Capturing Mathematics Instruction With a Person-Oriented Methodological Approach: Use of Latent Class Analysis

• In Event: 31.091 - Roundtable Session 10
  In Roundtable Session: 31.091-12 - Evaluating Instruction-Focused Programs and Strategies

Abstract

A secondary analysis of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Kindergarten data set was performed to explore teachers’ reported mathematics teaching practices to early elementary grade students during a period of mathematics education reform. Unlike the extant body of research based on a variable-oriented approach, the current study employed a person-oriented analysis to define teaching practices from a perspective that presumes the functioning of classroom teaching behaviors as a holistic entity, not as an aggregation of fragmented units. Results from the latent class analysis offer a characterization of mathematics classroom teaching as three teaching profiles; the subsequent ANCOVA revealed an interaction between teachers’ implementation of reform-oriented mathematics and students’ prior achievement.

Authors

• Jungah Bae, Michigan Virtual University

• Cynthia C. Griffin, University of Florida

• James Algina, University of Florida