bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
“They Never Told Me What to Expect, So I Didn't Know What to Do”: Defining and Clarifying the Role of a Community College Student
Authors: Karp Melinda M. , Bork Rachel H.
Published: November 2021

Background

Low community college completion rates are an area of concern for policymakers and practitioners. Although many students require developmental education upon entry, research suggests that even students who are deemed “college-ready” by virtue of their placement test scores or completion of developmental coursework may not earn a credential, suggesting that college readiness encompasses more than academic skill.

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to provide an empirically grounded description of the role of the community college student. Drawing on sociological role theory, we articulate the largely unspoken expectations, behaviors, and attitudes to which students must adhere if they are to be successful. In doing so, we begin to clarify a piece of the college success puzzle that has heretofore been underexamined. We also extend current literature on college persistence by integrating theories of psychosocial identity, social roles, and college persistence.

Research Design

The study uses qualitative data from semistructured interviews conducted with community college students (n = 97) and faculty and staff (n = 72) from a study of student success courses in three community colleges in the Virginia Community College System (VCCS). We examined a subset of interview questions investigating the expectations that staff and faculty hold of community college students. We used analytic induction to categorize disparate expectations into discrete components of the community college student role.

Findings

Relying on sociological conceptions of the role, we find that the demands and expectations placed on community college students are different from other social positions with which individuals are familiar, particularly with regard to the level of fluidity and demands for self-awareness. We also identify four distinct components of the role of community college student: academic habits, cultural know-how, balancing multiple demands, and help seeking.

Conclusions

Our data clarify the nonacademic components of college success that contribute to academic readiness. We also find agreement between our data and other college persistence literature focused on other student populations. Our findings extend current understandings of the psychosocial transition to college by paying attention to the cultural elements of the community college student role. This paper concludes with suggestions for future research.
“Slaying Ghosts in the Room”: Identity Contingencies, Teacher Licensure Testing Events, and African American Preservice Teachers
Authors: Petchauer Emery
Published: November 2021

Background

In 41 states, students must pass the “basic skills” portion of their licensure exam before they can be admitted into a teacher education program. Because African American test takers are roughly half as likely to pass basic skills exams on their first attempt compared to White test takers, this portion of the licensure exam is a key gatekeeper to the field and directly shapes the racial diversity of the profession. Researchers generally frame this problem in one of two opposing ways: (a) by locating the cause in skill and knowledge deficiencies of test takers or (b) by locating the cause in the cultural bias of standardized test instruments. This study looks beyond these two polarized views to conceptualize the licensure exam as a testing event that includes a nexus of cognitive and affective processes beyond the specific skills the test is designed to measure.

Focus of Study

The study examined the subjective and social psychological ways African American test takers experience teacher licensure testing events. This study was guided by the following research questions: (a) How do African American preservice teachers experience the licensure testing event? (b) How does race become a salient aspect of the testing event experience for African American preservice teachers? The study drew from the social psychological constructs of identity contingencies and situational cues to analyze students’ experiences in the testing event.

Setting and Participants

Participants in this study were 22 African American preservice teachers attending a predominantly and historically Black institution in the northeastern United States. Each of the participants took the paper format basic skills exam in either the spring 2009 or spring 2010 national administration.

Research Design

Drawing from culturally sensitive research practice, this study used a qualitative case study research design to explore test takers’ experiences in the testing event.

Findings/Conclusions

Findings illustrate how the licensure testing event can become a racialized experience for some participants through (a) interactions with test proctors and site administrators before and during examinations and (b) actions of other test takers that inadvertently signaled racial stereotypes about test preparation, intelligence, and character. Racialized experiences for participants were not based upon any specific test questions or content. Findings are discussed in light of previous research to suggest that these experiences have the capacity to produce a host of cognitive and affective states that undermine performance.
Accessing Capital Resources: Investigating the Effects of Teacher Human and Social Capital on Student Achievement
Authors: Daly Alan J. , Moolenaar Nienke M. , Der-Martirosian Claudia , Liou Yi-Hwa
Published: November 2021

Background

A growing empirical base suggests that there is a positive relationship between teacher social interaction and student achievement. However, much of this research is based on standardized summative assessments, which, while important, may have limited applicability to timely instructional decision making. As such, in this work, we examine the relationship between teacher social interaction and interim benchmark formative assessments, which have been argued to play a more useful role in instructional decision making.

Purpose

In this study we used a human and social capital framework to explore the relationship between teacher social interaction and student achievement on an interim benchmark formative assessment. We hypothesized that teacher social capital would be positively related with student achievement as measured by an interim assessment, even after controlling for student and teacher demographics as well as proxies for teacher human capital.

Population

A sample of 63 teachers from five elementary schools in a midsize U.S. district completed a demographic and social network survey, from which we generated our human and social capital measures. For student-level data, we collected current and prior student achievement from 1,196 third to fifth grade students on an English Language Arts Interim Benchmark Assessment.

Research Design

We used survey data to conduct social network analysis and hierarchical linear modeling to explore the multilevel relationship between human and social capital and student achievement.

Results

Results indicated that even when controlling for student demographics and prior achievement, teachers’ human and social capital had a significant effect on student achievement as measured by interim assessments. More specifically our results indicated that more teaching experience in the current school was associated with better student performance on the interim assessment. In addition, the act of reaching out to other teachers to share knowledge regarding reading comprehension was associated with higher student scores on the interim assessment even when controlling for demographics and past academic performance.

Conclusions

This study offers a unique insight into the role of accessing capital resources and student achievement in strengthening schools under increased pressure to improve. Our work adds to the growing empirical base that suggests that teacher social interaction has a relationship with student achievement. To encourage social interaction, creating formal policies and structures for teachers to develop social ties with one another related to content may be a useful strategy in supporting student outcomes.
Creating Counter-Spaces of Resistance and Sanctuaries of Learning and Teaching: An Analysis of Freedom University
Authors: Muñoz Susana , Espino Michelle M. , Antrop-González René
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

In 2011, the Georgia Board of Regents passed an educational policy that denies qualified students without documentation access to five selective institutions of higher education in the state. As a form of civil disobedience, Freedom University in Athens, Georgia, was founded to cultivate a space where students without documentation can continue their postsecondary educational pursuits.

Research Questions

The research questions that guided this study are: (a) In what ways does Freedom University serve as a sanctuary of teaching and learning from the perspectives of faculty members? and (b) What challenges and successes have been and continue to be experienced by the faculty of Freedom University in developing sanctuaries of teaching and learning for students without documentation?

Research Design

This qualitative case study included in-depth interviews with three founding faculty members. It also included document analysis that was based on historical aspects associated with the formation of Freedom Schools during the Civil Rights era and the concept of school as sanctuary to understand the pedagogical and philosophical underpinnings associated with the establishment of Freedom University. Through constant comparative data analysis, the authors uncover how Freedom University operates as a sanctuary for students without documentation.

Findings

The findings demonstrate that Freedom University is a postsecondary sanctuary school because it centers students’ experiences within the curriculum and embodies transformational resistance by both students and faculty.

Conclusions/Recommendations

The authors suggest that, by creating sanctuaries at a post-secondary level, students without documentation are afforded a space to continue their education not for a college degree but for the sake of learning.
Deviance as Pedagogy: From Nondominant Cultural Capital to Deviantly Marked Cultural Repertoires
Authors: Dixon-Román Ezekiel J.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Pierre Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital has been employed extensively in sociological, educational, and anthropological research. However, Bourdieu's conceptualization of cultural capital has often been misread to refer only to “high status” or dominant cultural norms and resources at the cost of overlooking the meaningful and productive practices of nondominant and marginalized cultural communities.

Focus of Study

By reconceptualizing Cohen's politics of deviance, this paper leans on post-structuralist thinkers to develop a conceptualization of the cultural repertoires of marginalized communities, hereafter referred to as deviantly marked cultural repertoires, that places at the center labeled practices of deviance. It is posited that in these labeled deviant cultural practices—which are often overlooked, shunned, and ignored—are valuable and meaningful experiences of learning and development.

Research Design

Using scenes from the HBO series The Wire as a cultural text, a materialist analysis is conducted to demonstrate empirically the pedagogically rich processes of deviantly marked cultural repertoires.

Conclusions

This paper argues for a research agenda on the learning and development present in the often overlooked, shunned, ignored, and marked/labeled practices of deviance as a way to explore the transformative pedagogical possibilities in marginalized youth cultures.
Assessment, Autonomy, and Elementary Social Studies Time
Authors: Fitchett Paul G. , Heafner Tina L. , Lambert Richard
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

In an era of accountability and standardization, elementary social studies is consistently losing its curricular foothold to English/language arts, math, and science instruction.

Purpose

This article examines the relationship between elementary teachers’ perceptions of instructional autonomy, teaching context, state testing policy, and reported social studies instructional time.

Research Design

Employing secondary data from the National Center for Education Statistics 2007/2008 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), we analyzed the association between elementary (Grades 1–5) teachers’ perceived autonomy, classroom/school contexts, and state testing policies on reported time spent on social studies. We also analyzed the moderating effect of state-level testing policy on teachers’ sense of autonomy in relation to reported social studies instructional time.

Data Collection and Analysis

We conducted analysis of variance (ANOVA) and hierarchical liner modeling (HLM) to examine the association among multiple levels of teacher, classroom, school, and state policy levels as a function of reported social studies instructional time.

Findings/Results

Results indicate that elementary teachers’ working in states that require elementary social studies testing spend more time on social studies instruction. Moreover, teachers’ who report greater instructional autonomy and teach intermediate grades (4–5) spend more time on social studies. Finally, elementary teachers working in states with a required social studies test report less instructional autonomy than teachers without a test.

Recommendations

Findings suggest recommendations for practitioners, school leaders, and educational policy. Social studies teacher educators and practitioners should continue to support ambitious teaching. School leaders who value social studies instruction should foster environments that offer less curricular restrictions, particularly in the later grades. From an organizational perspective, mandatory statewide testing improves the quantity of social studies at the elementary grades. However, policy makers and education advocates should weigh the costs and benefits of increased testing mandates and their possible impact on the quality of social studies teaching and learning.
Ready to Lead, but How? Teachers’ Experiences in High-Poverty Urban Schools
Authors: Johnson Susan Moore , Reinhorn Stefanie , Charner-Laird Megin , Kraft Matthew , Ng Monica , Papay John P.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Many strategies to improve failing urban schools rest on efforts to improve leadership within the school. Effective school-based leadership depends not only on the activities of the principal, but also on teachers’ efforts to address school-wide challenges. Research has shown that the principal is pivotal in such ventures, but we know little about how teachers conceive of their role in leadership, how they respond to opportunities provided or denied by their principal, or how they initiate leadership on their own.

Purpose

We studied how teachers in six high-poverty urban schools participate in leadership beyond their classroom. We asked: What role do teachers in high-poverty urban schools play in their school's improvement? How do principals conceive of teachers’ potential for leadership and how do they act on it? How do teachers respond to the opportunities and constrains they encounter as they seek to exercise leadership in their schools?

Research Design

We interviewed 95 teachers and administrators in six high-poverty schools of one large urban district (two elementary schools, one K–8 school, one middle school, and two high schools). The schools, which served large proportions of low-income and minority students, had varying records of student performance.

Data Collection and Analysis

In each school, we interviewed the principal, other administrators, and a broad sample of teachers. We reviewed documents and observed day-to-day practices. After writing a structured, thematic summary for each respondent and school, we coded all transcripts and analyzed themes and practices within and across schools.

Findings

Teachers were willing and ready to address their school's challenges. They conditionally granted their principal discretion in setting the agenda, based on the perceived authority and expertise of the principal and teachers’ opportunities for engagement as partners. When the principal took an instrumental approach to their contributions, teachers resented it, withdrew to their classrooms, and considered leaving the school. When the principal took an inclusive approach, demonstrating genuine interest in their views and contributions, teachers invested in school-wide reforms.

Conclusions/Recommendation

Although a principal may develop a strategic plan for improvement, that plan cannot simply be “rolled out.” Doing so without teachers’ contributions and endorsement likely means that the plan is incomplete and will be rejected outright or adopted perfunctorily. District administrators should select and develop principals who take an inclusive approach to teacher leadership. Policy makers and researchers should go beyond assessing the success of specific reforms and study the process of change within schools as reforms are developed and implemented.
Context and Perspective: Implications for Assessment in Education
Authors: Gordon Edmund W. , Campbell Emily B.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

This article is a piece of analytic and descriptive commentary based on the work of the Gordon Commission on the Future of Assessment of Education.

Purpose

The purpose of this essay is to advocate for greater attention given to the correlates of human performance in educational measurement. The authors argue the importance of attribution, context, and perspective as factors influencing human performance.

Research Design

The essay is primarily analytic and historical with respect to the conceptualizations that should guide the contextualization of assessment in education.

Conclusions

(a) Greater respect for and sensitivity to the fact that adaptive behavior is a function of the integration of affective, cognitive, and situative processes operating in conscious organisms functioning in context. (b) Importance of systems of assessment that produce multiple forms of data that should be combined in different constellations for specific purposes. (c) Explicit recognition that decontextualized and situated probes are in fact distortions and the data from such probes cannot legitimately be used for definitive judgment. (d) Emerging electronic digital technologies may provide opportunities for effective assessments of contexts, as well as assessments of adaptive behaviors in context. (e) The documentation of personal attributions and personal perceptions are problematic, though such data are important and must be subjected to systematicity in programs of assessment in education. (f) Formative assessment, portfolio development, and relational analysis.
Preparing for the Future: What Educational Assessment Must Do
Authors: Bennet Randy Elliot
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

There is little question that education is changing, seemingly quickly and in some cases dramatically. The mechanisms through which individuals learn are shifting from paper-based ones to electronic media. Simultaneously, the nature of what individuals must learn is evolving, in good part due to an exponential accumulation of knowledge and of technology to access, share, and exploit that knowledge. Finally, how education is organized, offered, and administered is undergoing transformation, most apparently—but not only—in higher education. With potentially seismic changes in the mechanisms, nature, and organization of education must also come changes in educational assessment.

Purpose

This paper makes 13 claims about what educational assessment must do if it is to remain relevant in the face of rapid and potentially dramatic changes in education and society.

Research Design

Analytic essay.

Conclusions/Recommendations

If it is to remain relevant, educational assessment must provide meaningful information; satisfy multiple purposes; use modern conceptions of competency as a design basis; align test and task designs, scoring, and interpretation with those modern conceptions; adopt modern methods for designing and interpreting complex assessments; account for context; design for fairness and accessibility; design for positive impact; design for engagement; incorporate information from multiple sources; respect privacy; gather and share validity evidence; and use technology to achieve substantive goals.
Technological Implications for Assessment Ecosystems: Opportunities for Digital Technology to Advance Assessment
Authors: Behrens John T. , Dicerbo Kristen E.
Published: November 2021

Background

It would be easy to think the technological shifts in the digital revolution are simple incremental progressions in societal advancement. However, the nature of digital technology is resulting in qualitative differences in nearly all parts of daily life.

Purpose

This paper investigates how the new capabilities for understanding, exploring, simulating, and recording activity in the world open possibilities for rethinking assessment and learning activities.

Research Design

This analytic essay enumerates three changes to assessment likely to result from the ability to gather data from every day learning activities.

Findings

The digital revolution allows us to use technology to extend human abilities, represent the world, and collect and store data in previously unavailable ways, all opening new possibilities for the unobtrusive ubiquitous assessment of learning. This is a dramatic shift from previous eras in which physical collection of data was often obtrusive and likely to cause reactive effects when inserted into daily activity. These shifts have important implications for assessment theory and practice and the potential to transform how we ultimately make inferences about students.

Conclusions/Recommendations

The emerging universality of digital tasks and contexts in the home, workplace, and educational environments will drive changes in assessment. We can think about natural integrated activities rather than decontextualized items, connected social people rather than isolated individuals, and the integration of information gathering into the process of teaching and learning, rather than as a separate isolated event. As the digital instrumentation needed for educational assessment increasingly becomes part of our natural educational, occupational, and social activity, the need for intrusive assessment practices that conflict with learning activities diminishes.
The Case of Dixon v. Alabama: From Civil Rights to Students’ Rights and Back Again
Authors: Lee Philip
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Legal scholars have cited the Fifth Circuit's ruling in Dixon v. Alabama State Board of Education (1961) as the beginning of a revolution for students’ rights that ended the in loco parentis relationship between colleges and their students. But little has been written about the students’ activism that led to this seminal case.

Research Question

Students’ rights, in general, benefited from the Dixon precedent. But how did the student activists who brought the case personally benefit? None were able to tell their stories in court in a way that challenged separate but equal laws. None of them took advantage of the due process that the Fifth Circuit ruled that Alabama State College must provide. None re-enrolled at the college after the case was over. And segregation was still alive and well in Alabama after Dixon was decided. So what did they win?

Research Design

This study presents a historical analysis of the student activism that led to the Dixon case, the case itself, and its interplay with future civil rights activism.

Conclusions

Despite the divergence of interests between the student activists and the lawyers, both the sit-in and the litigation empowered students all over the country to engage in the civil rights struggle.
Choice Theory and Student Engagement in an Alternative High School
Authors: Jones Jeffrey N.
Published: November 2021

This chapter details an alternative high school's implementation of choice theory and its influence on relational practices and student experience. Student narratives speak of how the school practices that are informed by choice theory promote engagement through a deliberate focus on developmental needs.
Epilogue: A New Paradigm for the Science and Practice of Engaging Young People
Authors: Larson Reed W. , Shernoff David J. , Bempechat Janine
Published: November 2021

A hope of this Yearbook is to illuminate not only what promotes engagement but also how it can be fostered. In this epilogue, first we provide a short history of research on motivation. We then review the contributions of this Yearbook in providing a fuller, multidimensional, contextualized picture of human motivation, one that we believe is relevant and helpful to educational policy and practice. Last, we discuss where this research may head in order to engender conditions in which engagement in schooling becomes more universal.
Informal Science and Youth Development: Creating Convergence in Out-of-School Time
Authors: Noam Gil G. , Shah Ashima Mathur
Published: November 2021

This chapter highlights the fit between youth-development-oriented programming and informal science activities in out-of-school time (OST) and illustrates how science and youth development can and should co-occur. The clover model and Dimensions of Success tool are introduced as lenses for designing and assessing science program quality in OST.

“While both the afterschool and science fields are at a crossroads, association with the other enhances the potential for each to flourish.”

∼Lucy Friedman (2005)
The Impact of the Learning Environment on Student Engagement in High School Classrooms
Authors: Shernoff David J. , Tonks Stephen M. , Anderson Brett
Published: November 2021

This chapter presents a study that investigated characteristics of the learning environment predicting for student engagement in public high school classrooms. Students in seven high school classrooms in five different subject areas were observed and videoed in order to predict their engagement as measured by the experience sampling method (ESM).
Understanding Optimal School Experience: Contributions from Montessori Education
Authors: Rathunde Kevin
Published: November 2021

After summarizing the results from two studies the author conducted in Montessori middle schools, the chapter discusses nine characteristics of Montessori education in relation to various theoretical perspectives on education and development. The first three characteristics discussed—freedom of choice, eliminating grades, and learning by doing—are examined in relation to contemporary theories of motivation and education. Three lesser known characteristics—deep concentration, prepared environments, and habits of self-regulation—are discussed in the context of the flow theory of optimal experience. Finally, three facets of Montessori education that are perhaps the least understood and recognized—movement, aesthetic order, and the importance of nature— are considered in light of emerging perspectives on embodied knowledge. Examples of how each characteristic can be applied in the classroom are drawn from the author's observations and research in Montessori middle schools.
Learning in and across Contexts: Reimagining Education
Authors: Vadeboncoeur Jennifer A. , Kady-Rachid Hitaf , Moghtader Bruce
Published: November 2021

The chapter introduces the volume on the basis of four principles: seeing education holistically as inclusive of diverse learning contexts; recognizing that learning opportunities emerge both in and across contexts; advancing research on learning in ways that enable the study of learning over time and across contexts; and attending to possible futures in the present.
Studying Movement, Hybridity, and Change: Toward a Multi-sited Sensibility for Research on Learning across Contexts and Borders
Authors: Vossoughi Shirin , Gutiérrez Kris D.
Published: November 2021

This chapter brings together cultural-historical approaches to human development with interpretive and multi-sited ethnography in order to: (1) develop ethnographic tools that attend to the ways young people learn within and across multiple contexts; (2) draw from and contrast the methodological insights of single and multi-sited ethnography; and (3) glean principles that help constitute a “multi-sited sensibility” appropriate for taking a more expansive approach to learning that advances conceptions of learning as movement.
Reading Attitude as a Mediator between Contextual Factors and Reading Behavior
Authors: Lim Hyo Jin , Bong Mimi , Woo Yeon-Kyoung
Published: November 2021

Background

Among the factors known to influence reading development and performance, attitude toward reading is shown to be particularly critical for developing learners. Reading attitude enhances independent reading, levels of engagement in classroom reading activities, and the amount and variety of topics in reading, which in turn influence reading skills and strategies. Reading attitude is an important element in students’ active engagement and achievement in reading.

Purpose

The first purpose of this study was to test whether Korean students’ home literacy resources, parental support and parents’ reading attitude, and teachers’ use of instructional strategies in relation to reading could predict Korean students’ reading attitude. The second purpose was to test a model linking family- and school-related factors, reading attitude, and reading behaviors and learning strategy use as outcomes. Specifically, we hypothesized that positive and negative attitudes toward reading would mediate the relationships between home, parent, and teacher variables and reading outcomes.

Design

Using a nationally representative sample from the PISA 2009 database, we tested two structural equation models. Because there were two categories of outcomes examined in this study, we fitted the model separately for each outcome category. The first model (Reading Behavior Model) included reading activities such as reading for enjoyment, reading diversity, and online reading as outcome variables. The second model (Learning Strategy Model) shared the same model structure with the first one except that the outcome variables were use of learning strategies such as memorization, elaboration, and control. In both models, reading attitudes were hypothesized to mediate the relationship between contextual factors (i.e. gender, home resources, parental and teacher influences) and the reading/learning outcomes.

Conclusions

Gender, books and other types of literacy resources in the home, and parents’ attitudes toward reading functioned as consistent predictors of Korean students’ positive and negative attitudes toward reading. Among the contextual factors, parents’ reading attitude and parental support for reading directly as well as indirectly predicted students’ reading behaviors via students’ reading attitude. Parental support for reading and teachers’ instruction and assignment strategies in reading directly predicted students’ use of learning strategies as well. Positive attitudes toward reading also predicted students’ use of memorization, elaboration, and control strategies. Thus, reading attitude was an important mediator between parent- and teacher-related contextual factors and reading/learning engagement of Korean adolescents.
Entering the Historical Problem Space: Whole-Class Text-Based Discussion in History Class
Authors: Reisman Abby
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

The Common Core State Standards reveals how little we understand about the components of effective discussion-based instruction in disciplinary history. Although the case for classroom discussion as a core method for subject matter learning stands on stable theoretical and empirical ground, to date, none of the research on classroom discussion has examined whole-class text-based discussion in secondary history classrooms.

Purpose

This study explored how teachers and students in five 11th-grade classrooms participated in whole-class discussion, using intervention materials designed to promote text-based disciplinary discussion. Analysis of videotaped instruction sought to (a) determine the degree to which the instructional materials fostered disciplinary discussion about texts, and (b) analyze teacher talk moves that characterized effective facilitation of such discussions.

Research Design

This qualitative study was embedded in a larger quasi-experimental curricular intervention that found treatment effects on factual recall, historical thinking, and general reading comprehension. In this paper, we analyze classroom videos from five treatment classrooms taken over the course of the six-month intervention. Each teacher was videotaped once per week, for a total of 20 videotaped lessons per teacher.

Findings/Results

Analyses showed that disciplinary discussion was surprisingly rare, and discussion that promoted historical understanding even rarer. Discussions that were most successful in deepening students’ historical understanding were characterized by talk moves that drew students’ attention to the text, and that stabilized the historical content.

Conclusions/Recommendations

The study has implications for teacher preparation focused on implementation of Common Core State Standards as well as for teacher training in do-main-specific core practices.
Nonrobustness of the Carryover Effects of Small Classes in Project STAR
Authors: Sohn Kitae
Published: November 2021

Background

Class size reduction (CSR) is an enduring school reform undertaken in an effort to improve academic achievement and has been widely encouraged in the United States. Supporters of CSR often cite the positive contemporaneous and carryover effects of Project STAR. Much has been discussed regarding the robustness of the contemporaneous effects but not regarding that of the carryover effects.

Purpose

This article checks the robustness of the carryover effects of STAR's small classes.

Setting

STAR was undertaken in 75–79 schools in Tennessee. Participants: Each year in the experimental period, 6,000–7,000 students in grades K–3 participated in the experiment, for a total of 12,000 students during the entire period.

Intervention

As students initially entered STAR schools, they were (arguably) randomly assigned to small classes with 13–17 students, regular classes with 22–25 students without teacher aides, and regular classes with 22–25 students with teacher aides. The experiment was performed from 1985 through 1989, but information on STAR students continued to be collected thereafter.

Research Design

STAR is a randomized controlled field experiment.

Data Analysis

In this article, STAR schools are divided into “effective” schools and “ineffective” schools. Effective schools are defined as schools where the test scores of students in small classes were statistically significantly higher than those of students in regular classes at the 5% level in both math and reading. By contrast, ineffective schools are defined as schools where the test scores of students in small classes were not statistically significantly higher than those of students in regular classes at the 5% level in either math or reading. Separately for effective schools, schools other than effective schools, and ineffective schools, the academic achievement of students is regressed on variables indicating small class assignment, along with student characteristics and school-by-entry wave fixed effects.

Findings

The carryover effects of CSR are not robust; they are driven mostly by effective schools, which account for at most a quarter of STAR schools. During this investigation, it is revealed that, in contrast to the protocol of randomization, observable student characteristics in these schools are not randomly distributed between small and regular classes. They are instead distributed in such a way as to increase the academic achievement of students in small classes and decrease that of students in regular classes.

Recommendations

Caution is recommended when citing the positive carryover effects of S TAR.
Professional Learning for Using Data: Examining Teacher Needs & Supports
Authors: Jimerson Jo Beth , Wayman Jeffrey C.
Published: November 2021

Background

In the last few decades, a focus on school accountability at the state and federal levels has created expectations for teachers to attend to data in increasingly structured ways. Although professional learning is often cited as an important facilitator of effective data use, research that focuses on the intersection of professional learning and data use is scarce. Examining teacher perceptions of data use supports, and contrasting assertions of what is desired in data-related professional learning with accounts of the ways in which this professional learning actually happens provide an avenue for exploring these issues and for building a research base that can inform the work of district and campus leaders as well as support providers.

Focus of Study

This study aimed at examining teacher needs specific to data-related professional learning through a lens informed by knowledge-based organizational learning. We were guided by two broad questions: (a) What knowledge and skills do teachers need in order to engage in data-informed practice? (b) How do professional learning supports address these needs?

Research Design

The qualitative study draws on document analysis as well as interview and focus group data collected from n=110 participants (teachers, school leaders, and district support staff) in three school districts in central Texas. Flexible a priori coding rooted in our conceptual framework was employed to examine data for themes common across district settings and across school levels (e.g., elementary, middle, high). Code counts were used to further examine areas of professional learning focus and/or apparent imbalance.

Findings

Educators articulated professional learning needs related to data use in six main areas: (a) asking appropriate questions of data (to guide analysis and use); (b) accessing and operating district data systems; (c) data literacy/interpretation; (d) fitting data use with day-do-day practice; (e) sharing information via collaboration; and (f) knowledge codifica-tion. Of these, data capture via computer data systems was by far the most prominent focus reported by educators in each district. Clear plans for addressing data use capacity through professional learning supports were lacking.

Recommendations

Taking into account teacher perspectives on what professional learning for data use was needed and on how such supports were, in reality, structured, we make three recommendations: (a) purposefully embed professional learning for data use in ongoing organizational routines; (b) mitigate the district level silos that separate training-on-computer-systems from professional learning focused on turning data into action at the classroom level; and (c) seek balance in supporting the constellation of knowledge and skills that contribute to data use capacity.
Structuring Professional Learning to Develop a Culture of Data Use: Aligning Knowledge from the Field and Research Findings
Authors: Gerzon Nancy
Published: November 2021

Background

This research review provides an analysis of current research related to school and district data use, with a particular focus on identifying key characteristics of schools and districts with effective “data using cultures.” The research review identifies and analyzes findings in five key areas of practice: communicating professional expectations for data use; providing resources and assistance to make meaning from data; participating in the flow of information for data use; providing professional development on data use knowledge and skills; and providing leadership to nurture a culture of data use.

Purpose

The goal of this literature review was to identify key elements that the research identifies as essential to developing a school or district culture of data use. Through the literature review and analysis, this article proposes a conceptual framework for school and district data use practices that can be used to guide professional learning in the area of data use.

Research Design

The research design is an analytic essay. The article includes an analysis of current literature on school and district data use, compares key concepts presented in current studies and literature reviews, and offers conclusions based on these findings.

Conclusions

This research review provides a conceptual framework of five elements that school and district leaders can use to guide professional learning in data use. The framework provides a “mental map” for addressing the range of knowledge and skills teachers must learn to use data as a routine part of their daily practice. In particular, the Culture of Data Use Framework is designed to help school and district leaders and professional development providers tease apart the specific areas of focus for training and support. The author outlines considerations for professional learning for each of the five framework elements and closes with a set of questions that may help to highlight future research needs in the area of school-level data use.
The Development of Capacity for Data Use: The Role of Teacher Networks in an Elementary School
Authors: Farley-Ripple Elizabeth , Buttram Joan
Published: November 2021

Background

Amid calls for increased data use, there is little research or policy guidance for how to build schools’ capacity to leverage data to improve teaching and learning. Building on previous research highlighting the social nature of data use, we contend that in order to understand how capacity develops, research must focus on relationships and networks that support educators’ practice, conceptualizing capacity as socially embedded.

Purpose

This article explores the development of data use capacity in an elementary school through a social network approach. Our analysis focuses on the structure of data advice networks, the characteristics of perceived experts in the network, and the productiveness of the network in terms of influencing beliefs and practice.

Population

Data come from a sample of 42 educators from an elementary school exemplified by its district as a strong user of data to improve teaching and learning. Participants completed a survey about their data use beliefs, practices, and school context, as well as a social network questionnaire indicating from whom they sought advice on using data.

Research Design

We used the survey data to identify characteristics of the schools’ data use networks using descriptive statistics and social network analysis (SNA). SNA was also used to develop measures of structural location in those networks, which were then used to predict similarities in teachers’ beliefs and practices around data use.

Findings

Findings reveal that data use networks are influenced by the larger professional structure of the school, with data advice being from colleagues who are part of their larger professional network. Network structure reveals few highly central “advice givers” and many “advice seekers” connected by teachers and leaders who serve as brokers of advice. We find that brokers may play an important role in developing shared practices, given that the indirect relationships they support are predictive of shared data use practices.

Conclusions

This research is among the first to explore data use through a social network approach and offers early evidence about how educators’ networks enable schools to build capacity for data use. Our findings have implications for the design of professional development, for professional development for school leaders, and for successful implementation of reforms related to data use.
Differences in Intellectual Challenge of Writing Tasks among Higher and Lower Value-Added English Language Arts Teachers
Authors: Alston Chandra L. , Brown Michelle T.
Published: November 2021

Background

Writing is an essential literacy skill; however, public school students often receive inadequate writing instruction, particularly as they move into middle and high school. However, research has shown that the nature of writing tasks assigned can impact writing development and student achievement measured by standardized assessments. With the need to assess teacher efficacy, districts are increasingly using some form of value-added modeling, although researchers warn of relying solely on value-added scores to distinguish between more and less effective teachers.

Purpose

This study investigated the intellectual challenge of typical writing tasks and the intellectual quality of student work in classrooms of higher and lower value-added middle school English language arts teachers to understand what value-added modeling might capture in terms of writing instruction. In particular, this article investigates how higher and lower value-added teachers differ in terms of (1) the intellectual challenge of typical tasks assigned, (2) the quality of supports surrounding the tasks, and (3) the quality of student work produced.

Research Design

Data for this study were collected as part of a larger study that identified pairs of middle school ELA teachers within the same school who were in their third through fifth years of teaching. Within each school, we identified at least one teacher in the fourth (top) quartile and one in the second (lower) quartile based on their measures of value-added to student achievement. We analyzed the typical and challenging writing tasks and corresponding student work for the intellectual quality, looking within and across the two groups of teachers to document patterns of instructional practices.

Conclusions

We found differences in the consistency of challenge and scaffolds between the two groups, with higher value-added teachers more consistently providing challenging and supportive tasks. Teachers whose typical writing tasks maintain a high degree of challenge are associated with higher student performance, as defined by a measure of teacher value-added. This implies the importance of educating teachers regarding the importance and nature of challenging assignments.
Examining Post-Racial Ideology in Higher Education
Authors: Baber Lorenzo Dubois
Published: November 2021

In this chapter, the author explores connections between post-racial ideology and exclusionary practices in higher education. Post-racialists contend that race-conscious practices and policies in higher education are no longer necessary because of significant racial progress in society. In contrast, the author argues that post-racialism extends a key tradition of higher education—the mediation of self-serving ideology for the culturally dominant group from seemingly objective stances. After presenting the historical influence of White privilege on higher education policies and practices, the author outlines two current examples of post-racialism in postsecondary education—the continued retreatment from race-conscious admissions policies and the persistence of race-neutral, universalist perspectives of knowledge. In light of continuing racial stratification for postsecondary opportunities in the United States, contesting post-racialism is critical for scholars and policy makers interested in educational equity and justice.
Post-Slavery? Post-Segregation? Post-Racial? A History of the Impact of Slavery, Segregation, and Racism on the Education of African Americans
Authors: Span Christopher M.
Published: November 2021

This chapter details how slavery, segregation, and racism impacted the educational experiences of African Americans from the colonial era to the present. It offers a historical overview of the African American educational experience and uses archival data and secondary source analysis to illustrate that America has yet to be a truly post-slavery and post-segregation society, let alone a post-racial society.