Category: Educational Administration and Leadership

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Educational Administration and Leadership Primary School Education Secondary School Education

Examining the effects of assessment

In the RAND Corporation report “New Assessments, Better Instruction?Designing Assessment Systems to Promote Instructional Improvement.”,researchers conducted a series of literature reviews that focused on topics such as high-stakes testing, performance assessment, and formative evaluation.

Their findings suggest that there are a wide variety of effects that testing might have on teachers’ activities in the classroom, including

  • changes in curriculum content and emphasis (e.g., changes in the sequence of topics, reallocation of emphasis across and within topics);
  • changes in how teachers allocate time and resources across different pedagogical activities (e.g.,focusing on test preparation); and
  • changes in how teachers interact with individual students (e.g., using test results to individualize instruction).

The report also identifies a number of factors (e.g., student characteristics and district and school policies) that mediate the relationship between assessment and instructional practices.

The authors suggest that the role of tests would be enhanced by policies that ensure tests mirror high-quality instruction, are part of a larger, systemic change effort,and are accompanied by specific supports for teachers.

Source (Open Access )：Faxon-Mills, S., Hamilton, L. S., Rudnick, M., & Stecher, B. M. (2013). New assessments, better instruction? Designing assessment systems to promote instructional improvement. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation.… Read the rest

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Educational Administration and Leadership Primary School Education Secondary School Education

Test results don’t show how effective teachers are

A study has looked at the link between instructional alignment (how teaching is aligned with standards and assessments), value-added measures of teacher effectiveness, and composite measures of teacher effectiveness using multiple measures.

The study looked at 324 teachers of fourth and eighth grade math and English language arts in five states. They completed a Survey of Enacted Curriculum to measure their instructional alignment. This was then compared with value-added measures(taken from state assessments and two supplementary assessments) and teacher effectiveness (using Framework for Teaching scores).

The results showed

  • There was modest evidence of a relationship between instructional alignment and value-added measures,although this disappeared when controlling for pedagogical quality.
  • The association between instructional alignment and value-added measures is more positive when pedagogy is high quality.
  • There was no association between instructional alignment and measures of teacher effectiveness.

These results suggest that the tests used for calculating value-added measures are not able to detect differences in the content or quality of classroom teaching.  

Source: Polikoff,M. S., & Porter, A. C. (2014). Instructional Alignment as a Measure of Teaching Quality. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 36(4),399–416. … Read the rest

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Achievement Educational Administration and Leadership Primary School Education Secondary School Education

One-to-one technology and student outcomes

An evaluation published in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis evaluates the impact of the Digital Conversion Initiative on student outcomes for one school district in North Carolina.

The initiative provided laptop computers to every student from the fourth grade upwards, while also providing teachers with training on how to best use the technology in their lesson plans.

Marie Hull and Katherine Duch used administrative school data from 2005 to 2013 to determine the program’s impact on math and reading achievement for students in grades 4 to 8, as well as the impact of the program on student behavior. They compared the district’s data from before and after implementation, as well as data from neighboring school districts without one-to-one programs to determine the short-and medium-term effects.

Their results suggest there is potential for one-to-one laptop programs to help improve student outcomes. They found that:

  • Math scores for students improved by 0.11 standard deviations in the short term and 0.13 standard deviations in the medium term.
  • No significant change in reading scores in the short term, and mixed evidence of improvement in the medium term.
  • Time spent on homework stayed constant.
  • Students spent more of their homework time using a computer.

The authors concluded that one-to-one computing was a promising way to improve student outcomes, while the desired changes might take a few years to appear. Their research highlighted the need to follow outcomes into the medium and long term.

 

Source: Hull, M., & Duch, K. (2018). One-to-one technology and student outcomes: Evidence from Mooresville’s Digital Conversion Initiative. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. Advanced online publication. doi:10.3102/0162373718799969… Read the rest

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Achievement Educational Administration and Leadership Secondary School Education

Test anxiety and performance in high-stake testing

A study published in Contemporary Educational Psychology suggested that the relationship between test anxiety and performance in high-stakes tests is positive, but the relationship varies for students with different achievement levels.

Yao-Ting Sung and colleagues at the National Taiwan University used data from 1,931 Taiwanese ninth grader from 37 schools. The Basic Competence Test (BCTEST) was used to benchmark their achievement. The BCTEST is a high-stakes test for Taiwan junior-high school students, determining to which high schools with different levels of prestige and tuition fees they will be admitted. Subjects in the test included Mandarin, English, Mathematics, Social studies, Science and Writing. Test anxiety was measured by the examination stress scale.

The findings include:

  • The overall relationship between text-anxiety and learning achievement in the high-stakes testing was positive (r =+0.18).
  • Lower levels of test-anxiety were found among the high-achievement and low-achievement students while higher levels of test-anxiety were found among the moderate-achievement students.
  • For the group of students with higher achievements, the relationship between text-anxiety and learning achievement in the high-stakes testing was found to be negative (r = -0.16), while for the group of students with lower achievement, a positive relationship was found (r= +0.22).

The authors suggested that the motivation to perform well may override the negative impacts of test anxiety in high-stakes tests. However, for moderate-achievement students, their high test-anxiety may be due to the uncertainty they face about which kinds of schools they will be admitted to and to their not knowing how to study more effectively. Schools could relieve their uncertainty-anxiety by helping them to choose suitable schools and to explore their career aptitude and interests.

Source: Sung, Y.-T., Chao, T.-Y., & Tseng, F.-L. (2016). Reexamining the relationship between test anxiety and learning achievement: An individual-differences perspective. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 46, 241–252. … Read the rest

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Achievement Educational Administration and Leadership Primary School Education Secondary School Education

Do children who are born prematurely struggle more at school?

A study published in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood looks at whether children who are born prematurely (at 23–36 weeks) are more likely to struggle in school compared to their full-term peers.

David Odd and colleagues used data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) (a longitudinal population-based cohort study that enrolled pregnant women in 1991 and 1992) to examine how the educational progress of children who are born prematurely varies from their peers throughout school, and to what extent they catch up over time.

The study found that:

  • On average, premature children had lower test scores at Key Stage 1 (5–7 years), and continued to perform below their peers throughout school
  • However, there was some evidence of catching up between Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 (age 7 to 11 years), particularly among children with the lowest scores.
  • Between Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 4 (14-16 years) premature children progressed at a similar rate as their peers.

There was little evidence that closing the gap between KS1 and KS2 was explained by special education support. The authors point out that educating premature children in their correct school year for their expected birth date may be a cost-effective way of supporting them, and also highlight the importance of early schooling and environment for these children.

 

Source: Odd, D., Evans, D., & Emond, A. M. (2018). Prediction of school outcome after preterm birth: a cohort study. Archives of Disease in Childhood, Advanced online publication. https://doi.org/10.1136/archdischild-2018-315441… Read the rest

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Educational Administration and Leadership Kindergarten Primary School Education Secondary School Education Social and Motivational Outcomes

Are the youngest in class more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD?

Findings from a study published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry suggest that children who are the youngest in their classroom are more likely to be diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) than their older classmates.

Martin Whitely and colleagues conducted a systematic review of 22 studies that examined the relationship between a child’s age relative to their classmates and their chances of being diagnosed with, or medicated for, ADHD. The findings showed that:

  • Seventeen studies (with a total of more than 14 million children) found that it was more common for the youngest children in a school year to be diagnosed as ADHD than their older classmates.
  • This effect was found for both countries that have a high diagnosis rate, like the USA, Canada and Iceland, and countries where diagnosis is less common, like Finland and Sweden.

The researchers suggest that some teachers may be mistaking normal age-related immaturity of the youngest children in their class for ADHD, and that these findings highlight the importance of being aware of the impact of relative age and give the youngest children in class the extra time they may need to mature.

 

Source: Whitely, M., Raven, M., Timimi, S., Jureidini, J., Phillimore, J., Leo, J., … & Landman, P. (2018). Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder late birthdate effect common in both high and low prescribing international jurisdictions: systematic review. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, Advance online publication. doi :10.1111/jcpp.12991… Read the rest