working at the current school was 9.2 years. The sampled teachers’ relatively longer and stable working experiences in the current schools allowed us to estimate effects through teachers’ enduring relations across years. We selected five of the 11 schools in our sample for more focused case studies: Pasteur, Dickerson, Sage, Crosswinds, and Forest (all of schools are pseudonyms). In each of the case study schools, we interviewed principals and a sample of teachers. We used social network data collected as part of an earlier wave of survey data to select teachers to interview, taking care to select representatives from different informal subgroups (determined using the algorithm described below). We selected roughly one teacher per subgroup. Dependent Variable: Skills-based Instruction in 2008. Our dependent variable is the extent to which teachers adopted “skills-based instruction” in their reading instruction in 2008. We asked teachers to indicate on a five point scale (1= “almost never;” 2= “1 or 2 times a month;” 3= “1 or 2 times a week;” 4= almost every day, and 5= “one or more times a day”), how often they: “Read stories or other imaginative texts”, “Practice dictation (teacher reads and students write down words) about something the students are interested in”, “Use context and pictures to read words”, “Blend sounds to make words or segment the sounds in words”, “Clap or sound out syllables of words”, “Drill and practice sight words, e.g. as part of a competition”, “Use phonics-based or letter-sound relationships to read words in sentences”, “Use sentence meaning and structure to read words”, and “Practice letter-sound associations.” We took the mean of the nine items to form one composite variable (α=0.90). Focal Independent Variables
2. Correlation among Teacher Level Predictors Mean Standard deviation Skills-based Instruction in 2008 Exposure to professional development in 2008 Direct exposure to colleagues’ instruction Prior Instruction in 2007 Perceived value of evidenced based reform strategies in 2007 Highest grade taught in 2008 Skills-based instruction in 2008 29.839 8.464 1.000 Exposure to professional development in 2008 1.228 0.943 0.350*** 1.000 Direct exposure to colleagues’ instruction 396.189 415.121 0.442*** 0.170* 1.000 Prior skills-based instruction in 2007 13.973 4.228 0.611*** 0.195* 0.263** 1.000 Perceived value of evidenced based reform strategies in 2007 2.320 1.053 0.311*** 0.090 0.091 0.178* 1.000 Highest grade taught in 2008 4.390 2.294 -0.584*** -0.168* -0.302*** -0.487*** -0.069 1.000
Table 3. Correlation among Subgroup and School Level Predictors Mean Standard deviation Subgroup mean of instruction in 2008 Subgroup mean of instruction in 2007 School mean of instruction in 2008 School mean of instruction in 2007 Subgroup mean of instruction in 2008(n=47) 29.907 7.779 1.000 Subgroup mean of skills-based instruction in 2007(n=47) 13.506 3.396 0.801*** 1.000 School mean of skills-based instruction in 2008 (n=11) 12.776 2.981 1.000 School mean of skills-based instruction in 2007(n=11) 13.009 2.705 0.926*** 1.000 ǂ < .1 * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001
Table 4. Multi-level Model of Extent of Skills-Based Instruction in 2008 Variable Unstandardized Coefficient Standardized Coefficient Unstandardized Coefficient Standardized Coefficient Level-1: Individual Teacher (N=136) Exposure to professional development in 2008 1.591** (0.484) 0.114 1.623** (0.489) 0.116 Direct exposure to colleagues’ skills-based instruction _____ 0.003* (0.001) 0.143 Prior skills-based instruction in 2007 0.441** (0.135) 0.216 0.457*** (0.134) 0.225 Perceived value of evidenced based reform strategies in 2007 1.384** (0.521) 0.168 1.510** (0.509) 0.183 Highest grade taught in 2008 -0.859*** (0.251) -0.235 -0.783** (0.243) -0.214 Level-2: Subgroup (N=47) Subgroup mean of skills-based instruction in 2007 0.632** (0.251) 0.279 0.447ǂ (0.249) 0.197 Level-3: School (N=11) School mean of instruction in 2007 0.738* (0.308) 0.232 0.752* (0.292) 0.236 Standard errors are included in the parenthesis. ǂ < .1 * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001