Linking Instructional Practice to Student Performance

• In Event: Roundtable Session 116
  In Roundtable Session: Interventions to Support Data-Driven Decision Making and Instructional Improvement: Frameworks and Findings

Abstract

The research on teacher examination of data to improve instruction has provided several insights. For example, Goertz, Nabors Olah & Riggan (2009) explored the quality of information contained in the assessments and teachers’ ability to analyze the assessments. They found that few test items contained information that might give teachers cues about their students’ understanding. Further, most teachers analyzed interim assessment data for students’ procedural, rather than conceptual, understanding. Other researchers have found that assessments that are embedded in instruction and/or curriculum provide more information than those disconnected from the classroom (Fuchs & Fuchs, 1986; Wilson & Sloane, 2000).

This study seeks to contribute to the knowledge base about the influence of teachers’ examination of data for instructional improvement by experimentally testing the hypothesis that facilitating teacher examination of feedback on teaching practice in connection to student performance is a more robust model of data use than the current usual condition of giving teachers feedback on their students’ performance alone.

This paper reports on a pilot phase of a study to test the above hypothesis. In the pilot year reported here, 50 teachers were recruited to participate. They were randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. Treatment group teachers received individualized written feedback on their teaching from a videotaped lesson. In addition, during a subsequent professional learning community (PLC) meeting, treatment group teachers examined their teaching practices and connected this to the learning of their students as measured on end-of-unit assessments. Control group teachers examined student end-of-unit test results only.

Several measures were used to assess outcomes of the intervention. Both treatment and control group teachers' lessons were videotaped and rated using a rubric focusing on two dimensions of instruction: academic rigor and accountable talk. End-of-unit test results for all units across the year were collected. All participating teachers also completed both pre-post surveys at the beginning and end of the year, as well as 'exit slips' at the end of their PLC conversation.
Examination of the baseline data comparing the two groups showed no differences between the two groups in terms of experience, attitudes towards data, feelings of proficiency examining data, and data practices. On the post-survey, a few differences between groups emerged. The treatment group had significantly higher levels of feelings of proficiency examining data, but there were no differences in attitudes towards data nor self-reported data practices. On the exit slips, teachers in the treatment group reported higher levels of utility of examining data, after controlling for participant background characteristics. There were no differences in subsequent levels of academic rigor and accountable talk between the treatment and control groups. We hypothesize that this may be due to weaknesses in the focus of feedback in the PLCs and the number of feedback cycles, which are being corrected in the next phase of the study. In interviews, treatment group teachers reported several impacts of the treatment on their teaching. These findings are infused into the next phase of the study, to be conducted in the 2011-12 school year.

Author

• Jonathan A. Supovitz, University of Pennsylvania