The Birbeck, University of London and IOE (UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society) Stop and Think programme is a whole-class computer programme delivered by teachers over a 10-week period, aiming to improve maths and science attainment for Year 3 and Year 5 pupils.
Using a computer and projector or interactive whiteboard, teachers guide pupils through 12-minute sessions of games featuring multiple-choice questions designed to challenge common misconceptions. The programme aims to improve pupils’ ability to adapt to counterintuitive concepts by training them to inhibit their initial, intuitive response and give a slower, more reflective answer instead – in other words, to ‘stop and think’ about maths and science problems before answering.
The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) funded the Stop and Think project to explore innovative ways of improving pupils’ understanding of counterintuitive concepts in maths and science. An earlier efficacy trial showed promising results, with pupils making additional progress in maths and science, on average, compared to the control groupIn a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT), this group continues usual practices to provide a comparison for measuring the intervention’s impact. . This larger effectiveness trial presented an opportunity for the EEF to further understand impact on FSM pupils in maths as a primary target population and to test the intervention’s impact at scale.
The effectiveness trial largely replicated the findings of the efficacy trial. For pupils eligible for FSM in Stop and Think schools made no additional months’ progress in maths attainment compared to similar pupils in control schools. All pupils receiving Stop and Think made no additional months’ progress in maths attainment, compared to pupils receiving teaching as usual. For science, a secondary outcome, all pupils made two additional months’ progress on average. FSM-eligible pupils made one additional month’s progress compared to FSM-eligible pupils receiving teaching as usual, however, this latter result has high statistical uncertainty.
These findings have a moderate to high security rating of 3 out of 5 padlocks, based on the well-designed two-arm cluster randomised controlled trialEvaluates an educational programme by randomly assigning settings to an intervention or control group, ensuring reliable impact measurement. involving a large number of schools. 22.48% of the pupils who started the trial were not included in the final analysis due to school dropout, pupil absence on testing days, and non-consent to process pupil data, resulting in the loss of 2 padlocks.
The results suggest that while Stop and Think has some positive effects on science attainment, its impact on maths attainment is less clear, particularly for FSM-eligible pupils. The programme largely took place as intended, with most participating teachers delivering the 30 intervention sessions. However, due to scheduling and staffing issues, some teachers could not always follow the delivery model. The implementation evaluation also revealed that some teachers and pupils found the maths content easier compared to the science content. This may have limited pupils’ opportunities to effectively practice the ’stop and think’ technique in maths, potentially explaining the differential impact between the two subjects. Some teachers did however report that Stop and Think particularly benefitted pupils with SEND and EAL.
The EEF is discussing next steps for Stop and Think and has included it on our Promising Programmes page due to its positive findings in science attainment.