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The Harvard Family Research Project separated from the Harvard Graduate School of Education to become the Global Family Research Project as of January 1, 2017. It is no longer affiliated with Harvard University.

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Program Description

Overview Project Learn/Educational Enhancement Program is a community-based program implemented in local Boys & Girls Clubs (BGC) across the country designed to improve academic achievement of at-risk students.
Start Date April 1996
Scope national
Type after school, summer/vacation
Location urban
Setting community-based organization (Boys & Girls Clubs)
Participants elementary through high school students
Number of Sites/Grantees Two hundred and eighty Boys & Girls Clubs have initiated a targeted implementation of Project Learn. Every Boys & Girls Club, 2,800 in total, is implementing various components of this comprehensive strategy.
Number Served Boys & Girls Clubs of America serves 3.3 million youth annually. The number of youth served by Project Learn specifically is not tracked.
Components Project Learn is based on the research of Dr. Reginald Clark whose work demonstrated that high-achieving students participated in more activities that reinforced the skills and knowledge they learned in school. The program consists of five components: (1) homework help and tutoring, (2) high-yield learning activities to help youth apply what they learn in the classroom, (3) incentives that reward participants for positive academic participation and to encourage parental involvement, (4) parental involvement, and (5) collaboration with schools to help develop individualized plans for participations to build their competency in challenging subjects.

The essential components of Project Learn are the high-yield learning activities. Clark's high-yield learning activities include:
  • Four to five hours weekly of discussions with knowledgeable adults (teen rap sessions, talking with parents, etc.)
  • Four to five hours weekly of leisure reading (short stories, sports page of newspaper, adolescent/teen magazines)
  • One to two hours weekly of writing activities (writing telephone messages, writing poetry, journal writing)
  • Five to six hours weekly of homework help and study (homework completion, studying, tutoring, etc.)
  • Two to three hours weekly of helping others (chores, community service projects)
  • Four to five hours weekly of games using cognitive skills (Monopoly, Scrabble, Sim City, Oregon Trail)
The program began in 1996 in five Boys & Girls Clubs located near public housing: New York, New York; Cleveland, Ohio; Oakland, California; Tampa, Florida; and Edinburgh, Texas. The program has since expanded to 280 sites funded in part with pass-through money from Boys & Girls Clubs of America.
Funding Level Not available
Funding Sources Project Learn is funded through generous contributions from corporate partners and foundations.


Evaluation

Overview The evaluators studied the impact of Project Learn on the academic achievement of participants.
Evaluator Steven Schinke, Kristin C. Cole, Stephen R. Poulin, Columbia University
Evaluations Profiled Enhancing the Educational Achievement of At-Risk Youth
Evaluations Planned An evaluation of the J. C. Penney afterschool targeted implementation of Project Learn is currently being conducted.
Report Availability Schinke, S. P., Cole, K. C., & Poulin, S. R. (2000). Enhancing the educational achievement of at-risk youth. Prevention Science, 1(1), 51–60.


Contacts

Evaluation Steven P. Schinke, Ph.D.
Columbia School of Social Work
622 West 113th Street
New York, NY 10025
Email: schinke@columbia.edu
Program Jenny Atkinson
Boys & Girls Clubs of America
1230 Peachtree Street, NW
Atlanta, GA 30309
Tel: 404-487-5765
Fax: 404-487-5789
Email: jatkinson@bgca.org
Profile Updated December 6, 2001

Evaluation: Enhancing the Educational Achievement of At-Risk Youth


Evaluation Description

Evaluation Purpose To examine the effectiveness of Project Learn in enhancing academic achievement.
Evaluation Design Quasi-Experimental: Three subgroups (five sites a piece) of youth ages 10–15 participated in the evaluation:
  1. Youth attending the Project Learn program in the five program sites (program sites)
  2. Youth members of Boys & Girls Club in the same cities as the program sites whose Clubs did not offer the Project Learn program (BGC comparison sites)
  3. Youth from youth facilities in the same cities that were not Boys & Girls Club nor provided educational enhancements to their youth members (non-BGC comparison sites)
The program sites and both types of comparison sites served youth from public housing developments and were otherwise geographically and demographically similar. The study sites were chosen to geographically reflect the United States and to reflect the national population of youth who live in publicly subsidized housing.
Data Collection Methods Interviews/Focus Groups: Teachers were interviewed about study youth's reading, verbal, writing, tutoring, geography, and game skills and youth's overall school performance, homework completion, interest in class material, helpfulness in class, and knowledge of current events.

Secondary Source/Data Review: Grade point averages, attendance rates, behavioral incidents, and grades in English grammar, composition, reading, spelling, history, science, social studies, and geography were collected.

Surveys/Questionnaires: Surveys were administered to all youth participating in the evaluation to gather information about the extent to which youth engaged in and enjoyed reading, conversation, writing, tutoring, studying, geography, playing educational board games, and such life-enhancement activities such as trips to museums and cultural events, hobbies, and volunteering.
Data Collection Timeframe Data were collected at four points in time: preprogram and 6 months, 18 months, and 30 months after the program began.


Findings:
Formative/Process Findings

Recruitment/Participation The 283 study participants had the following characteristics: 40% were female, average age of 12.3, 63% were black, 19% were Latino, 13% were white, and 5% were Asian or other.


Summative/Outcome Findings

Academic The level of program involvement, as rated by teachers on a scale of 0 to 10, was found to be associated with a number of self-reported academic outcomes. Zero was assigned to youth who, although enrolled in the educational enhancement program, were not at all involved in the program and a 10 was assigned to youth who attended and actively took part in all educational enhancement program activities and whose parents were also engaged.

As program involvement increased, engagement in reading, use of verbal skills, writing, tutoring, and the study of geography all significantly (p<.05) increased as well.

There was also a direct and statistically significant (p<.05) relationship between program involvement and enjoyment of reading, use of verbal skills, writing, and geography.

At final follow-up (30 months after the program begun), program youth more than BGC comparison youth and comparison youth more than non-BGC youth reported greater engagement in reading, enjoyment of reading, engagement in verbal activities, enjoyment of verbal activities, engagement in writing, enjoyment of writing, engagement in tutoring, enjoyment of tutoring, and enjoyment of geography.

Also at 30-month data collection, relative to the non-BGC comparison group youth, program and BGC comparison youth reported greater study of geography, more engagement in board games, enjoyment of board games, engagement in life-enhancement activities, and enjoyment of life-enhancement activities.

Data from teacher reports at final follow-up reveal that program and BGC comparison youth more than non-BGC comparison youth had more positive reading skills, writing skills, games skills, overall school performance, and interest in class material.

School grades at 30-month follow-up favored program youth over BGC comparison youth and non-BGC comparison youth on overall averages, reading scores, spelling scores, history scores, science scores, social studies scores, and attendance. At the 30-month follow-up, program and BGC comparison youth had better grades in math than non-BGC comparison youth.

Average grade increases over the 30-month study period were greatest for program youth. Program youth increased their average grades by 11% from baseline to the 30-month measurement while BGC comparison youth and non-BGC comparison youth, over the same period, increased their average grades by .4% and .3%, respectively.

Program youth missed an average of only 2.19 days of school a year at the 30-month measurement as compared to missing an average of 6.4 days a year at baseline. In contrast, BGC comparison youth went from missing an average of 4.85 days of school in the baseline year to missing an average of 12.33 days a year at the 30-month follow-up.

Similarly, non-BGC youth went from 7.47 days at baseline to 16.67 at follow-up. The differences between the school attendance of program youth and youth in both comparison groups at 30 months were statistically significant at p<.05, while they had not been significantly different at baseline.

Although youth at the 30-month measurement in the program group had fewer behavioral incidents at school than youth in the BGC comparison group, who, in turn, had fewer behavioral incidents at school than youth in the non-BGC comparison group, these differences were not statistically significant.

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