bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Students’ Sense of Belonging in Technical/Vocational Schools versus Academic Schools: The Mediating Role of Faculty Trust in Students
Authors: Van Houtte Mieke , Van Maele Dimitri
Published: November 2021

Background

Since the late 1960s, research has demonstrated repeatedly that students in lower tracks achieve less as they develop an antischool culture to overcome the status deprivation resulting from being in a lower track. In quantitative large-scale research, this anti-school culture is usually assessed using poor academic attitudes or study disengagement because antischool norms disengage students from the learning process. The extent to which students in different tracks feel embedded in their school communities—their sense of school belonging—has rarely been examined, although academic engagement and sense of belonging are related to each other and to achievement.

Objective

This article examines students’ sense of belonging in secondary schools that offer different tracks, and the role played by the faculty's trust in the students.

Participants

The study is based on data from 3,475 students and 754 teachers in 28 technical/vocational schools and 3,376 students and 461 teachers in 22 academic schools in Flanders, the northern, Dutch-speaking part of Belgium.

Research Design

Use is made of (stepwise) multilevel analyses (HLM6).

Results

The analyses show that students in technical/vocational schools have a significant lower sense of belonging than students in academic schools. This association disappears if we take into account faculty trust in students. The association between school type and perceived teacher support, a subdimension of the sense of belonging, is not mediated by faculty trust, but is due to the lower GPA of students in technical/vocational schools.

Conclusions

The results indicate that teachers play a crucial role in the divergent nature of students’ social integration across different types of schools. In terms of strengthening students’ connectedness to a technical/vocational school environment, our results indicate that strengthening teachers’ level of trust in students could be crucial.
Negotiating Cross-Class Identities While Living a Curriculum of Moral Education
Authors: Cutri Ramona M. , Manning Jill , Weight Cecilia S.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

A person's socioeconomic class is not a stagnant category based on her income level, but is rather an ongoing lived identity that includes a dynamic process of political struggle. In our self-study, we unpack both our poverty and upper-middle-class experiences and in so doing examine our intergenerational cross-class identity as a site of personal and political struggle.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of the Study

This self-study of practice explores how we three mothers who are also educators negotiate our cross-class identities while living a curriculum of moral education with our children who are growing up upper middle class.

Research Design

The qualitative methodology of self-study of practice was employed, and narrative methods were used to gather and analyze data.

Findings/Results

The qualities of intimacy and altruism emerge from our stories as ways to foster cross-class identities that encourage awareness of inequities and promote learning oriented toward social justice.

Conclusions/Recommendations

The approaches and strategies of living a moral education curriculum chronicled in our stories offer a developmentally sensitive model of moral education that could, with modification, inform approaches to educating critical class-conscious educators. The narratives highlight opportunities for researchers and educators to move across cultures and illustrate how tensions between cultures can be held open for meaning making rather than assuming that people only have one class identity. Future research is called for to further explore the impact of race on practices of moral education and how the types of relationships necessary for moral authority can be fostered within the confines of academia.
Teachers’ Education and Outcomes: Mapping the Research Terrain
Authors: Cochran-Smith Marilyn , Cannady Matthew , Mceachern Kirstin P. , Mitchell Kara , Piazza Peter , Power Christine , Ryan Amy
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Questions about teacher quality, including how teachers ought to be educated and licensed, rank near the top of the educational agenda in the United States. These controversies persist because of lack of consensus about what “teacher quality” means, conflicting claims about the empirical evidence, and public skepticism about the need for formal teacher preparation. Because there has been relatively little research on the outcomes of preparation programs and pathways and because researchers work from diverging paradigms, there are few clear conclusions in this area.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

The purpose of this article is to offer a conceptual analysis of empirical research on teachers’ education and outcomes that is linked to the political controversies and policy debates that shape it. Using the concept of research “genres,” the article addresses two questions: (1) How have researchers conceptualized and studied the connections between teachers’ education and its outcomes, consequences, or results? (2) What are the policy controversies and larger social and political factors that have shaped these genres?

Research Design

This review focuses on research conducted in the United States since 1998 and published by peer-reviewed journals or centers with peer review procedures. The review includes only empirical research that explicitly examines connections between particular aspects of teachers’ education (e.g., certification status, academic background, pathways into teaching, program mission/curriculum, transitions to teaching, life experiences) and specific posteducation outcomes (e.g., teacher preparedness, beliefs, practice, retention, student achievement).

Findings/Results

The review reveals that there are six distinguishable genres that examine connections between teachers’ education and posteducation outcomes: teacher certification and its correlates, teachers’ educational backgrounds and the teacher workforce, entry pathways into teaching and their consequences, teacher preparation programs and their graduates, teacher preparation and learning to teach in the early career years, and teachers’ life experiences and beliefs/practices. The article analyzes and critiques each genre, including its contributions/limitations and the controversies it addresses.

Conclusions/Recommendations

The review concludes that there continue to be relatively few studies that connect aspects of teachers’ education to outcomes; some genres focus primarily on outcomes related to student achievement, whereas others focus primarily on outcomes related to teacher learning. These genres have grown up relatively separately from one another. The review recommends that all six research genres ought to be taken into account by policymakers, researchers, and practitioners in order to have a rich understandings of teachers’ education and outcomes.
Zoned for Change: A Historical Case Study of the Belmont Zone of Choice
Authors: Martínez Ramón A. , Quartz Karen H.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Over the past two decades, scholars have increasingly called for educational leaders to collaborate with community-based organizations in their efforts to bring about school reform. Observing that school reform efforts often fail to include those most impacted by failing policies and practices, these scholars have turned their attention to the role of community organizations that advocate on behalf of parents and students in under-served communities. These scholars have explored the potential of community organizing strategies for transforming public schools, documenting the crucial role of strategic alliances between community-based organizations and school district officials in bringing about greater equity and improved student outcomes.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

The purpose of this study is to explore how educational leaders and community-based organizations collaborated to bring about unprecedented education reform in the nation's second largest school district.

Research Design

This historical case study is based on in-depth interviews with 11 high-profile school district, union, community, and other educational leaders across seven key partner institutions and organizations that were involved in the development of the Belmont Zone of Choice from 2001 to 2009.

Conclusions/Recommendations

This study reveals the kinds of obstacles facing reformers in large urban school districts, and it illustrates how concerned educators, community-based organizations, and educational reformers can form strategic alliances to fight for meaningful change in underserved communities. Rather than provide a simplistic or idealistic depiction of collaboration, however, this case study illustrates the tensions and struggles that emerged as diverse—and sometimes antagonistic—social actors collaborated to bring about education reform at the local level. It also illustrates that strategic alliances are not necessarily sufficient to ensure successful reform implementation within contexts of political and economic asymmetry. As such, the history of the Belmont Zone of Choice highlights both the promise and challenge of community organizing for school reform.
The Politics of Data Use
Authors: Henig Jeffrey R.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Many contemporary education reformers present themselves as reformers who, armed with data and evidence, are locked in battle against politics, the weapon of choice for entrenched defenders of the status quo. Although studies of school reform increasingly recognize that politics is inevitably intertwined with reform efforts, the conceptualization of politics is thin and largely divorced from the broader literature in the discipline of political science.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

This study reviews political science theories and findings to inform our understanding of how politics affects efforts in order to increase data usage in education policy and school reform and to lay a foundation for future research on the issue.

Research Design

This is a review and analytical synthesis of literature that for the most part has not looked at the education policy arena in order to derive insights relevant to contemporary efforts to infuse education policy with greater attention to data.

Conclusions/Recommendations

Rather than block the door to politics, those who hope to promote informed policy making might consider ways to use politics to protect and defend high-quality data and their informed application.
Music in Higher Education after the Bologna Treaty: Or, in Search of a New Educational Culture
Authors: Mota Graça
Published: November 2021

If the logos of current pragmatism regulates and places and manages, the logos of metaphor and cadence deregulates and displaces and offers a migratory movement out. Pragmatism addresses the functional brain. Metaphor and cadence address the whole imagination. An age of pragmatism without imagination, and age of postmodernism without meaning, is and age without spirit, prophecy or hope.

(Peter Abbs, 2003)

At the beginning of the academic year, a student stops me in the corridor of our college and asks, “Do you know if I am already in Bologna?” After a short moment of a little perplexity, I answer jocosely, “Well, I would say that right now you are in Porto, Portugal.”

Being in Bologna (or not) means, for our students, that their request to change from the pre-Bologna Treaty course syllabus to the new one, according to the Bologna guidelines, has been institutionally accepted. Bologna is in this sense a metaphor for a new graduation model—for some students, a better solution for their future ambitions of more easily entering the teaching profession and, who knows, perhaps even another European country.

Beautiful Bologna, this lively Italian university city with its Renaissance palaces and its innumerous ochre-colored arcades, means little or nothing to my student. She simply wants to know how her graduation prospects will look in the next three years.
New Teacher Induction—In and Out of Cyberspace
Authors: Berry Barnett , Byrd Ann
Published: November 2021

“Those who enter the ranks of teachers do not know how to teach, although they may know everything that is in the innumerable books telling them how to teach.”

— Willard Waller, 1932
Exit Strategies: How Low-Performing High Schools Respond to High School Exit Examination Requirements
Authors: Holme Jennifer J.
Published: November 2021

Background

Over the past several decades, a significant number of states have either adopted or increased high school exit examination requirements. Although these policies are intended to generate improvement in schools, little is known about how high schools are responding to exit testing pressures.

Purpose

This study examined how five low-performing high-poverty high schools responded to the pressures of Texas’ exit testing policy. The goal of this study was to understand how schools responded to the pressures of Texas’ exit testing system (in terms of curriculum, instruction, and supports for low-achieving students) and how educators reconciled those pressures with other accountability pressures that they faced.

Research Design

This study employed qualitative case study design. Five low-performing high schools were sampled within the state of Texas, each of which served large concentrations of at-risk students. A total of 105 interviews were conducted across the five case study sites over the course of 2 years (2008–2009).

Conclusions

This study found that the Texas exit testing policy created a misalignment between educator and student-level accountability, which had particularly negative consequences for struggling students. The findings of this study suggest a need for policy makers to reconsider the assumptions on which exit tests are based and to more closely consider the goal of exit testing systems in the context of, and in relation to, the larger systems of accountability in which they are embedded. Acknowledgments The research reported herein was supported by a grant from the Spencer Foundation. The author would like to thank the editors of Teachers College Record, as well as the anonymous reviewers, for their helpful feedback on the manuscript. The author would also like to thank Meredith Richards and Rebecca Cohen for their assistance with data collection for the project.
The Effectiveness of Online and Blended Learning: A Meta-Analysis of the Empirical Literature
Authors: Means Barbara , Toyama Yukie , Murphy Robert , Baki Marianne
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Earlier research on various forms of distance learning concluded that these technologies do not differ significantly from regular classroom instruction in terms of learning outcomes. Now that web-based learning has emerged as a major trend in both K–12 and higher education, the relative efficacy of online and face-to-face instruction needs to be revisited. The increased capabilities of web-based applications and collaboration technologies and the rise of blended learning models combining web-based and face-to-face classroom instruction have raised expectations for the effectiveness of online learning.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

This meta-analysis was designed to produce a statistical synthesis of studies contrasting learning outcomes for either fully online or blended learning conditions with those of face-to-face classroom instruction.

Population/Participants/Subjects

The types of learners in the meta-analysis studies were about evenly split between students in college or earlier years of education and learners in graduate programs or professional training. The average learner age in a study ranged from 13 to 44.

Intervention/Program/Practice

The meta-analysis was conducted on 50 effects found in 45 studies contrasting a fully or partially online condition with a fully face-to-face instructional condition. Length of instruction varied across studies and exceeded one month in the majority of them.

Research Design

The meta-analysis corpus consisted of (1) experimental studies using random assignment and (2) quasi-experiments with statistical control for preexisting group differences. An effect size was calculated or estimated for each contrast, and average effect sizes were computed for fully online learning and for blended learning. A coding scheme was applied to classify each study in terms of a set of conditions, practices, and methodological variables.

Findings/Results

The meta-analysis found that, on average, students in online learning conditions performed modestly better than those receiving face-to-face instruction. The advantage over face-to-face classes was significant in those studies contrasting blended learning with traditional face-to-face instruction but not in those studies contrasting purely online with face-to-face conditions.

Conclusions/Recommendations

Studies using blended learning also tended to involve additional learning time, instructional resources, and course elements that encourage interactions among learners. This confounding leaves open the possibility that one or all of these other practice variables contributed to the particularly positive outcomes for blended learning. Further research and development on different blended learning models is warranted. Experimental research testing design principles for blending online and face-to-face instruction for different kinds of learners is needed.
Changes in the Cognitive Complexity of English Instruction: The Moderating Effects of School and Classroom Characteristics
Authors: Polikoff Morgan S. , Struthers Kathryn S.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

A central aim of standards-based reform is to close achievement gaps by raising academic standards for all students. Rigorous standards coupled with aligned assessments will purportedly improve student opportunity to learn through high-quality, aligned instruction. After 10 years of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the impact of standards-based reform on student achievement in English Language Arts (ELA) remains questionable. Improving ELA achievement has been a central focus of NCLB, so this study examines changes in the cognitive demand coverage of teachers’ ELA instruction over time during the NCLB era.

Research Question

Three research questions guide the analyses: (a) How have the cognitive demand levels of ELA instruction changed over time? (b) To what extent have changes in the cognitive demand level of ELA instruction differed across settings based on school and classroom characteristics? (c) How have cognitive demand levels changed as school composition has changed?

Subjects

The sample consists of 2,064 ELA teachers in grades K-12. The teachers come from 344 schools in 15 states; the majority are K-3 educators.

Research Design

This study relies on secondary data analysis of teachers’ responses to the Surveys of Enacted Curriculum (SEC). First, we used a within-teacher fixed-effects regression model to determine how cognitive demand coverage changed over time. Second, we examined how these changes varied by school and classroom characteristics (e.g., Title 1 status). Finally, we investigated how changes in cognitive demand coverage varied based on within-school changes in school and classroom characteristics.

Findings

Findings demonstrate that cognitive demand coverage has changed considerably over the study period, moving from higher and lower levels toward the middle. There were, however, notable variations between schools serving different populations of students. Schools in urban areas serving predominantly students from historically marginalized groups (e.g., racial/ethnic minorities) saw more of a shift toward lower levels of cognitive demand than was seen at schools serving whiter and wealthier students.

Conclusions/Recommendations

There have been different instructional responses to standards and assessments in different settings, with decreased cognitive demand in urban/ high-needs schools relative to suburban/lower-needs schools. These shifts seem to run contrary to the idea that all students should be held to the same high standards. We recommend that future research consider longitudinal data regarding teachers’ instruction. It is also important that policymakers, particularly those working on the Common Core State Standards, consider these differential responses to standards-based reform.
Mapping Low-Income African American Parents’ Roles in Their Children's Education in a Changing Political Economy
Authors: Greene Stuart
Published: November 2021

Background

Much discussion and debate has surrounded the role that low-income minority parents can play in their children's education. Research focusing on parents’ roles has stressed parents’ sense of self-efficacy, cultural background, socio-economic factors, and the context of school to explain not only what motivates parents to become involved in their children's education, but also how, why, and in whose interests. However, few researchers have examined parents’ roles in the context of race and a changing political economy or the less visible roles that parents’ play in fostering their children's intellectual and emotional growth.

Purpose

This research examined the roles parents constructed for themselves in their children's education and the assets they brought to bear to support their children at home, at school, and in the community. This study also focused on the extent to which their roles changed over time through interacting with their children, other parents, and educators in parent involvement workshops.

Participants

11 parents participated in the study. Of these 11 parents, 7 were females and 4 were males. Their average age was 36. Three had completed high school, two had passed their GED equivalency exams, and two had completed college. One parent was Caucasian, one Latino, and nine were African American.

Research Design

Qualitative methods were used to examine parents’ legacies of schooling, the ways parents were involved in their children's education, and the challenges parents faced in their efforts to support their children. All data from interviews and focus groups were transcribed and analyzed to address the central questions motivating the study. Identifying categories of parent roles was an evolving and iterative process based on grounded theory and guided by prior research.

Findings

Findings revealed that parents supported their children's emotional well-being at a time when their children were perhaps most vulnerable. They worked patiently with their children when instruction in school outpaced their children's levels of understanding, when teachers did not provide clear instructions for completing homework assignments, and when parents needed to find programs well suited to their children's education.

Conclusion/Recommendations

Listening to parents’ voices helps us see the extent to which what matters most to families is often not visible to educators. Parents did not limit their involvement to supporting their children's performance on standardized test scores, but adopted a broad conception of education. Therefore, it is important that educators understand more fully who parents are, what parents are already doing to support their children, and develop models of parent involvement that are reciprocal and collaborative.
Taking a Societal Sector Perspective on Youth Learning and Development
Authors: Mclaughlin Milbrey , London Rebecca A.
Published: November 2021

A societal sector perspective looks to a broad array of actors and agencies responsible for creating the community contexts that affect youth learning and development. We demonstrate the efficacy of this perspective by describing the Youth Data Archive, which allows community partners to define issues affecting youth that transcend specific institutional responsibilities and to ask and answer questions using combined administrative records in an effort identify opportunities for joint action.
Beyond Classrooms: Scaling and Sustaining Instructional Innovations
Authors: Scherrer Jimmy , Israel Nancy , Resnick Lauren B.
Published: November 2021

In this chapter, we describe the evolution of an intermediary organization, the Institute for Learning (IFL) at the University of Pittsburgh, devoted to improving teaching and learning in some of America's largest and most challenged school districts. Over the nearly 20 years of IFL's life, we have learned that design-based researchers have to move beyond classrooms and focus on entire school systems if they hope their innovations will scale and sustain. Specifically, we believe the best way to develop capacity for sustaining innovation is through the careful design of practices intended to provide an ongoing forum for mutual engagement among actors from various levels of the education system. These practices, we have found, provide a productive way for actors from different levels of the system to understand and support the local activity of other levels.
Effects of Elementary School Home Language, Immigrant Generation, Language Classification, and School's English Learner Concentration on Latinos’ High School Completion
Authors: Zarate Maria Estela , Pineda Claudia G.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Relying largely on high school measures of home language use, the literature examining immigrant incorporation in schools provides contradictory evidence of home language effects on educational outcomes. More recent research has demonstrated that home language use is dynamic and thus it is important to examine the implications of elementary school home language, as opposed to the typically used high school home language, as a factor influencing various school processes. We argue that it is also necessary to take into account school-related language contexts when considering the experiences of Latino immigrant students.

Purpose

This study investigates the effects of early acculturation, measured by elementary school language, immigrant generation, and early linguistic experiences on high school completion.

Research Design

Using hierarchical generalized linear models, we test the effects of elementary home language, immigrant generation, early language classification, and middle school concentration of English Learners (EL) on the probability of high school completion for a cohort of Latino students in a large urban school district (N = 26,487).

Findings

Consistent with some of the existing research, this study finds that speaking Spanish at home in the elementary school years has positive effects on high school completion. Moreover, for Spanish speakers, having been reclassified as English-fluent before sixth grade and having attended middle schools with lower concentrations of EL students increases the probability of high school completion.

Conclusions

These findings suggest that taking into account earlier schooling processes and contexts in discussions about the influence of home language on academic achievement broaden the scope of accountability for educating immigrant students.
Exploring Colleagues’ Professional Influence on Mathematics Teachers’ Learning
Authors: Sun Min , Wilhelm Anne Garrison , Larson Christine J. , Frank Kenneth A.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

This article contributes to the literature on how teachers learn on the job and how schools and districts can support teacher learning to improve student learning and incorporate changing standards and curricular materials into instructional practices. The findings in this study are relevant to the implementation of ambitious mathematics instruction reform through changing teachers’ knowledge and instructional practices.

Focus of Study

This study examines how middle school teachers’ networks influence their mathematical knowledge for teaching (MKT) and instructional practices. We also examined how mathematics coaches’ expertise, in the form of MKT, plays a role in augmenting the extent to which teachers learn through interacting with close colleagues.

Research Design

The article draws on data from a larger NSF-funded study in four large, urban districts that responded to accountability pressures by attempting to implement ambitious mathematics instruction aligned with the recommendations of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) and by supporting implementation with a significant investment in teacher learning. The analysis in this paper involves 89 focal participants who were middle school mathematics teachers in 29 schools, the focal participants’ close colleagues, and their instructional coaches. Measures include mathematics teachers’ professional networks, MKT, classroom practices, individual background characteristics, and school factors. We used hierarchical linear models with cross-level interaction effects and in-depth sensitivity analyses of the effects of close colleagues and coaches.

Findings/Results

Our results show that changes in teachers’ instructional practice were positively related to their access to instructional expertise through interactions with close colleagues. But, we did not find a similar significant relationship between changes in teachers’ MKT and access to their close colleagues’ MKT expertise. Rather, coaches’ MKT expertise positively moderated the extent to which teachers learned MKT from their close colleagues through seeking advice on teaching mathematics; that is, having an expert coach in the school enhanced the MKT learning opportunities that teachers had from interacting with close colleagues.

Conclusions/Recommendations

Results from this study shed light on how to support teachers’ on-the-job learning and successfully implement ambitious instructional reforms in schools. It is important for schools and districts to consider ways to encourage the development of teacher networks that can promote instructional changes. For example, schools and districts can purposely provide common planning time and common workspaces that facilitate sharing expertise among teachers. They can also support teachers with instructional coaches who have content expertise and know how to facilitate interactions among teachers.
Change Management in the Governance of Schooling: The Rise of Experts, Planners, and Statistics in the Early OECD
Authors: Tröhler Daniel
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Based on archival material, the following paper analyzes the political strategies of the early OECD stakeholders in transforming schooling from a cultural to a technological system and how they were in need of standardizing different existing patterns of thoughts or institutional behaviors in the member countries. The European standardization process observable in the early 1960s, triggered by the OECD, affected the organization of the educational policies on a ministerial level designed to influence the national school systems according to a specific ideology.

Purpose

The paper asks how this new managerial ideology was transported, disseminated, and implemented and finds its answer in a specific rhetoric that bypassed politically taboo themes and that covered up the clear strategies: The new iron cage of accountability was based on omitting controversial topics.

Research Design

A contextual reconstruction of the discourse emerging from and reinforcing the process of standardization and the dissemination of specific ways of educational planning, such as statistics, and with them specific ideologies of how society and its citizens should be shaped.

Conclusions/Recommendations

Revisiting today's educational bureaucracy and its logic of expertise, standards, and accountability by reconstructing its origins in the Cold War and by that challenging the ideology of uniformity and accepting plurality as the condition of life of late modern societies.
Assessment as Evidential Reasoning
Authors: Gorin Joanna
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Principles of evidential reasoning have often been discussed in the context of educational and psychological measurement with respect to construct validity and validity arguments. More recently, Mislevy proposed the metaphor of assessment as an evidentiary argument about students’ learning and abilities given their behavior in particular circumstances. An assessment argument consists of a claim one wants to make, typically about student learning, and evidence that supports that claim. From this perspective, the quality of our assessments are a function of both whether we have built our arguments about the right types of claims and whether we have collected sufficient persuasive evidence to support our claims.

Purpose

This paper examines limitations of the dominant practice in educational assessment of the 20th century, which focuses on relatively simple claims and often rely on a single piece of evidence. This paper considers future educational assessment in terms of principles of evidential reasoning, focusing the discussion on the changes to the claims our assessments must support, the types of evidence needed to support these claims, and the statistical tools available to evaluate our evidence vis-à-vis the claims. An expanded view of assessment is advanced in which assessments based on multiple evidence sources from contextually rich situated learning environments, including unconventional data regarding human competencies, improve our ability to make valid inferences and decisions about all education stakeholders.

Conclusions

For educational assessment to have the positive impact we intend on educational outcomes, future assessments must leverage technological and computational developments, as well as more contemporary models of human cognition, to build robust complex evidential arguments about the critical competencies that are likely to determine individuals’ success in 21st century society.
Higher Order Thinking in an Online World: Toward a Theory of Web-Mediated Knowledge Synthesis
Authors: Deschryver Michael
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

The rapid pace of technological change, undergirded by near ubiquitous access to the web, is producing a new learning ecology—a new ecology of information, of knowledge, of reading, of teaching, and of thinking. This instant availability of digital resources frees both time and cognitive energy that may be used to facilitate higher order thinking. This article provides a framework through which to better understand, evaluate, and scaffold the generative synthesis of knowledge in a web-mediated world.

Purpose/Objective

The purpose of this article is to describe a theory that can stimulate additional scholarly work examining higher order, or generative, thinking in web-mediated environments.

Research Design

The author outlines theory development based on two explicit steps. First, he reviews scholarly literature from educational psychology, reading comprehension, hypertext and web-based reading, cognitive flexibility, and creativity. Based on this process, he develops a proto-theory for web-based synthesis. Then, using this three-fold operationalization of synthesis, the author reports findings from a multiple-case study of advanced learners on the web, resulting in further elaboration of the concept of web-based knowledge synthesis.

Conclusions/Recommendations

The author proposes a theory of web-mediated knowledge synthesis comprising seven interacting elements: (a) divergent keyword search phrases; (b) synthesis for meaning; (c) in-the-moment insights; (d) repurposing; (e) reinforcement; (f) note-taking; and (g) creative synthesis. Through these elements, this theory provides a road map for further exploration of how web users can construct knowledge that adds value to the information they encounter every day.
Complexity of Illustrations in PISA-2009 Science Items and Its Relationship to the Performance of Students from Shanghai-China, the United States, and Mexico
Authors: Solano-Flores Guillermo , Wang Chao
Published: November 2021

Background

While illustrations are widely used in international test comparisons, very scant research has been conducted on their design and on their influence on student performance. It is not clear how the features of illustration act in combination supporting students’ access to the content of items or increasing their interpretation demands.

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to examine how the characteristics of illustrations used in science items are related to the performance of students in PISA-2009.

Population

We used PISA-2009 data on the responses of 1571 to 1582, 1601 to 1617, and 11,662 to 11,746 students, respectively from Shanghai-China, the U.S., and Mexico.

Research Design

This was a secondary analysis study that compared the three PISA-2009 jurisdictions as to the magnitudes and directions of the correlations between the complexity of illustrations used in science items and the difficulty of those items. We used the information on item difficulty provided by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, 2010). The features of the illustrations were coded with a system that coded the presence or absence of about 100 types of illustration features. The complexity of each illustration was computed as the number of different types of features observed.

Findings

For the U.S. and Mexico, items with higher illustration complexities were more difficult than items with lower illustration complexities. For Shanghai-China, the correlation of number of illustration features and item difficulty was close to zero. This pattern of correlations is consistent with the three jurisdictions’ ranking in PISA-2009.

Conclusions

While this was an exploratory study that examined the performance of only three of the 65 PISA-2009 jurisdictions, the results speak to the importance of examining illustration complexity as a factor that shapes student performance in science tests and which should be addressed systematically in the design of science items.
How Can Schools of Education Help to Build Educators’ Capacity to Use Data? A Systemic View of the Issue
Authors: Mandinach Ellen B. , Friedman Jeremy M. , Gummer Edith S.
Published: November 2021

Background

With the growing emphasis for educators to use data to inform their practice, little has been done to consider the means by which the educators can acquire the requisite data literacy skills. This article provides a context for why schools of education can and must play an important role in preparing teachers to use data.

Purpose

This article sought to understand if and how schools of education are preparing teacher candidates to use data effectively or responsibly. The study examined the extent to which schools of education teach stand-alone courses on data-driven decision making or integrate data use concepts into existing courses. It also examined state licensure and certification requirements to determine if and how data use is included in documentation.

Population

A stratified randomized sample of schools of education was drawn with 208 institutions responding, representing a 25.7% response rate.

Research Design

The survey portion of the study consisted of a stratified randomized sample of all schools or departments of education in the United States. The syllabus review was a voluntary part of the survey. The licensure review was a descriptive analysis of every state's documentation for teacher licensure and certification.

Findings/Results

The survey results indicated that a vast majority of the schools of education reported that they offered a stand-alone data course, and even more integrated data use into existing courses. The syllabus review provided a deeper dive into the course offerings and indicated that the courses were more about assessment literacy than data literacy. The licensure review yielded a plethora of skills and knowledge related to data that are included in state requirements. However, there was wide variation across states in their requirements.

Conclusions

Even though schools of education reported that they are teaching about data-driven decision making in their teacher preparation programs, the results indicate that the content is more about assessment literacy than data literacy. This finding is consistent with the often observed conflation of the two constructs. Licensure requirements include both data literacy and assessment literacy, but the emphasis is more on assessment than data. With the increasing emphasis by policy makers on the importance of educators using data, it is essential that schools of education begin to incorporate data concepts into their curricula and that states make explicit the data-related skills and knowledge required for teachers for licensure and certification.
Teachers’ Use of Assessment Data to Inform Instruction: Lessons from the past and Prospects for the Future
Authors: Datnow Amanda , Hubbard Lea
Published: November 2021

Background

Data use has been promoted as a panacea for instructional improvement. However, the field lacks a detailed understanding of how teachers actually use assessment data to inform instruction and the factors that shape this process.

Purpose

This article provides a review of literature on teachers’ use of assessment data to inform instruction. We draw primarily on empirical studies of data use that have been published in the past decade, most of which have been conducted as data-driven decision making came into more widespread use. The article reviews research on the types of assessment data teachers use to inform instruction, how teachers analyze data, and how their instruction is impacted.

Research Design

Review of research.

Findings

In the current accountability context, benchmark assessment data predominate in teachers’ work with data. Although teachers are often asked to analyze data in a consistent way, agendas for data use, the nature of the assessments, and teacher beliefs all come into play, leading to variability in how they use data. Instructional changes on the basis of data often focus on struggling students, raising some equity concerns. The general absence of professional development has hampered teachers’ efforts to use data, as well as their confidence in doing so.

Conclusions

Given that interim benchmark assessment data predominate in teachers’ work with data, we need to think more deeply about the content of those assessments, as well as how we can create conditions for teachers to use assessment to inform instruction. This review of research underscores the need for further research in this area, as well teacher professional development on how to translate assessment data into information that can inform instructional planning.
Teaching Educators Habits of Mind for Using Data Wisely
Authors: Bocala Candice , Boudett Kathryn Parker
Published: November 2021

Background

Institutions of higher education, specifically schools of education, should play a pivotal role in supporting educators’ development of data literacy for teaching. While novice teachers are often prepared to use test-based assessment data, they learn these experiences in isolated courses that do not connect to instruction or school improvement. Moreover, once these novice teachers begin working in schools, they are increasingly expected to work with colleagues to apply data literacy skills, yet few preparation programs provide sustained support with using data collaboratively for whole-school improvement.

Purpose

This essay describes the habits of mind, or ways of thinking and being, that underlie data literacy courses offered by the Data Wise Project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The habits include: shared commitment to action, assessment, and adjustment; intentional collaboration; and relentless focus on evidence. Adding an emphasis on habits of mind expands building data literacy beyond accumulating discrete knowledge and skills or learning a process that becomes routine.

Research Design

The authors provide suggestions for instructional design than can be incorporated both in degree-program courses and in ongoing professional development. These suggestions provide opportunities for participants to actively cultivate the three habits of mind.

Conclusions

In order to support all educators while learning data literacy for teaching, there is a need to bridge the resources of an institution of higher education with the instructional capacity of professional development providers and the authentic experiences of school-based practitioners.
NCLB and Its Wake: Bad News for Democracy
Authors: Meens David E. , Howe Kenneth R.
Published: November 2021

Background

Local control has historically been a prominent principle in education policy-making and governance. Culminating with the passage of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), however, the politics of education have been nationalized to an unprecedented degree, and local control has all but disappeared as a principle framing education policymaking. During the same period, policies imposed upon locales by state and federal governments have shifted from an emphasis on equity to accountability.

Purpose

This paper examines what the eclipse of local control through NCLB and related policies means for democracy.

Research Design

Drawing upon contemporary normative democratic theory, we distinguish two dimensions of democracy that are at issue—democratic policymaking and democratic education—and conclude that the effect of NCLB has been to frustrate democracy along both of these dimensions.

Findings

In terms of democratic policymaking, we argue that NCLB oversteps the boundaries that may be legitimately imposed upon local participation in policymaking on the basis of democratic principles. In terms of democratic education, we show how NCLB undermines both the content and the context of schooling likely to inculcate the skills, knowledge, and dispositions required for meaningful participation in democratic politics.

Conclusions

Based upon this analysis, we offer a set of guidelines to aid in the assessment of future federal education policy vis a vis democracy. First, reform efforts should embrace a participatory model for engaging local communities. Second, curriculum standards adopted by states and locales should include a conscious and substantive focus on developing the deliberative skill and dispositions required of democratic citizenship. Third, efforts must be made to keep individuals and organizations that receive public funds accountable to the public through democratic procedures. Fourth, reform efforts must seek ways to more adequately and equitably finance schools. Fifth, the goal of better integrating schools across important categories of social difference should be revitalized in order to help ensure access to equal educational opportunities and the diverse context of learning that all students need for the inculcation of democratic character.