Montessori Research and Articles

RESEARCH STUDY: “Evaluating Montessori Education”

Researchers compared Montessori students with students in other school programs, and found that 5-year-old children who completed the three-year cycle in the Montessori preschool program scored higher on both academic and behavioral tests than the control group. The study also found that 12-year-old Montessori students wrote more sophisticated and creative stories and showed a more highly developed sense of community and social skills than students in other programs.

Cite: Lillard, A.S. & Else-Quest, N., “Evaluating Montessori Education,” Science 131: 1893-94 (Sept. 29, 2006).

RESEARCH STUDY: “A Comparison of Montessori and Traditional Middle Schools: Motivation, Quality of Experience, and Social Context”

This study compared middle school students in Montessori programs with students in traditional middle schools, and found significantly higher student motivation and socialization among the Montessori students. “There were strong differences suggesting that Montessori students were feeling more active, strong, excited, happy, relaxed, sociable, and proud while engaged in academic work. They were also enjoying themselves more, they were more interested in what they were doing, and they wanted to be doing academic work more than the traditional students.”

Cite: Rathunde, K., “A Comparison of Montessori and Traditional Middle Schools: Motivation, Quality of Experience, and Social Context,” The NAMTA Journal 28.3 (Summer 2003): pp. 12-52

BUSINESS INSIDER: 7 Tech Innovators Who Became Wildly Successful After Going To Montessori School

“Throughout history, tech innovators have had lots of common traits.
They’re bright, outside-the-box thinkers, creative, and open-minded about the future.
But here’s something you may not know about the tech founders listed below: they all went to Montessori school.” Click here to read this article.

FORBES: Let’s Learn from Montessori

“The idea that we don’t have to reinvent the wheel was striking. The example of thousands of Montessori schools is before us. Montessori puts the student at the center. It is proven to work. As noted by Sivadlk it’s working on every inhabited continent, at every economic level. The approach is over 100 years old but the ideas are timeless. The world is finally catching up with Maria Montessori’s insights.”  Click here to read this article.

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW: Montessori Builds Innovators

Andrew McAfee, principal research scientist at the Center for Digital Business in the MIT Sloan School of Management, says of his Montessori education:

“The main thing I learned there is that the world is a really interesting place, and one that should be explored. Can there be any better foundation for an innovator in training?” Click here to read this article.

THE WALL ST JOURNAL: THE Montessori Mafia

“Ironically, the Montessori educational approach might be the surest route to joining the creative elite, which are so overrepresented by the school’s alumni that one might suspect a Montessori Mafia: Google’s founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, videogame pioneer Will Wright, and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, not to mention Julia Child and rapper Sean “P.Diddy” Combs.” Click here to read this article.