Category: Educational Administration and Leadership

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Educational Administration and Leadership K-12 Education

Assessing equity in education policies

WestEd has released a brief titled Reviewing Education Policies to Advance Equity, outlining five key domains for policymakers to consider when addressing equity in education policy. One of these domains, “Evidence Base and Data Practices,” emphasizes the importance of using evidence to guide decision-making. This domain encourages a critical examination of a policy’s research foundation, as well as its data collection and usage, ensuring inclusivity. For example, are policies about data collection explicit and does the planning involve the population they affect? Are the data dissemination practices clear regarding how data is to be presented by social identity and disseminated to the population it affects?

Other domains include focus on educational equity and access; rejection of bias-based beliefs; student, family, and community involvement; and support for culturally responsive–sustaining education. These five domains comprise WestEd’s Systemic Equity Review Protocol, which they hope can support policymakers concerned with the equity of their education policies.

 

Source (Open Access): Lopez, D., Mallett Moore, E., & Nabors, A. (2024). Reviewing education policies to advance equity. WestEd. Retrieved: Reviewing-Education-Policies-to-Advance-Equity_FINAL_ADA… Read the rest

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Achievement Educational Administration and Leadership K-12 Education Social and Motivational Outcomes

Effectiveness of flipped classrooms on student outcomes

Flipped classroom refers to an instructional approach where students first learn new material through videos outside of class, and then use class time for reviewing the content, hands-on activities, and deeper learning.

A meta-analysis conducted by Li and colleagues examined the effects of flipped classrooms on K–12 student outcomes. The authors included randomized and quasi-experimental studies with more than ten students in which flipped classrooms were compared to regular teacher practice. After excluding the studies that did not meet the criteria, 129 studies were included in the review.

The average effect sizes after excluding outliers were +0.53 for student performance, +0.56 for cognitive outcomes, and +0.46 for affective outcomes. Due to the high variability in effects between studies, the authors examined which characteristics are factors (e.g., duration, teacher training) that moderate the effects of flipped classrooms. Region was found to be a significant moderator, with a larger effect in low- and middle-income countries compared to high-income countries. Considering methodological characteristics, the authors found that it is more effective when the same instructor teaches consistently than when instructors change during an intervention. In addition, outcomes that include a wide range of tests show smaller effect sizes than those that use more specific measures, such as a unit test.

Overall, the characteristics related to educational context and research methodology explained a substantial portion of the variability in the overall effects.

 

Source: Li, S., Fu, W., Liu, X., & Hwang, G.-J. (2024). Effectiveness of flipped classrooms for k–12 students: Evidence from a three-level meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 00346543241261732. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543241261732… Read the rest

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Educational Administration and Leadership Kindergarten

Time use in half-day vs. full-day pre-kindergarten

The Westminster Public School District (WPSD) in Colorado instituted a full-day pre-kindergarten program in 2016 while also continuing to run half-day pre-kindergarten, and conducted a randomized control trial to examine the impacts of full- vs. half-day pre-K on end-of-pre-K student outcomes. To supplement the study, Denker & Atteberry examined how teachers utilized the extra time in full-day pre-K in order to better inform other educational stakeholders who might be considering the full-day pre-K model.

Half-day pre-K ran 4 days/wk for 3 hrs/day and full-day ran 5 days/wk for 7 hrs/day, more than double the half-day option. Subjects were students whose families were interested in the full-day pre-K option, and they were randomly assigned to conditions with 16 students per class in 34 pre-K classrooms. Most students were from low-SES households, 77% were Hispanic, and many spoke English as a second language. Researchers looked at both subject taught and activity types (for example teacher-directed groupwork vs child choice activity) during 114 observations from 2017-2019, with some teachers being observed up to 14 times. WPSD used a play-based program that also included comprehensive, writing, and social-emotional learning curricula, although time allotments were not specified for the curricula used.

Results showed that the proportion of time spent in most activities was similar for half-day vs full-day classes. Both half- and full-day models spent 40% of their time devoted to non-instructional activities, but the time in minutes on each activity was accordingly longer in the full-day classes. The extra three hours in the full-day model were devoted to napping (1 hour) and then to 10-20 minutes more per activity than in the half-day model, yielding 180 more hours a year spent on instruction in full-day vs. half-day pre-K, most of which addressed ELA rather than math. In both options, teachers addressed more than one content area simultaneously instead of teaching subjects like math or ELA separately. These results offer important considerations for schools considering full-day pre-K.

 

Source: Denker, H., & Atteberry, A. (2024). Where has all the time gone? Describing time use in full- vs. half-day pre-Kindergarten. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 68, 235–246. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2024.05.007… Read the rest

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Educational Administration and Leadership K-12 Education

The impact of COVID on learning

As federal relief funds for education are about to expire just as schools are opening for the new school year, the effects of COVID-19 on education and student learning remain significant. NWEA MAP assessments have shown that students in the United States have still not returned to pre-COVID learning levels. A recent study by Storey & Zhang investigated the extent of learning losses caused by the pandemic and the impact of school closures and disruptions on various student groups.

Using meta-analytic research methods, the authors identified 30 studies from the U.S. and similar countries that used standardized assessments to measure student achievement before, during, and after the pandemic (with a 2022 cutoff). The analysis illustrated that students lost 0.21 (p= .006) standard deviations of learning during the pandemic school closures, with losses of 0.43 standard deviations in reading and 0.41 standard deviations in mathematics. 

These results highlight the significant and statistically meaningful impact of COVID-19 on education, providing a clearer understanding of the extent of the disruptions. The findings underscore the need for ongoing federal and state support to help educators and school systems address and recover from these losses.

 

Source: Storey, N., & Zhang, Q. (2024). A meta-analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on student achievement. Educational Research Review, 44, 100624. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2024.100624… Read the rest

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Achievement Educational Administration and Leadership K-12 Education

Can metacognition predict academic achievement? A meta-analysis of longitudinal studies

Metacognition refers to students’ self-regulation abilities in their learning process, involving planning, monitoring, and assessing one’s understanding and performance. For instance, the degree to which students monitor their progress during preparing for exams and recognize necessary adjustment for academic success. Previous studies indicated early metacognitive predicts subsequent academic achievement. Though meta-analyses examined the relationships between metacognition and academic outcomes, relying primarily on cross-sectional studies would risk bias from common method variance. To address this, He and colleagues conducted a three-level meta-analysis utilizing only longitudinal studies.

The meta-analysis included 28 studies, yielding 66 effect sizes, published between 1990 and 2023. These studies featured time-lag between measures of metacognition and academic outcomes ranging from 3 to 24 months, with an average of 10.3 months. Results revealed a small but significant positive correlation between initial metacognition and subsequent academic achievement (r = +0.22). Moderator analyses found on-line measures (r = +0.32), which utilized behavioral measure (e.g., on-going task performance), were stronger predictors than off-line measures (r=+0.17), which mainly used self-report questionnaire, after controlling other moderators. Effects also varied by metacognition components with largest effect for metacognitive skill (r = +0.34), followed by metacognitive awareness (r=+0.22), metacognitive strategy study (r = +0.21), and metacognitive knowledge (r = +0.17).

Additionally, examining the reversal link, results found a small positive correlation between initial academic achievement and subsequent metacognition (r=+0.12). Furthermore, autoregressive cross-lagged meta-analytic structural equation modelling revealed significant small bidirectional associations: students’ metacognition predicted their subsequent academic performance (beta = +0.038), and their academic outcomes also predicted future metacognition (beta = +0.079).

While longitudinal data shed light on dynamic relationships, the authors caution that causal inferences cannot be definitively drawn from fitting hypothesized model. Overall, the meta-analysis provides evidence that metacognition and achievement reciprocally and weakly predict each other over time.

 

Source: He, G., Chen, S., Lin, H., & Su, A. (2024). The association between initial metacognition and subsequent academic achievement: A meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Educational Psychology Review, 36(3), 81. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-024-09922-w… Read the rest

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Educational Administration and Leadership Secondary School Education

20 years of growing graduation rates in the United States

Graduation rates are arguably the most important educational outcome from a national standpoint. A report from GradNation Campaign —a partnership of CIVIC and the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University — chronicles the past 20 years of concerted efforts to raise the US graduation rate from 70% to 90%. Although efforts fell short of the goal by 115,000 students (with an 86.5% graduation rate in 2020), huge progress was made, with more progress on average for students from minoritized and high-risk groups. Additionally, 10 states reached the 90% benchmark. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic led to some downturns in graduation rates for the class of 2021.

GradNation also investigated the reasons behind these trends. They identified a small population of low-graduation-rate high schools that produced a third of non-graduates and therefore need more targeted assistance. Additionally, they identified that course failures are a major stumbling block and current course recovery efforts are not succeeding. They also analyzed multiple metrics of secondary schools to show that the increased graduation rates were not simply due to a lowering of standards. Finally, this report looks forward to the next steps for ensuring quality secondary education and outcomes in the United States. They particularly recommend a focus on the transition after high school graduation – both the need to gather and systematize data on these outcomes and to provide greater guidance and support to students.

 

Source (Open Access): Everyone Graduates Center. (n.d.). Building a Grad Nation: Progress and Challenge in Raising High School Graduation Rates. Retrieved 2 September 2024, from https://new.every1graduates.org/building-a-grad-nation-progress-and-challenge-in-raising-high-school-graduation-rates-3/… Read the rest