MONTESSORI EDUCATION PROVIDES BETTER OUTCOMES THAN TRADITIONAL METHODS, STUDY INDICATES
Angeline Lillard
September 29, 2006
Sept. 29, 2006 --
A study comparing outcomes of children at a public inner-city Montessori school
with children who attended traditional schools indicates that Montessori
education leads to children with better social and academic skills.
The study appeared
in the Sept. 29, 2006 issue of the journal Science.
Montessori education
is characterized by multi-age classrooms, a special set of educational
materials, student-chosen work in long time blocks, a collaborative environment
with student mentors, absence of grades and tests, and individual and small
group instruction in academic and social skills. More than 5,000 schools in the
United States ,
including 300 public schools, use the Montessori method.
The Montessori
school studied is located in Milwaukee
and serves urban minority children. Students at the school were selected for
enrollment through a random lottery process. Those students who “won” the
lottery and enrolled at the Montessori school made up the study group. A
control group was made up of children who had “lost” the lottery and were
therefore enrolled in other schools using traditional methods. In both cases
the parents had entered their children in the school lottery with the hope of
gaining enrollment in the Montessori school.
“This strategy
addressed the concern that parents who seek to enroll their children in a Montessori
school are different from parents who do not,” wrote study authors Angeline
Lillard, a University of Virginia professor of psychology, and Nicole
Else-Quest, a former graduate student in psychology at the University of Wisconsin .
This was an important factor because parents generally are the dominant
influence on child outcomes.
Children were
evaluated at the end of the two most widely implemented levels of Montessori
education: primary (3- to 6-year-olds) and elementary (6- to 12-year-olds). They
came from families of very similar income levels (averaging from $20,000 to
$50,000 per year for both groups).
The children who
attended the Montessori school, and the children who did not, were tested for
their cognitive and academic skills, and for their social and behavioral
skills.
“We found
significant advantages for the Montessori students in these tests for both age
groups,” Lillard said. “Particularly remarkable are the positive social effects
of Montessori education. Typically the home environment overwhelms all other
influences in that area.”
Among the
5-year-olds, Montessori students proved to be significantly better prepared for
elementary school in reading and math skills than the non-Montessori children.
They also tested better on “executive function,” the ability to adapt to
changing and more complex problems, an indicator of future school and life
success.
Montessori
children also displayed better abilities on the social and behavioral tests,
demonstrating a greater sense of justice and fairness. And on the playground
they were much more likely to engage in emotionally positive play with peers,
and less likely to engage in rough play.
Among the
12-year-olds from both groups, the Montessori children, in cognitive and
academic measures, produced essays that were rated as “significantly more
creative and as using significantly more sophisticated sentence structures.”
The Montessori and non-Montessori students scored similarly on spelling,
punctuation and grammar, and there was not much difference in academic skills
related to reading and math. This parity occurred despite the Montessori
children not being regularly tested and graded.
In social and
behavioral measures, 12-year-old Montessori students were more likely to choose
“positive assertive responses” for dealing with unpleasant social situations,
such as having someone cut into a line. They also indicated a “greater sense of
community” at their school and felt that students there respected, helped and
cared about each other.
The authors concluded
that, “…when strictly implemented, Montessori education fosters social and
academic skills that are equal or superior to those fostered by a pool of other
types of schools.”
Lillard plans to
continue the research by tracking the students from both groups over a longer
period of time to determine long-term effects of Montessori versus traditional
education. She also would like to replicate the study at other Montessori and
traditional schools using a prospective design, and to examine whether specific
Montessori practices are linked to specific outcomes.
Lillard is the
author of “Montessori: The Science Behind the Genius.” More information is
available at: http://www.montessori-science.org/.
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