social Studies
Controlling for female status, underrepresented racial-ethnic group sta-
tus, mother’s/guardian’s education, and preassessment, the experimental
group scored statistically significantly higher than the comparison group
on the social studies measure (ES = 0. 482, p \ .001, two-tailed here and
throughout). That is, the mean difference between experimental and com-
parison groups in social studies was 0.482 standard deviations even after
controlling for baseline scores. In line with relevant methodological research
(e.g., Ho et al., 2007), the Institute of Education Sciences What Works

26
 PjBL Impact
Table 2
Descriptive Statistics for Variables of Interest at the Student Level: Entire Sample

Experimental Group Control Group Sample Size

Variable M SD M SD E C

Student characteristics
Mother’s/guardian’s education 0.466 0.500 0.496 0.501 358 272
Female 0.500 0.501 0.526 0.500 358 272
Underrepresented racial-ethnic group 0.550 0.498 0.598 0.491 347 256
Primary lang. other than English 0.060 0.238 0.080 0.273 351 261
Preassessments
Social studies 0.250 0.122 0.252 0.114 308 248
Informational reading 0.263 0.140 0.270 0.131 306 251
Informational writing 0.198 0.163 0.194 0.161 358 270
Motivation 0.782 0.115 0.805 0.116 329 256
Postassessments
Social studies 0.445 0.172 0.370 0.136 305 257
Informational reading 0.444 0.175 0.419 0.161 307 252
Informational writing 0.298 0.187 0.298 0.188 349 264
Motivation 0.782 0.123 0.774 0.128 343 265

Note. The values are at the student level and exclude the attrition group. Mother’s/guard-
ian’s education, female, underrepresented racial-ethnic group, and professional develop-
ment in PjBL are dummy variables. E = Experimental, C = Control.

Table 3
Intervention Effects on Children’s Achievement

Effects of intervention
Observations:
Effect 48 Teachers,
Coefficient SE p Size 20 Schools

Social studies 0.078 0.018 \.001*** 0.482 522

Informational reading 0.031 0.018 .083y 0.182 521
Informational writing 20.008 0.014 .571 20.047 580
Motivation 0.017 0.013 .193 0.135 542
y
p \ .10. ***p \ .001, (All tests are two-tailed.)

Clearinghouse (2014) considers an ES of 0.25 or higher to be ‘‘substantively

important’’ (p. 23). See Table 3.

Informational Reading
Controlling for female status, underrepresented racial-ethnic group sta-
tus, mother’s/guardian’s education, and preassessment, the experimental

27
Duke et al.
group scored statistically significantly higher than the comparison group on
the informational reading measure (ES = 0.182, p = .083). That is, the mean
difference between experimental and comparison groups in informational
reading was 0.182 standard deviations even after controlling for their base-
line scores. By itself (without considering potential cumulative effects of
PjBL also being used for informational reading in other parts of the school
day), this ES is lower than the 0.25 threshold. See Table 3.

Informational Writing
Controlling for female status, underrepresented racial-ethnic group sta-
tus, mother’s/guardian’s education, and preassessment, the experimental
group did not score statistically significantly higher than the comparison
group on the writing measure (ES = 20.047, p = .571). See Table 3.

Motivation
Controlling for female status, underrepresented racial-ethnic group sta-
tus, mother’s/guardian’s education, and preassessment, differences between
the experimental group and the comparison group did not reach a level of
statistical significance (ES = 0.135, p = .193). See Table 3.

Relationship to Consistency With Unit Session Plans

Descriptive statistics for teachers’ consistency with unit session plans are
provided in Table 5. Higher ratings mean that instruction was more consis-
tent with key components of the session plans. In classrooms with the lowest
average consistency with unit session plans, there was significant reduction
or elimination of one or more session components (and recall that each ses-
sion contributed to students’ enactment of the project), sometimes because
of consistent disruptions to instruction due to off-task classroom behavior.
Whole-class teaching was often substituted for the requested guided small-
group or partner instruction, perhaps in part due to struggles with classroom
management. There was often little to no time at the close of a session for
whole-group review and reflection. In contrast, in classrooms with the high-
est average consistency with unit session plans, instruction was well paced
and offered students time with whole-group instruction, regular participa-
tion in collaborative work with partners and small groups, and time for col-
lective review and reflection as suggested in the session plans. Higher
consistency with unit session plans was associated with higher scores on
all measures (see Table 4), with the following p values and ESs—all above
the previously cited Institute of Education Sciences 0.25 threshold for sub-
stantive importance: social studies (ES = 0.270, p = .301), reading (ES =
0.583, p = .030), writing (ES = 0.239, p = .065), and motivation (ES =
0.287, p = .016).

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 PjBL Impact
Table 4
The Relationship Between Consistency With Unit Session Plans
and Students’ Achievement

Relationship of Consistency With Unit Session Plans

Effect Observations:
Coefficient SE p Size 24 Teachers, 20 Schools

Social studies 0.044 0.042 .301 0.270 290

Informational reading 0.099 0.045 .030* 0.583 291
Informational writing 0.039 0.021 .065y 0.239 333
Motivation 0.037 0.015 .016* 0.287 308
y
p \ .10. *p \ .05. (All tests are two-tailed.)

Discussion
Results of this study suggest that PjBL can be an effective way to bolster
student achievement in social studies and informational reading. PjBL as
tested in this study led to a 63% gain in social studies as compared to the
comparison group. Translated into months of a school year (63% multiplied
by a 9-month school year), that represents 5 to 6 months of greater learning.
PjBL also led to a 23% gain in informational reading, representing approxi-
mately 2 months of greater learning (this smaller impact for informational
reading was expected given that, as compared to social studies, informa-
tional reading and writing were addressed in fewer sessions and should
be addressed in other parts of the day as well). An important implication
of the study is that curriculum developers and practitioners should not shy
away from using a project-based approach, at least as enacted in this study.
There were benefits of using the approach even in teachers’ first year of
implementation and even as compared to comparison classrooms using
either state-developed or national curriculum materials.
The efficacy of PjBL in this study is consistent with theoretical perspec-
tives reviewed earlier in this article. Learning is driven by a desire for human
connection (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine,
2018), so we can catalyze learning through a curricular approach character-
ized by attention to social problems, needs, and opportunities; frequent col-
laboration with peers and others; and development of products with a public
audience. Children are active and purposeful sensemakers but not in a vac-
uum; their sensemaking is shaped by the social and cultural context and by
interactions with more knowledgeable others, particularly the teacher
(Fitzgerald & Palincsar, 2019; Vygotsky, 1978). As in the example of learning
about map keys, presented early in this article, the teacher provides teacher-
led activities, including explicit instruction, to support student learning. The
teacher also creates considerable space for student-led experiences and

29
Duke et al.
Table 5
Experimental Group Teachers’ Consistency With Unit Session Plans, as Scored
by Observers, for the Three Parts of the Lesson

Whole-Group Guided Whole-Group

Instruction and Small-Group or Review and
Discussion, Individual Instruction, Reflection,
Teacher ID M (SD) M (SD) M (SD)

2 2.643 (0.497) 2.786 (0.426) 2.000 (0.877)

3 2.500 (0.707) 2.700 (0.675) 1.900 (0.876)
4 1.333 (0.500) 1.667 (0.866) 1.222 (0.667)
6 2.500 (0.798) 2.500 (0.798) 1.333 (0.779)
7 2.900 (0.316) 2.600 (0.699) 2.400 (0.699)
11 2.923 (0.277) 2.692 (0.630) 2.462 (0.877)
12 2.846 (0.376) 2.692 (0.630) 2.538 (0.776)
13 2.091 (0.700) 1.909 (0.302) 1.364 (0.505)
19 2.889 (0.333) 2.889 (0.333) 2.111 (1.054)
24 3.000 (0) 2.917 (0.289) 2.667 (0.492)
25 3.000 (0) 2.900 (0.316) 2.800 (0.422)
28 2.571 (0.513) 2.429 (0.646) 2.571 (0.756)
31 2.692 (0.630) 2.308 (0.855) 1.692 (0.751)
34 2.700 (0.675) 2.600 (0.699) 2.100 (0.738)
40 2.300 (0.483) 2.000 (0.471) 1.600 (0.516)
41 2.000 (0) 2.333 (0.816) 1.500 (0.837)
42 3.000 (0) 2.857 (0.378) 2.000 (0.816)
43 2.222 (0.441) 2.444 (0.527) 1.444 (0.726)
44 3.000 (0) 2.917 (0.289) 2.583 (0.669)
45 2.375 (0.806) 2.625 (0.619) 2.333 (0.816)
48 3.000 (0) 2.917 (0.289) 2.833 (0.389)
49 2.307 (0.751) 2.538 (0.519) 1.538 (0.660)
52 2.769 (0.439) 2.692 (0.480) 2.077 (0.862)
53 2.727 (0.647) 2.545 (0.688) 2.000 (0.894)
Total 2.595 (0.401) 2.561 (0.552) 2.045 (0.727)

Note. 1 = Follows fewer than 50% of the steps in the session plan for that section of the
session, 2 = follows 50% to 80% of the steps, 3 = follows 80% or more of the steps for
that section of the session. Mean Fleiss’s kappa for interrater reliability of .66, which indi-
cates substantial agreement.

collaboration and ensures that there is an authentic purpose and resulting

public product of students’ intellectual work. The teacher also facilitates stu-
dents’ whole-group reflection about both their progress toward the public
product and the ways in which the skills they are learning are relevant in
achieving their goal. In other words, young children learned in our approach
to PjBL through a combination of teacher-led and student-led activities all
driven by an authentic purpose.

30
 PjBL Impact
Much empirical research would also lead us to expect positive effects
of PjBL. As detailed earlier in the article, most studies of PjBL have shown
promising effects, including in both science and social studies (e.g., Marx
et al., 2004; Parker et al., 2011; Parker et al., 2013) and with young
children (e.g., Robinson et al., 2014). As explained earlier in the article, con-
ceptualization of the specific disciplines within social studies reveals their
affinity with PjBL. Even history, although not as obviously suited to PjBL,
provides opportunities to consider the historical roots of contemporary
life and engage in sustained inquiry with a range of social artifacts
(e.g., MacArthur et al., 2002). A subset of studies of the impact of PjBL has
involved students in low-SES school settings with a high proportion of stu-
dents from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups (e.g., Geier et al.,
2008). Nonetheless, our study makes an important contribution to the liter-
ature in several respects. First, our study examines the effects of PjBL at the
intersection of social studies and primary-grade education, which only two
prior studies have done. The first of those studies examined only learning
related to bakeries (Guven & Duman, 2007), and the second addressed
only two of the four core social studies disciplines for the elementary years
(Halvorsen et al., 2012). Neither study used a strong causal design, which
points to a second contribution of our study: the degree to which it enables
causal inference. Our study employed a cluster randomized controlled
design using a large sample of classrooms. There was no attrition at the clus-
ter level, and attrition at the student level was low. Our post hoc tests for
baseline equivalence of observed covariates using the analytic sample sug-
gested that random assignment was successful by and large and in agree-
ment with the intention of the research design. In addition, attrition was
not a threat to the internal validity of the results because its rate was low
and because the students, teachers, and schools that eventually participated
in the experiment in either the treatment group or the comparison group
were very similar to those who initially participated in the random assign-
ment process.
The ecological validity of our study enhances its methodological contri-
bution. As would be true in many school settings, participating teachers had
little to no experience with PjBL. Teachers received limited amount of
outside-of-classroom support, with a 3-hour initial PD workshop and mini-
mal subsequent webinar-based PD (~100 minutes total). This is ecologically
valid as group PD time is relatively limited in high-poverty districts, and
social studies is likely to be a low PD priority. Teachers were provided
with more in-classroom support, with an average of 11 visits from a coach.
This support is also ecologically valid in that high-poverty districts often
have a cadre of instructional coaches. However, in order to ensure that we
were testing implementation of PjBL and not a general effect of coaching
support, coaches played a limited role. They did not coach (e.g., model
instructional practices) during sessions and were instructed to restrict their

31
Duke et al.
postobservation conversations with teachers to implementation of what was
in the session-by-session unit plans, rather than larger issues of instruction or
classroom management. In other words, we aimed to maximize ecological
validity and minimize confounding factors. Still, it is important to recognize
that what we tested was PjBL with PD supports and not simply providing
PjBL unit or session plans alone.
A fourth contribution of our study is that it was carried out in high-
poverty, low-performing school districts with a sample that included many
students whose mother or guardian had no more than a high school educa-
tion and in which the majority of students were from underrepresented
racial-ethnic groups. Gaps—or chasms—in educational opportunities
(Milner, 2012) for students living in economic poverty and students from
underrepresented racial and ethnic groups extend to many practices consis-
tent with a PjBL approach. Studies discussed earlier in the article suggest that
students in low-SES settings have fewer opportunities to engage in inquiry, to
engage in student-led activities, to experience higher ordering questioning or
discussion, to read or write extended text, to make choices in their reading, to
exert a high degree of authorship in their writing, or to write for an audience
other than the teacher (e.g., Anyon, 1981; Billman, 2008; Taylor et al., 2000;
Turner, 2005). In fact, they are less likely to experience content area instruc-
tion or reading and writing therein (e.g., Center on Education Policy, 2006;
Duke, 2000a; Pace, 2012). We have demonstrated, in a causal design, that
when students in low-SES school settings do have the opportunity to engage
in such practices, significant learning in multiple domains occurs. The study
adds to the work drawing into serious question the No Child Left Behind Era
emphasis on basic reading and math skills at the expense of content building,
conceptual understanding, comprehension, and writing (Center on Education
Policy, 2006; Teale et al., 2007). Policymakers and practitioners have further rea-
son to address the discrepancies in educational practices in low- versus high-
SES settings documented in previous studies.
Our study also speaks to the complexity of the relationship between cur-
riculum materials and teacher practice (Remillard, 2005). As in some past
PjBL research, such as that of Geier et al. (2008) in science, we predeter-
mined the focus of each unit (in that study, e.g., one unit was, ‘‘What Is
the Quality of Air in My Community?) and provided considerable teacher
support via detailed curriculum materials. We also made use of materials
aimed directly at students, such as books for a school market, as in some
past PjBL research (Parker et al., 2018). Although curriculum materials pro-
vided considerable scaffolding, we were able to design them such that they
allowed practitioners to tailor aspects of projects to their local community
and to teacher and student interests. An implication of the study is that cur-
riculum designers and researchers could emulate this approach to curricu-
lum materials.2

32
 PjBL Impact
Although all teachers in the study were provided with the same curric-
ulum materials, we documented that the consistency of their practice with
those materials varied considerably. For example, the plans might call for
the teacher to provide information about or communication from the target
audience (though what that audience was would vary by classroom), but
some teachers might skip that part of the session. Or the plans might call
for the teacher to engage students in reviewing key points from an earlier
session, but the teacher chose not to do so. Curriculum research discussed
earlier would lead us to expect this, as many factors influence the enacted
curriculum (e.g., Davis et al., 2017).
In our research, the degree of consistency between teachers’ practice
and the curriculum materials turned out to be consequential for students’
learning and motivation, as has been found in many past studies (see Hill
& Erickson, 2019, for a review). Overall, our intervention did not have a sta-
tistically significant impact on students’ informational writing. However,
implementing more of the steps in the project-based unit session plans
was associated with higher year end informational writing achievement,
controlling for preassessments and other factors. Similarly, although we
did not find a statistically significant overall effect on the study’s motivation
survey—a result that may be seen as surprising in light of claims and
some prior evidence about the positive motivational benefits of PjBL—the
more consistent implementation was with unit session plans, the more pos-
itive the associated change in students’ motivation, at a level of statistical
significance. Further research should investigate factors that enable imple-
mentation of PjBL curriculum materials in a manner that best fosters informa-
tional writing and motivation development. Given the findings in this study
regarding consistency with unit session plans, future research might examine
factors that enable and constrain teachers to greater or lesser enactment of
key features of the design of project-based units or, more broadly, factors
that characterize the practice of teachers whose students experience higher
and lower growth within a project-based approach. Qualitative data col-
lected as part of the project reported in this article are analyzed in relation
to these issues in Toledo et al. (2018) and Revelle (2019).
A related implication of this research is that policymakers and adminis-
trators should consider how to provide appropriate PD support around PjBL.
This test of PjBL occurred with limited workshop-based PD: just 3 hours of
initial PD and ~100 minutes of subsequent webinar-based PD. However, it
did involve an average of 11 visits from instructional coaches (although, as
explained earlier, their coaching was considerably constrained compared
to typical coaching support). We do not know whether PjBL would have
been successful without these supports or whether it would have been
more successful with additional supports; future research could examine
these questions, as well as the impact of our approach to PjBL at other grade
levels.

33
Duke et al.
Limitations
Although internal validity of the study is strong in many respects (see
previous section), a potential threat to the internal validity in the study
was the fact that the comparison teachers taught, on average, 14.5 fewer
social studies lessons/sessions than experimental group teachers despite
requests from the researchers and promises by the teachers to teach the
same number requested of the experimental group teachers. Although this
difference is statistically significant, it does not appear that it could explain
the results of the study. The relationship between the number of lessons/ses-
sions taught and social studies growth was 0.011 and the relationship for
reading was 0.008. In contrast, the ESs for achievement in each of these areas
were 0.482 and 0.182, respectively. Within the range of number of social
studies lessons/sessions taught in this study, it does not appear that the num-
ber of sessions is an influential variable.
The measures employed in the study might also be seen as a limitation in
that they were researcher-developed. As noted, using researcher-developed
measures for social studies and informational reading and writing was nec-
essary at the time the study was conducted because no standardized tests
were available that were aligned with standards we were using. For motiva-
tion, there were also no extant measures that addressed social studies, infor-
mational reading and writing, or integrated instruction. To help mitigate the
use of researcher-developed measures, we employed a number of mecha-
nisms to establish validity and reliability, described in the Measures section
earlier in the article.
A potential limitation related to the external validity of our results
regards the sample involved in the study. The 11 school districts and 20 ele-
mentary schools in our sample were selected using convenience sampling,
which does not define a target population. That is, our data do not represent
the entire population of schools, teachers, or students in our geographic area
and thus our results may not indicate an accurate depiction of the total pop-
ulation of teachers and students in second grade. We did not sample ran-
domly from among all districts and schools in the geographic area or even
among the subset of districts and schools meeting our selection criteria
(high levels of poverty and a history of low achievement on state assess-
ments). For example, we did not consider small, rural school districts that
may have had only one qualifying school. Schools, teachers, and students
who participated in our experiment may be different from other schools
in the same area. As a result, there is reason to be cautious about generaliz-
ing our results beyond the schools, teachers, and students who were part of
our experiment.
Another limitation of the study is that we tested one specific version of
PjBL, described in detail earlier in the article. This instantiation may differ in
important ways from others’ visions of PjBL. For example, our projects

34
 PjBL Impact
involved addressing specific standards, including explicit instruction, and
making use of domain-specific, research-supported instructional practices
(Graham et al., 2012), all characteristics that are typically not emphasized in
the PjBL literature. We also provided PD support directly related to the units
and provided detailed unit and session plans, which is not the case in all enact-
ments of PjBL. However, nearly all comparison group teachers also had the sup-
port of instructional materials—either a (non–project-based) curriculum
developed by two state education organizations or a national social studies text-
book series—and had experience in using them in previous years (which the
experimental group teachers did not). Still, it is possible to conclude from
this study not that PjBL is always an effective instructional approach but rather
than it can be effective and was, with regard to social studies learning and infor-
mational reading, effective in the manner in which we operationalized it.
Furthermore, we cannot be sure which aspects—or all aspects—of our version
of PjBL were responsible for the positive effects found.
Finally, results of this study might have been different had we examined
PjBL under less demanding conditions. We conducted the study in districts
and schools facing many challenges, and we collected data in teachers’ first
year of implementation (as compared to comparison classrooms in which
teachers had prior experience with the instructional materials and approach
that they were using). Teachers’ first year teaching any approach is likely to
be less effective than subsequent years, and certainly in the case of an
instructional approach as complex as PjBL. Indeed, Marx et al. (2004) found
that the effects of a project-based approach to science education that was
implemented over a 3-year period increased over time. Had we carried
out random assignment when we did but waited a year, or two or three,
to actually collect pre- and posttest data from students, we might have
obtained larger effects.

Conclusion
Our project-based units centered curriculum on authentic social prob-
lems, needs, or opportunities; valued collaboration and reflection; and
engaged students in challenging intellectual work toward a public product.
Students of low SES less often experience curricular opportunities such as
these. Yet when provided with such opportunities, as in this study, results
are positive, even in the first year of teacher implementation and a rigorous
randomized evaluation. Implementation more consistent with the project-
based units as designed showed particular promise. There is sufficient evi-
dence to continue implementation and investigation of PjBL in the primary
grades in low-SES settings as a means to address the often-neglected
domains of social studies and informational reading and writing and foster
learning by tapping into students’ drive to connect with and make sense
of their social world.

35
Duke et al.
Notes
This work was supported by grants from the Spencer Foundation and the George
Lucas Educational Foundation. The authors thank the following research assistants for
their work on this project: Jason Burns, Scott Farver, Ryan Hughes, Cathy Johnson,
Duncan McDonald, Julie Malloure, Hugh Potter, David Reid, Annie Reinish, Katie
Revelle, Amanda Slaten Frasier, Will Toledo, and Crystal Wise.
1
Our focus is PjBL rather than problem-based learning. For discussion of the differ-
ences between these approaches, see Brassler and Dettmers (2017) and Savery (2019).
2
Full unit and session plans for all four units are available at no cost at https://
www.nellkduke.org/project-place-units.

Supplemental Material
Supplemental material for this article is available in the online version of the
journal.

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Manuscript received October 25, 2017

Final revision received April 22, 2020
Accepted April 23, 2020

41