3-238 - Improving the measurement of instructional quality in low- and middle-income countries

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Recent years have seen increased efforts to improve the quality of education globally. A large body of research has shown that high-quality education programs can promote children’s learning and development (Yoshikawa et al., 2013). However, educational quality has remained low, particularly in many low- and middle-income countries (LMIC), where the measurement and monitoring of quality is still in its infancy. This symposium aims to add important information on the measurement of instructional quality in LMIC, thus providing policy-makers and practitioners with the knowledge needed to build capacity for the implementation of effective programs to increase the quality of education and children’s learning.
Four papers from different LMIC in Africa and Eastern Europe investigate the use of newly developed and existing measures to understand the unique qualities of the classroom environment and pedagogical practices in each country. The first and second papers investigate the psychometric properties of the Teacher Instructional Practices and Processes System (TIPPS; Seidman et al., 2013), a new classroom observation tool developed for use in LMIC that uses the teaching through interactions framework (Hamre et al., 2013), in preprimary and secondary education programs. The third paper examines a new measure of setting-level educational quality for use in LMIC, the Measure of Early Learning Environments (MELE), focusing on two models of pre-primary education in East African countries. Finally, the fourth paper investigates the applicability of the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS; Pianta, La Paro, & Hamre, 2008) to assess classroom processes in a low-income country in Eastern Europe.

Sub Unit

• Methods, History, Theory

Chairs

• Antje von Suchodoletz, New York University Abu Dhabi

• Sharon Wolf, University of Pennsylvania

Individual Presentations

• Measuring classroom quality in kindergarten classrooms in Ghana: The Teacher Instructional Practices and Processes System (TIPPS) - Presenting Author: Sharon Wolf, University of Pennsylvania; Mahjabeen Raza, New York University; J. Lawrence Aber, New York University; Jere Behrman, University of Pennsylvania; Sharon Kim, New York University; Edward Seidman, New York University

• Measuring classroom quality in secondary classrooms in Uganda: The Teacher Instructional Practices and Processes System (TIPPS) - Presenting Author: Sharon Kim, New York University; Mahjabeen Raza, New York University; Peter Halpin, New York University; Edward Seidman, New York University

• Preschool quality and child outcomes from East Africa: a comparison of madrasa and government pre-primary education - Frances Aboud, McGill University; Amina Abubakar, Pwani University, Kilifi; Elias Kumbakumba, Mbarara University of Science and Technology, Uganda; Shehe Abdalla Moh’d, State University of Zanzibar, Zanzibar, Tanzania; Daniel Muraya, Aga Khan Foundation, Nairobi, Kenya; Presenting Author: Melanie A. Dirks, McGill University

• Measuring instructional quality in kindergarten classrooms in Kosovo - Antje von Suchodoletz, New York University Abu Dhabi; Presenting Author: Fitim Uka, Private Bearer of Higher Education, Kosovo