scholarly journals Identifying Levers Related to Student Performance on High-Stakes Science Exams: Examining School, Teaching, Teacher, and Professional Development Characteristics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Fischer ◽  
Brandon Foster ◽  
Ayana McCoy ◽  
Frances Lawrenz ◽  
Christopher Dede ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Student Achievement ◽  
Student Performance ◽  
Science Teachers ◽  
Curriculum Reform ◽  
The United States ◽  
School Level ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Reform Implementation ◽  
School Teaching

Background: Many students enter into postsecondary education without the college readiness skills that allow them to face the demands of postsecondary education. Increasingly, policymakers and educational researchers are responding to calls for reforming secondary education to provide more opportunity for all students to receive high quality education and to become career and college ready. Purpose: This study attempts to identify levers to increase student performance in secondary education. In particular, it examines relationships of school, teaching, teacher, and teacher professional development characteristics with student scores on high-stakes Advanced Placement (AP) examinations in the sciences.Setting: This study is situated in the context of the large-scale, top-down, nationwide AP curriculum and examination reform in the sciences (Biology, Chemistry, Physics) in the United States. This is an unprecedented opportunity to analyze changing educational landscapes in the United States with large-scale national student-, teacher-, school-, and district-level data sets across multiple science disciplines and different stages of the curriculum reform implementation connected to a standardized and high-stakes student outcome measure.Population: This study analyzes nationwide data samples of the AP Biology, AP Chemistry, and AP Physics population during the first, second, and third year of the curriculum reform implementation. Across disciplines and years, the analytical samples include a total of 113,603 students and 6,046 teachers. Research design: This empirical quantitative study uses data from web-based surveys sent to all AP science teachers. Additionally, College Board provided student- and school-level data for all students taking AP examinations. Data preparation methods included exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Associations towards student achievement were analyzed through multi-level ordered logistic regression analysis separately by science discipline and year of the curriculum reform implementation. Afterwards, the results were aggregated through a meta-analysis. Findings: Student performance is not pre-determined by students’ background, leaving roughly 60% of the AP score variance potentially malleable for teacher and school-level factors. In particular, teachers’ perceived administrative support, self-efficacy, teaching experience, and elements of classroom instruction were related to student performance. Notably, teachers’ professional development participation has a small, mixed impact on student achievement. Conclusion: The identified levers for improving student achievement provide a strong rationale for the continued efforts of policy makers to improve school environments and to support science teachers to ultimately both increase student learning and help all students graduate prepared for college and ready for their future careers.

scholarly journals Identifying Levers Related to Student Performance on High-Stakes Science Exams: Examining School, Teaching, Teacher, and Professional Development Characteristics

2020 ◽  
Vol 122 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-64
Author(s):  
Christian Fischer ◽  
Brandon Foster ◽  
Ayana Mccoy ◽  
Frances Lawrenz ◽  
Chris Dede ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Student Achievement ◽  
Student Performance ◽  
Science Teachers ◽  
Curriculum Reform ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
The United States ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Reform Implementation ◽  
School Teaching

Background Many students enter into postsecondary education without the preparation to face the demands of postsecondary coursework in science. Increasingly, policymakers and educational researchers are responding to calls for reforming secondary education to provide more opportunity for all students to receive high-quality education and to become career and college ready. Purpose This study attempts to identify levers to increase student learning in secondary education. In particular, it examines relationships between school, teaching, teacher, and teacher professional development characteristics and student scores on high-stakes Advanced Placement (AP) examinations in the sciences. Setting This study is situated in the context of the large-scale, top-down, nationwide AP curriculum and examination reform in the sciences (biology, chemistry, physics) in the United States. This is an unprecedented opportunity to analyze changing educational landscapes in the United States with large-scale national student-, teacher-, school-, and district-level datasets across multiple science disciplines and different stages of the curriculum reform implementation connected to a standardized and high-stakes student outcome measure. Population This study analyzes nationwide data samples of the AP Biology, AP Chemistry, and AP Physics population during the first, second, and third year of the curriculum reform implementation. Across disciplines and years, the analytical samples include a total of 113,603 students and 6,046 teachers. Research Design This empirical quantitative study uses data from web-based surveys sent to all AP science teachers. Additionally, the College Board provided student- and school-level data for all students taking AP examinations. Data preparation methods included exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Associations with student achievement were analyzed through a multilevel ordered logistic regression analysis, separately by science discipline and year of the curriculum reform implementation. Afterwards, results were aggregated through a meta-analysis. Findings Even after controlling for student background variables, roughly 60% of the AP score variance could be explained at the teacher and school levels. In particular, teachers’ perceived administrative support, self-efficacy, teaching experience, and elements of classroom instruction were related to student performance. Notably, teachers’ professional development participation—which has been a major focus of interventions—has a small, mixed impact on student achievement. Conclusion The identified levers for improving student achievement provide a strong rationale for the continued efforts of policymakers to improve school environments and to support science teachers, with the ultimate goal of improving student learning to help all students to be prepared for college and ready for their future careers.

scholarly journals Math and science outcomes for students of teachers from standard and alternative pathways in Texas

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 27
Author(s):  
Michael Marder ◽  
Bernard David ◽  
Caitlin Hamrock
Keyword(s):  
Student Performance ◽  
Science Teachers ◽  
Algebra I ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Alternative Pathways ◽  
Biology Students ◽  
University Preparation ◽  
Alternative Routes ◽  
Almost All ◽  
High Stakes Exams

Texas provides a unique opportunity to examine teachers without standard university preparation, for it prepares more teachers through alternative pathways than any other state. We find two advantages for mathematics and science teachers prepared in the standard way. First, since 2008 they have been staying in the classroom longer than those who pursued alternative routes. Second, we analyze student performance on Algebra 1 and Biology exams over the period 2012-2018. Algebra I students with experienced teachers from standard programs gain .03 to .05 in standard deviation units compared to students whose teachers were alternatively prepared. For Biology students there are fewer statistically significant differences, although when differences exist they almost all favor standard programs. These effects are difficult to measure in part because teachers are not assigned to teach courses with high-stakes exams at random. Nevertheless, we find strong evidence in Algebra I that students learn more when their teachers have standard preparation. In Biology there is also evidence but less compelling. Thus, we recommend that all states bolster traditional university-based teacher certification, that Texas not take drastic action to curtail alternative certification, and that other states not allow it to grow too quickly.

scholarly journals An Examination of the #NGSSchat Storify Database

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Conrad Borchers ◽  
Joshua Rosenberg ◽  
Christian Fischer
Keyword(s):  
Science Teachers ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Curriculum Reform ◽  
The United States ◽  
Next Generation Science Standards ◽  
Learning Activities ◽  
Science Standards ◽  
Educational Stakeholders ◽  
Synchronous Chat ◽  
Selection Of

Teachers frequently use Twitter to engage in professional learning activities. A prominent example of teachers’ use of Twitter for such purposes is evident within the #NGSSchat community, which encouraged synchronous (at the same time) conversations between teachers and other educational stakeholders regarding the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) curriculum reform in the United States. Notably, #NGSSchat moderators archived the chats via the Storify platform, which has subsequently been used by researchers to understand science teachers’ professional learning activities on Twitter. However, what has not been established is the representativeness of this archive of #NGSSchat tweets. In other words, whether those who archived #NGSSchat content selected only a (potentially biased) selection of tweets is as yet unknown. Thus, in this study, we examined the Storify #NGSSchat database and compared it with raw data requests using the Twitter API. We found that the synchronous chats most data was adequately achieved. Contrarily (but as anticipated given what distinguishes the #NGSSchat community-synchronous conversations), the Storify #NGSSchat database did not capture most data outside these synchronous chat sessions. Importantly, we did not find an indication of systematic content- or user-driven tweet exclusion within the synchronous NGSS chat sessions on Storify, suggesting that the #NGSSchat archive via Storify (and potentially others like it) may be used by researchers for most research-related purposes.

scholarly journals Engaging High School Students in an Engineering Thermodynamics Project

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Armando Paulino Preciado Babb ◽  
Candace Saar ◽  
Jim Brandon ◽  
Sharon Friesen
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
High School ◽  
High School Students ◽  
Teacher Professional Development ◽  
Science Teachers ◽  
School Level ◽  
Engineering Project ◽  
Teacher Professional ◽  
K 12 ◽  
Mathematics And Science

Efforts for recruiting and retaining students in engineering programs are evident in many postsecondary institutions around the world. These efforts include outreach programs at both elementary and secondary school level, as well as projects that develop capacities beyond technical content—often taught as declarative and procedural knowledge. The mandate of the Galileo Education Network Association includes the design of rich learning environments engaging K – 12 students in authentic tasks: tasks that resemble the real work of professionals such as engineers. We describe the experience of enacting a seven-session engineering project in thermodynamics with Grade Ten students. Special attention is paid to formative assessment as an essential support for students' learning along the project. The initial project resulted from the collaboration—as a means for teacher professional development—between this network association and the mathematics and science teachers in a western Canadian high school. We propose that programs for teacher professional development in mathematics and science should include a focus on tasks that resemble the work of engineering in order to design authentic, engaging learning tasks, and assessing strategies that support and enhance student learning.

scholarly journals Accountability and the pressures to exclude: A cautionary tale from England.

2005 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 26 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Rustique-Forrester
Keyword(s):  
School Choice ◽  
Student Performance ◽  
Teacher Collaboration ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Perspective ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Ranking Systems ◽  
Improve Student Performance ◽  
The Impact

Recent studies have produced conflicting findings about whether test-based rewards and sanctions create incentives that improve student performance, or hurdles that increase dropout and pushout rates from schools. This article reports the findings from a study that examined the impact of England's accountability reforms and investigated whether the confluent pressures associated with increased testing, school ranking systems, and other sanctions contributed to higher levels of student exclusion (expulsion and suspension). The study found that England's high-stakes approach to accountability, combined with the dynamics of school choice and other curriculum and testing pressures led to a narrowing of the curriculum, the marginalization of low-performing students, and a climate perceived by teachers to be less tolerant of students with academic and behavioral difficulties. A comparison of higher- and lower-excluding schools, however, found that these effects were more pronounced in the higher-excluding schools, which lacked strong systems and internal structures for supporting staff communication, teacher collaboration, and students' individual needs. The study offers an international perspective on recent trends toward greater accountability in education, pointing to a complex inter-relationship between the pressures of national policies and the unintended consequences on schools' organizational and teachers' instructional capacities. The study's findings raise particular implications for the United States and show that in the design of accountability systems, attention must be paid to how the pressures from accountability will affect the capacity of schools and teachers to respond to students who are low-performing and struggling academically.

scholarly journals Professional Development for Science Teachers on Integrating STEM: A Case Study

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. p56
Author(s):  
Nancy K. DeJarnette ◽  
Ryan McCulloch ◽  
Nelson N. Ngoh ◽  
Ioana A. Badara
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Science Teachers ◽  
The United States ◽  
Teaching Context ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
Reported Data ◽  
Unique Style ◽  
K 12 ◽  
Stem Teaching

In the United States, the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) bring both commitment and challenges to science education in K-12 schools. New focus areas within the NGSS are engineering education and the integration of multiple disciplines as seen in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Providing professional development (PD) is necessary in order to assist K-12 teachers with the implementation of the NGSS in their classrooms (NGSS Lead States, 2013). This case study shares the results of a unique style of PD workshops provided for K-12 teachers on the NGSS and engineering design where participants were immersed in inquiry-based STEM activities with an earth and space science theme. Twenty-six teachers agreed to participate in the study. This qualitative research focused on self-reported data through surveys, interviews, focus groups, and observation of participants during the workshops. Findings from this case study revealed self-reported increases in teachers’ dispositions and self-efficacy regarding their implementation of the NGSS in an integrated STEM teaching context.

scholarly journals Science teachers’ data use practices: A descriptive analysis

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Virginia Snodgrass Rangel ◽  
Carlos Monroy ◽  
Elizabeth Bell
Keyword(s):  
Science Teachers ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Science Achievement ◽  
Research Policy ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Data Use ◽  
The United States ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
High Stakes

There is a debate on students’ low science achievement in the United States, particularly among low income, African American students, and Latino students. An important part of the education community’s response to low achievement generally and in science specifically has been the implementation of high stakes accountability policies. Because of accountability’s emphasis on educator data use, much research has examined different facets of it throughout educational organizations, but research has not focused on the extent to which data use might be content-specific. The purpose of this paper, then, was to investigate the data use practices of science teachers. Drawing from a broader study of science teachers in grades 5-8 across six school districts, this study reports results from teacher surveys and interviews. The findings indicate that while there were examples of science-specific data use, most of the science teachers used data in ways consistent with previous content-agnostic research. Implications for future research, policy, and practice are discussed. 

scholarly journals US STUDENT PERFORMANCE IN SCIENCE: A REVIEW OF THE FOUR MAJOR SCIENCE ASSESSMENTS

2015 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-65
Author(s):  
Susan Poland ◽  
Linda Plevyak
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Standardized Testing ◽  
Student Performance ◽  
The United States ◽  
School Level ◽  
Scientific Content ◽  
High School Level ◽  
Science Assessments ◽  
College Bound Students ◽  
Scientific Skills

The purpose of this research is to review the nature of four major science assessments administered in the United States: the ACT, PISA, TIMSS, and NAEP. Each assessment provides a very different view into US student performance in science. The TIMSS and PISA are international assessments of student performance and are often cited as evidence that US students are underperforming in comparison to their international peers. The NAEP is used to assess student knowledge of science across multiple age ranges in the United States. Finally, the ACT is administered to college-bound students who elect to take the exam. The underlying philosophies and basic structures of each assessment are explored, and comparisons and contrasts between the assessments are drawn. Historical student performance on each assessment is also analyzed. Analysis of these assessments suggests that US students struggle to apply scientific skills at the high school level, while US middle and elementary students understand scientific content knowledge well. Key words: student performance; science assessment; STEM education; standardized testing.

The Effects of Teachers’ Social and Human Capital on Urban Science Reform Initiatives: Considerations for Professional Development

2017 ◽  
Vol 119 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-32
Author(s):  
Susan Yoon ◽  
Jessica Koehler Yom ◽  
Zhitong Yang ◽  
Lei Liu
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Social Capital ◽  
Human Capital ◽  
African American ◽  
Research Design ◽  
Science Teachers ◽  
Technology Use ◽  
The United States ◽  
Successful Implementation ◽  
Science Reform

Background Recent research investigating the conditions under which science teachers can successfully implement science education reforms suggests that focusing only on professional development to improve content knowledge and teaching skills—often referred to as human capital—may not be enough. Increasingly, possessing social capital, defined as capacities acquired through direct and indirect relationships in social networks, has become an important teaching characteristic to develop, however, more empirical research needs to be conducted. Purpose This article details our efforts to examine the relative influence of teachers’ social and human capital on instruction in the science classroom. The following research question guided our analysis: “What is the impact of teachers’ social and human capital on their classroom enactments, and what implications does this have for implementing science reform projects?” Setting This research was conducted in a large urban public school district in the northeast region of the United States. Teachers participated in professional development activities focused on learning about, constructing, and implementing nanoscale content through problem-based and inquiry-based units, integrated with technology applications such as computer simulations. Population The teacher group was comprised of 10 males and 11 females, eight of whom identified as African American and 13 as White. Teaching experience ranged from 1 to 33 years, with a mean of 11.18 years. Data were collected from 545 students in their classes, of whom 52.19% were African American and 65.03% received free or reduced-priced lunch. Students ranged in level between eighth and 12th grade in the subject areas of biology, chemistry, and physical science. Research Design The research design entailed a within group comparison assessing variables that quantified teacher's social and human capital as discreet measures. They were then compared to survey outcomes collected from their students that indicated change in instructional enactments as they were related to the nanoscale units. Data Collection and Analysis A regression analysis was used in the study. Student surveys of perceptions of instructional enactments in two factors—cognitively-rich pedagogies and computer-related technology use–were used as the predicted variables. The social and human capital measures were established from application surveys and year-end interviews of teachers and used as predictor variables. Results With both predictors in the model, only social capital was found to be predictive of teachers’ successful implementation, indicating that social capital was a stronger predictor than human capital. Conclusions The study shows that focusing on the development of a teacher's social capital may be an important feature of professional development activities alongside the development of human capital particularly in urban populations where access to resources is limited.

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