Modeling Educator Preparation Provider Effects on Graduates' Improvement Trajectories

• In Event: 61.036 - Using Statewide Data to Improve Teacher Education Through a Research-Policy Partnership

Abstract

Using data from Tennessee, Authors (2016) found that there are significant and meaningful differences between educator preparation providers (EPPs) in terms of their graduates’ average observation ratings. Compared to graduates from bottom-quartile EPPs, graduates from top-quartile EPPs perform as though they have an additional year of teaching experience during their early careers. This suggests that – through recruitment and/or preparation – some EPPs are supplying teachers to Tennessee that are more instructionally effective on average than other EPPs.

While supplying high-performing, early career teachers is critical, this may not be the sole marker of an EPP’s quality. In particular, some EPPs may be better at preparing teachers who, though not initially high-performing, are more equipped for learning on the job. For example, these EPPs may provide specialized knowledge and skills for how to learn more and perhaps improve more rapidly during early teaching experiences. By focusing on average differences in observation ratings as novices, prior research has not captured the estimated effects of EPPs on graduates’ growth in performance over time.

Thus, in this current study, we investigate how teachers from different EPPs improve over the course of their careers. This entails developing new approaches to model the effects of EPPs on graduates’ growth in effectiveness over time. Here, we build on work related to the within-teacher returns to experience in Tennessee (Papay & Laski, 2018). This research has documented relatively steep teacher improvement trajectories statewide, with striking differences in trajectories across school districts. We use similar approaches to surface important lessons about the role of educator preparation in teacher development throughout the state.

In this paper, we first develop and test analytic strategies for examining heterogeneity in teacher improvement trajectories across EPPs. We look at improvement in both observation scores and contributions to student achievement (both direct measures of achievement and TVAAS scores).

Second, we examine whether there are significant and meaningful differences between EPPs in terms of their graduates’ improvement trajectories. Third, we test the relationship between initial effectiveness and improvement trajectories. We explore whether certain kinds of EPPs (e.g., graduate/undergraduate, elementary/secondary, traditional/alternative, those supplying teachers to certain kinds of districts) are associated with accelerated improvement trajectories.

States are increasingly using graduates’ workforce outcomes -- including graduates’ effects on student achievement gains and observation ratings -- to evaluate EPPs. To our knowledge, though, all such efforts focus on average differences in graduates’ scores which may mask effects on improvement trajectories. Documenting EPP effects on graduates’ improvement trajectories can have important implications for reconsidering how policymakers and researchers use workforce outcomes to evaluate the contributions of EPPs.

Authors

• Matthew Ronfeldt, University of Michigan

• John Papay, Brown University

• Emanuele Bardelli, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor