Using Standardized Test Data as a Starting Point for Inquiry

• In Event: 14.032 - Data Use for Improving Teaching and Expanding Opportunities to Learn: Implications for Policy and Practice

Abstract

Purpose and Perspective
Under federal accountability policies, schools face pressure to increase test scores and demonstrate student learning. Simultaneously, data-driven decision-making has gained popularity (Mandinach, 2012); many teachers are now required or encouraged to use data to inform instruction. Yet the details of this process vary across contexts (Datnow & Hubbard, 2015) and educators’ data use does not necessarily support student learning (Diamond & Cooper, 2007).

Building on literature that has identified learning opportunities, resources, and professional development for data use (Horn, 2015; Nelson, Slavit, & Deuel, 2012), we conceptualize productive data use practices as those that can lead to instructional improvement by increasing teachers’ knowledge, skill, and effectiveness (Horn, Kane, & Wilson, 2015). As teachers attend to students’ sensemaking and conceptual understanding, they can design instruction that responds to students’ learning needs. We investigate the ways in which workgroup conversations prepare teachers to engage in more ambitious forms of practice.

Methods
We present a case study (Yin, 2009) of sixth-grade math teachers as they analyzed data under the guidance of instructionally expert facilitators (an instructional coach and an assistant principal). During weekly meetings, the workgroup developed common assessments, analyzed students’ responses, and discussed instructional strategies in three-week cycles. Teachers analyzed data (including student work) from both standardized assessments and workgroup-designed common assessments. We conceptualize this as a “best case” scenario, given the dedicated time and expertise available to the workgroup. Examining teachers’ data use under such conditions allowed us to not only account for organizational and structural issues that typically undermine data use, but also to dig deeper into details of practice.

We engaged in discourse analysis to study video data of the workgroup conversations. Our primary units of analysis are Episodes of Data Reasoning, the moments in conversations in which educators’ reason about student data, which we interpret in the broader conversational context. We coded for conversational resources that shape teachers’ learning opportunities, including activity structures, problem frames, representations of practice, and epistemic claims (Horn et al., 2015).

Findings and Significance
We found that the workgroup framed assessment data as a starting point for deeper inquiry into student learning. Using assessment data, teachers identified ten students on the cusp of proficiency. They closely analyzed these students’ work to consider students’ conceptual understanding and how the misconceptions of these “bubble kids” likely permeated the entire classroom. The facilitators then pressed the teachers to connect their analyses to instructional strategies that responded to students’ thinking. Using data in this way positioned the teachers to improve their instruction and support student learning.

Our findings, however, are atypical. Data use often emphasizes identifying students and content for re-teaching (Horn, 2015); this is unlikely to support instructional improvement or student learning. Analyzing assessment data is a complicated process that depends on educators’ knowledge, skills, and beliefs about teaching and mathematics. Instructional leadership and curricular resources (including assessments) should support teachers and administrators in using a variety of data sources to inform instruction to develop responsive practice.

Authors

• Brette Garner, Vanderbilt University - Peabody College

• Ilana S. Horn, Vanderbilt University

• Britnie Delinger Kane, University of Colorado

• Mollie H. Appelgate, Iowa State University

• Jonee Wilson, North Carolina State University

• Jason Brasel, Vanderbilt Peabody College