Running head: MONTESSORI SCHOOL ACHIEVEMENT
Comparing Montessori School and Public School Achievement
Maddie Daly
Ball State University

COMPARING MONTESSORI AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Abstract
The Montessori teaching method has had a respected presence throughout the United
States for the past 100 years. Researchers have questioned if children who attend Montessori schools will have a better performance on tests of cognitive abilities and achievement compared to their traditional public school peers. This proposed study will look at the ISTEP scores of 3rd grade students in a Montessori classroom compared to the ISTEP scores of a traditional public school classroom in Central Indiana. The researcher believes the results will show that children who attend Montessori schools will have higher ISTEP scores across all domains compared to the scores of traditional public school children.
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COMPARING MONTESSORI AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS 3
Comparing Montessori School and Public School Achievement
Introduction
The Montessori method of schooling has long since been a recognized, successful alternative to traditional public schooling methods over the past 100 years and is used in thousands of schools across the world and United States (American Montessori Society, 2015).
Montessori schooling incorporates student chosen work, specialized materials, group and individual instruction, multiage and grade classrooms, and unlike traditional schooling, it does not focus on grades or tests (Lillard & Else-Quest, 2006). It focuses on curriculum grouped into topics such as Language, Mathematics, Culture, Geography, Art, Music, Sensory Tasks, and
Practical Life (Lillard, 2012). The Montessori method is used in both private and public schools across the United States (American Montessori Society, 2015). While the Montessori method is often praised for it’s departure from traditional public schooling, researchers have questioned if children who attend Montessori schools, in fact, surpass their peers in traditional public schools in various domains. Some studies have been conducted in various settings to determine if children in Montessori settings perform better on tests of cognitive abilities and achievement, but the findings are mixed as to what areas children who attend Montessori schools excel in when they are compared to their peers in public schools. It is important to determine if Montessori schooling leads to higher scores on tests of cognitive abilities and achievement tests, and if so in what areas. This is important to the field of education as a whole, families, and children alike, because educators strive to teach children in the best method possible, which may or may not be the Montessori method.

COMPARING MONTESSORI AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS 4
Literature Review
Studies have been done to examine the effectiveness of the Montessori method on various domains, such as general verbal intelligence, perceptual, motor, and performance IQ development, academic achievement and school readiness, attention and concentration, Piagetian conceptual development, and creativity, with these studies showing mixed effects on if the
Montessori methods superior to other teaching styles (Chattin-McNichols, 1981). The methodology and findings of various studies on Montessori programs ranging from preschool aged children to high school aged children will be discussed.
In one study on preschool children, by Lillard (2012), the researcher examined children in high fidelity Montessori classrooms, children in lower fidelity Montessori classrooms that supplemented instruction with other conventional classroom activities, and children in conventional classrooms. The study measured executive function using The Head-Toes-Knees-
Shoulders task, theory of mind using the Theory of Mind Scale, social problem solving using the
Social Problem Solving Task, and reading, vocabulary, and math using the Woodcock-Johnson
Tests of Achievement III. Each child was testing at the beginning and end of each school year.
The results showed that children who attended the high fidelity Montessori classroom preschool had better performances on the measures of executive function, reading, math, vocabulary, and social problem solving skills at the end of the preschool year, suggesting that the high fidelity
Montessori preschool program is associated with better outcomes for preschoolers at the end of the school year (Lillard, 2012).
Miller and Dyer (1975) conducted a study in which they randomly assigned preschoolers to one of four preschool programs, which they would later follow up on at an older age, to determine which of the programs were most effective. The children were randomly assigned to

COMPARING MONTESSORI AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS 5 one of the following preschool programs: the Bereiter-Engelsann program, a Montessori program, a control program, or the DARCEE program. The children were tested using the
Stanford-Binet at the pre kindergarten level, kindergarten, first grade, and second grade. The results showed that at the end of the second grade, the children who had been randomly assigned to the Montessori preschool program had the highest mean IQ score on the Stanford-Binet compared to the other programs. This study is unique to all the others discussed in that it involves random assignment to various preschool programs, and that in this study when random assignment was used, the children in the Montessori preschool program had the highest mean IQ score when measured at the second grade level (Miller & Dyer, 1975).
Likewise, for elementary school aged students in Taiwan, Peng and Md-Yunus (2014) looked at students in first, second, and third grade who had received Montessori education and those who did not. For each of these three grades, the researchers analyzed children’s scores on the Elementary School Language Ability Achievement Test (ESLAAT), the Elementary School
Math Ability Achievement Test (ESMAAT), and the Social Studies Ability Achievement Test
(SSAAT). In all three grade levels, children who attended a Montessori school had higher scores in language arts. First grade students who attended Montessori school had higher scores on math, but this did not apply to second and third grade students. There was no significant difference in scores on the social studies achievement measure between children who had received a
Montessori education and those children who did not (Peng & Md-Ynus, 2014). These results show that a Montessori education may have an impact in some scholastic areas more so than others, and that a Montessori education may have more of an impact on different ages of children.

COMPARING MONTESSORI AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Another study assessed reading achievement specifically in children instructed using the
Montessori literacy method and curriculum compared to children from a charter school instructed using the basal reading method (Bowman, 2013). The researcher compared matched pairs from the Montessori classroom and the charter classroom on reading achievement scores from the Maryland School Assessment (MSA) in grades three through seven. The children’s scores on the Maryland School Assessment (Reading section only) showed no significant difference between children instructed using the Montessori literacy method compared to those instructed using the basal reading method in a nearby charter school. These results suggest that the Montessori literacy method may not lead to better performance on reading achievement in third grade children through seventh grade children (Bowman, 2013).
The next study compared a group of 5 year olds from a Montessori classroom and a group of 5 years olds from a control classroom that did not utilize the Montessori method
(Lillard & Else-Quest, 2006). Additionally, the researchers looked at a group of 12 year olds from a Montessori classroom and a group of 12 year olds from a control classroom that did not utilize the Montessori method. The 5 year olds were given several tests off of the Woodcock-
Johnson Tests of Achievement to measure cognitive/academic abilities, a social problems measure, and the False Belief Task. The 12 year olds were given several tests off of the
Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement, a creative writing task, a social skills test, and a questionnaire related to their feelings about the school. For the group of 5 year old children, the results showed that children who attended the Montessori classroom performed significantly better than children who did not attend a Montessori classroom on subtests measuring letterword identification, phonological processing, and math skills. No significant difference was found on subtests measuring basic vocabulary, spatial reasoning, and concept formation. Five
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COMPARING MONTESSORI AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS 7 year olds from the Montessori classroom were more likely to use justice and fairness on a social skills measure, and were significantly more likely to pass the False Belief test than their non-
Montessori classroom peers. For the group of twelve-year-old children, there was no significant difference in performance on the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement tests between the children from the Montessori classroom and the children from the control classroom. The only significant academic difference found was that the essays written by the children from the
Montessori classroom in the creative writing task were scored as more creative and had more sophisticated sentence structure than the essays of the control 12 year old children. On the social/behavioral measures, children who attended a Montessori classroom were significantly more likely to choose the positive assertive response on a social skills test, and indicated having a greater sense of community in their classroom than their control classroom peers (Lillard &
Else-Quest, 2006). The results from this study show that the Montessori method may be more effective for younger children academically, but that the social and behavioral concepts that are learned continues through to older ages.
Miller and Bizzell (1984) followed up on a previous study to determine the long term effects of the study conducted, in which the researchers randomly assigned preschoolers to one of four preschool programs, and when measured at second grade, the children in the Montessori program had the highest mean IQ score on the Stanford-Binet. In this study, the researchers collected follow up achievement and IQ test data on the children at ninth and tenth grade. The results were similar to the previous study, and showed that males from the Montessori classroom and DARCEE females had the highest scores on achievement, IQ, fluid intelligence, task persistence, self esteem, divergent thinking, aspirations and expectations, and task approach

COMPARING MONTESSORI AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS 8
(Miller & Bissell, 1984). These results show that the effects of a Montessori education found in a preschool program have long-term impacts into ninth and tenth grade.
Lastly, Dohrman and colleagues (2007) assessed two groups of students who graduated from high school in the Milwaukee Public School System. One group attended the Montessori program for preschool through fifth grade, and the other group consisted of matched controls for each Montessori child. The researchers compared scores on the ACT, the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examination (WKCE), and grade point averages for the two groups. The results showed that children who had a Montessori education scored higher on the math and science portions of the tests, but there were no significant differences between the groups on English and social studies portions or grade point average (Dohrmann, Nishida, Gartner, Lipsky & Grimm,
2007).
To date, it is not apparent that a study has been conducted in the Central Indiana region comparing achievement of children who attend Montessori schools to peers attending traditional public schools. For this reason, it is proposed to conduct a study that compares ISTEP scores of a group of 3rd graders in Montessori school to a group of 3rd graders in a traditional public school setting. The researcher hypothesizes that the children who attend Montessori school will have higher ISTEP scores across all domains compared to the children who attend traditional public school.
Studies have been previously conducted using the Indiana Statewide Testing for
Educational Progress Plus (ISTEP+) to measure achievement. One study looked at the effects of half-day kindergarten programs compared to full day kindergarten programs on achievement on students from low-income homes. The study found that there were no statistically significant differences in ISTEP achievement scores for children who attended half-day kindergarten vs. full

COMPARING MONTESSORI AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS 9 day kindergarten (Saam & Nowak, 2005). Another study used the ISTEP when looking at student’s motivation level for reading and their performance on standardized testing in reading.
The students were given a measure to assess their motivation for reading after completing the
ISTEP. The researchers found that children who had higher self-efficacy in their reading, read for fun, and read more difficult material had higher scores on the ISTEP (Mucherah & Yoder,
2008). These studies have shown that the ISTEP can be successfully used as an achievement measure in research studies, as it will be used in this study to compare achievement levels of children who attend Montessori school and public school.
Methods
Participants
The participants in this study are expected to be a sample of third grade students from two schools in Fishers, Indiana. Half of the participants will be from a public school in Fishers,
Indiana, and the other half of participants will come from a Montessori school in Fishers,
Indiana. It is expected that about 30 children from each school will participate. Ideally, the sample would be about 50% male and 50% female. According to census data from 2010, the
Fishers population was 85.6% White, 3.4% Hispanic, 5.6% African American, 5.5% Asian, 0.2%
American Indian, and 2.1% Two or More Races (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). It is expected that the ethnic break down of the selected sample of participants will be similar to these findings from 2010.
Instruments
Achievement for children in the public school in Fishers and the Montessori school in
Fishers will be measured using scores from the Indiana Statewide Testing for Educational
Progress Plus (ISTEP+) test taken in third grade across the state. This test measures achievement

COMPARING MONTESSORI AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS 10 levels for all children at each grade level, starting in third grade. The ISTEP+ is a reliable and valid measure, with reliability ranging from .87 to .93 across different grades and subjects. For achievement tests, reliability above .8 is desired. Validity for the ISTEP+ has ranged from .96 to
.98, with validity scores over .90 considered to be desirable based on the Kaiser-Meyer Olkin
(ISTEP+ Reliability and Validity Report, 2009).
Design
The research design for this proposed study is an independent sample T-test. This project is a quasi-experimental design, as the children will not be assigned to a school to attend at random. The dependent variable in this study is the child’s performance on the ISTEP, and the independent variable is what school the child attended (Public vs. Montessori). This study includes two groups, the dependent variable is continuous, the independent variable is nominal, and the groups are independent of one another, therefore the best type of statistical analysis is an independent sample T-test.
Procedure
To begin this study, the researcher will mail a letter to the principal and administration of a local elementary school in Fishers, IN and a Montessori school in Fishers, IN. This letter will explain the study and ask the principals of the respective schools if they would be willing to gather children from their school to participate in the study. Participants, in this case the child’s parent, will have to sign an informed consent form releasing their child’s data and information from the ISTEP test to the researchers. Other than signing an informed consent form to release information, the participants will not have to do anything else to participate in the study. The
ISTEP will be administered at each respective school to the participants. The ISTEP is required

COMPARING MONTESSORI AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS 11 at schools across Indiana starting in third grade, so the participants in the study will have to take the ISTEP anyway, regardless of participation in the study.
Once enough participants have been gathered and the ISTEP data has been released to the researchers, the analysis will begin. The researcher will analyze the data using an independent sample T-test in order to determine if children who attend Montessori schools have higher achievement scores on the ISTEP compared to children who attend public school.
Results
If the results follow what the researcher expects to find, the ISTEP scores of the children who attend the Montessori school will be significantly higher than the scores of the students who attend the public school in the study. If this is not the case, the results may show that the ISTEP scores of the children who attend the public school are significantly higher than the scores of the students who attend the Montessori school. Additionally, there could be no statistically significant difference between the scores of participants from the two schools.

COMPARING MONTESSORI AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS 12
References
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