Bridging Research and Practice With “Practical Measurement”: The Case of Improving Developmental Mathematics in Community Colleges

Session Submission Type: Symposium

Abstract

This symposium introduces and illustrates the notion of practical measurement in the context of improving community college education. The first presentation reviews the need for a science of practice improvement and the role of practical measurement in this science. The second describes the development of a new practical measure of community college student motivation and engagement. The third presentation presents validity evidence for this measure, from a diverse national sample (N = 500). Finally, the fourth presentation reports the results of randomized field experiments that tested methods to optimize the design of the questionnaire. In doing so, we develop an effective measure of college success and demonstrate that practical measures can both be used to advance practice and educational theory.

Sub Unit

• Division J - Postsecondary Education / Section 1: College Student Learning and Development

Chair

• Laura Graciela Costello, SEDL

Papers

• A Theory of “Practical Measurement”: Collecting Data to Support Improvements to Educational Practice and Theory - Anthony S. Bryk, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching; Paul LeMahieu, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

• Practical Measurement in Action: Designing a New Measure of Community College Student Motivation and Engagement - Laura Graciela Costello, SEDL

• Validating a New (Practical) Measure of Community College Student Motivation and Engagement: Results by Age and Race/Ethnicity - David Scott Yeager, Stanford University

• Using Experiments to Optimize the Validity of a Practical Measure - Yph Lelkes, Stanford University