Examining How School Improvement Strategies Impact K–3 Reading Growth: Identifying Latent Trajectory Classes

• In Event: Hilton Roundtable Session 6
  In Roundtable Session: Measuring School Improvement: Strategies and Stakeholder-Based Approaches

Abstract

As America’s global standing educationally has slipped, concern has increased regarding K-12 student attainment. Building on new empirical work concerning the relationships between school factors and student outcomes, collective research has begun to conceptualize school improvement as a journey and to propose that challenges schools face in changing their practices are partly determined by their location in that journey. The purpose of this study is to extend the discussion of school factors that influence student outcomes by developing a latent class growth analysis which identifies subgroups of schools sharing similar reading growth trajectories and examines whether (1) the quality of school improvement processes and (2) staff development activities help predict membership in the identified latent trajectory classes.

Authors

• Ronald H. Heck, University of Hawaii - Manoa

• Tingting Reid, University of Hildesheim