Newsletter - April 2015
From Keystrokes to Achievement Scores: The Main, Mediating, and Moderating Effects of Computer Use on Writing
Spencer Foundation
PI: Professor Mark Warschauer
Co-PI: Professor Jamal Abedi
Graduate Student Researcher: Tamara Tate
Abstract
With most professional and academic writing now taking place via computer, and new standardized tests also transitioning from print to screen, it is important to better understand how technology use affects writing. A rich data set for investigating this is available from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2011 writing assessment, the first such assessment conducted on computers. NAEP recently released restricted data from this assessment, including detailed keystroke data on student use of the computer during the test, as well as teacher and student survey responses relating to prior use of computers for teaching, learning, and writing both in and out of school.
Dr. Warschauer and his colleagues are analyzing these data for over 24,000 eighth-grade students who took this test, examining (1) the effect of prior computer use on writing achievement scores; (2) the effect of computer use during the assessment on writing achievement scores; (3) the relationship between prior computer use and computer use during the assessment in impacting achievement scores; and (4) whether any of these effects or relationships differ according to students’ demographic background. The findings will inform policy and practice in educational technology, writing pedagogy, and student assessment.
Spencer Foundation
PI: Professor Mark Warschauer
Co-PI: Professor Jamal Abedi
Graduate Student Researcher: Tamara Tate
Abstract
With most professional and academic writing now taking place via computer, and new standardized tests also transitioning from print to screen, it is important to better understand how technology use affects writing. A rich data set for investigating this is available from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2011 writing assessment, the first such assessment conducted on computers. NAEP recently released restricted data from this assessment, including detailed keystroke data on student use of the computer during the test, as well as teacher and student survey responses relating to prior use of computers for teaching, learning, and writing both in and out of school.
Dr. Warschauer and his colleagues are analyzing these data for over 24,000 eighth-grade students who took this test, examining (1) the effect of prior computer use on writing achievement scores; (2) the effect of computer use during the assessment on writing achievement scores; (3) the relationship between prior computer use and computer use during the assessment in impacting achievement scores; and (4) whether any of these effects or relationships differ according to students’ demographic background. The findings will inform policy and practice in educational technology, writing pedagogy, and student assessment.
Learning and Plasticity (LaP) Scientific Conference
Presentation Title: "The Benefits and Challenges of Brain Training"
Presented by Susanne Jaeggi
Äkäslompolo, Finland
Abstract
Working memory training and whether or not it is effective in yielding transfer to higher cognitive functions such as fluid intelligence has been the recent focus of many controversial discussions. Although we, and others, have repeatedly observed transfer in various domains and populations, others failed to observe such transfer. We think that in order to understand the features and parameters that promote training success, it is becoming increasingly important to look beyond single studies.
In this lecture, I report the results of a quantitative meta-analysis demonstrating that working memory training can be, indeed, effective. I also point out that there are several factors moderating the extent of transfer, such as pre-existing individual differences and motivation. Furthermore, I discuss potential underlying mechanisms of training and transfer and argue that researchers need to develop innovative approaches to move the cognitive training literature beyond the simple question of whether or not training is effective, but rather focus on determining for whom cognitive training is most useful and why. I conclude with the notion that despite the growing evidence, we are still at the opening bell in investigations of cognitive training and its benefits, and I outline some of the current outstanding questions, such as the longevity of training and its real-life consequences.
Presentation Title: "The Benefits and Challenges of Brain Training"
Presented by Susanne Jaeggi
Äkäslompolo, Finland
Abstract
Working memory training and whether or not it is effective in yielding transfer to higher cognitive functions such as fluid intelligence has been the recent focus of many controversial discussions. Although we, and others, have repeatedly observed transfer in various domains and populations, others failed to observe such transfer. We think that in order to understand the features and parameters that promote training success, it is becoming increasingly important to look beyond single studies.
In this lecture, I report the results of a quantitative meta-analysis demonstrating that working memory training can be, indeed, effective. I also point out that there are several factors moderating the extent of transfer, such as pre-existing individual differences and motivation. Furthermore, I discuss potential underlying mechanisms of training and transfer and argue that researchers need to develop innovative approaches to move the cognitive training literature beyond the simple question of whether or not training is effective, but rather focus on determining for whom cognitive training is most useful and why. I conclude with the notion that despite the growing evidence, we are still at the opening bell in investigations of cognitive training and its benefits, and I outline some of the current outstanding questions, such as the longevity of training and its real-life consequences.
Attendance Tops 200 at School of Education's 2015 Spring Alumni Event
More than 200 students and graduates from the School of Education's Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) and Teacher Credential programs attended the School's 2015 Alumni Event and Job Fair, co-sponsored by the School and SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union.
Following the welcome from Director of Education Virginia Panish, alumni participated in the two workshops they had selected from seven options.
From 11:40 am to 1:00 pm, alumni explored the job fair and networked with fellow educators and with Credential Program Coordinators Sue Vaughn and Susan Toma-Berge.
The event closed with a final presentation open to all attendees: Applying for your Teaching Position, presented by Bob Presby.
More than 200 students and graduates from the School of Education's Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) and Teacher Credential programs attended the School's 2015 Alumni Event and Job Fair, co-sponsored by the School and SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union.
Following the welcome from Director of Education Virginia Panish, alumni participated in the two workshops they had selected from seven options.
- Using Science and Content Areas as Context for Language Learning by Dr. Terry Shanahan and Dr. Lauren Shea (all grades)
- Piloting a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) Program by Brian Dang (elementary)
- California ELA-ELD Framework by CRLP (secondary, all disciplines)
- How to do Group Work Poorly… or Not by Jeremy Hansuvada (secondary, all disciplines)
- Assessment and Project Based Learning by Eusebio Travis Sevilla (secondary, all disciplines)
- Implementing the ELA Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in the Elementary Classroom by Julie Chiaverini (elementary)
- Using Rubrics to Make Learning Visible by Stacie Cruz (secondary, all disciplines) Project Based Learning by Jasmine Hwang and Tawnee Houses (elementary)
From 11:40 am to 1:00 pm, alumni explored the job fair and networked with fellow educators and with Credential Program Coordinators Sue Vaughn and Susan Toma-Berge.
The event closed with a final presentation open to all attendees: Applying for your Teaching Position, presented by Bob Presby.
UC Irvine School of Education Faculty and Doctoral Students Present at 2015 AERA Annual MeetingConference Theme: "Culture, Language, and Heritage in Education Research and Praxis"
Title, abstracts, and authors are organized by event (in alphabetical order).
Event: College Student Access Poster Session
Title: Reexamining Transfer Rates and Bachelor Degree Attainment of Community College Students Using Current Data and Methodology
Authors: Nicholas Graham, Yuine Ikari
Abstract
Community colleges may not be the best option for students of color or less affluent students. The present study utilizes the nationally representative ELS 2012 follow-up data to reevaluate earlier studies on transfer rates and degree attainment. Of interest are findings regarding lower rates for Latinos and higher rates for affluent students. Preliminary findings suggest transfer rates are lower than earlier indicated. Latinos are less likely than other groups to transfer, but all minority groups are equally less likely than Whites to graduate. Affluent students are shown to be more likely to transfer to selective institutions, although their odds of graduation are less likely than rising juniors.
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Event: Correlates of Academic Achievement
Title: 24-Month-Old Children With Larger Oral Vocabularies Display Greater Academic and Behavioral Functioning at Kindergarten Entry
Authors: Paul Morgan, Carol Hammer, George Farkas, Marianne Hillemeier, Steve Maczuga
Abstract
Data were analyzed from 8,650 children participating in a nationally representative, longitudinal study to identify socio-demographic, gestational and birth, cognitive and behavioral, and family functioning factors associated with or predictive of U.S. children’s oral vocabularies at 24 months of age. Additional analyses then evaluated whether the children’s oral vocabularies, measured using a brief parental survey of 50 possible spoken words, uniquely predicted their academic and behavioral functioning at 60 months of age. Prior to and following extensive statistical control for possible confounds, children with larger oral vocabularies at 24 months of age displayed (a) greater reading achievement, (b) greater mathematics achievement, (c) increased behavioral self-regulation, and (d) fewer externalizing and internalizing problem behaviors at kindergarten entry.
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Event: Design Principles for a Pedagogy of Teacher Education
Title: Articulating Design Principles for Productive Use of Videos to Facilitate Professional Learning Toward Ambitious Teaching
Authors: Hosun Kang, Elizabeth van Es
Abstract
Objectives. We seek to explicate design principles for using video to cultivate pre-service teachers’ ways of seeing, enacting, and analyzing ambitious mathematics and science instruction.
Theoretical Framework. The focal phenomenon is pre-service teachers’ interactions with one another facilitated by a teacher educator with video in teacher preparation contexts. Drawing on a situative perspective on learning (Greeno, 2006), we attend to principles of coordination that support communication and reasoning in complex activity systems that contain learners, facilitators, curriculum materials, and tools and how they are related to professionals’ learning. Framing and noticing (Levin, Hammer, & Coffey, 2009; Sherin & van Es, 2005; van Es & Sherin, 2008) are used as the analytical lens to examine discourses mediated by the use of video.
Methods. Techniques, or Modes of Inquiry. Informed by design research (e.g. Design-Based Research Collective, 2003; Edelson, 2002; Sandoval, 2013), we construct a design framework that articulates components for designing and orchestrating productive learning opportunities with video, and characterize participants’ learning with video through cycles of design, enactment, analysis, and revision. Data comes from three pre-service teacher education contexts in which video was used to help pre-service teachers: (a) decomposing and developing a vision of ambitious mathematics and science teaching through cycles of video analysis; (b) studying enactments of ambitious instruction through self-captured representations of teaching; and (c) systematically reflecting on practice to learn in and from one’s practice over time. We analyzed: (a) what was shown with video (i.e., selection of clip) and why (i.e., objective of outcomes), (b) when and how the videos were used in each context, (c) how the task was framed before viewing the video and discussions were facilitated after watching videos, (d) the roles of facilitators and participating teachers, and (e) any changes of discourse over time.
Results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view. Based on the analysis, we propose five design principles for the productive use of video to facilitate professional learning toward ambitious vision of teaching. These include: (a) foregrounding student thinking and learning in tasks, video and discussions, (b) stance-taking as a learner of teaching and about K-12 students’ abilities when framing tasks and problems of practices, (c) describing and naming pedagogical practices as they arise in representations of teaching, (d) eliciting and responding to pre-service teachers’ progresses in learning as reflected in their use of languages and practices, and (e) publicizing (de-privatizing) pedagogical decision-making in the moment by engaging in joint design, enactment and shared noticing.
Scholarly significance. We extend prior research that examines effective uses of video (Sherin, Linsenmeier & van Es, 2009; Zhou & Lundenberg, 2012) to advance research and practice for developing a pedagogy of teacher education. This study contributes to efforts to develop a pedagogy for teacher education (Grossman, Hammerness, & McDonald, 2009), with a particular focus on the use of tools to facilitate professional learning in context.
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Event: Design Principles for a Pedagogy of Teacher Education
Title: Video as a Central Artifact in Formative Intervention for Teacher Educators: Negotiating a Shared Approach to Working With Preservice Teachers
Authors: Jessica Tunney, Elizabeth van Es
Abstract
Objectives. We investigate professional development that brings together practitioners of teacher education -- university supervisors and classroom mentor teachers -- to design and implement a protocol for mentoring pre-service teachers in clinical placements. Guided by the notion of formative intervention (Engeström, 2011), this intervention aims to elicit the expertise of teacher educators themselves to specify the core practices of instruction that will guide observations and feedback on teaching. We consider the unique affordances of video for making progress toward these goals, focusing on how video helps the group negotiate a shared vision of supporting pre-service teacher learning in practice.
Theoretical Framework. We approach learning to teach from a practice-based perspective, understanding that newcomers are apprenticed by more knowledgeable others into the practices of the field (Lave & Wenger, 1999). For teacher education, assumptions in this theory of learning have been challenged by historical tensions within the system. We focus on two tensions: 1) the disconnect between universities and clinical sites in the vision of educating future teachers; and 2) the lack of a shared framework to guide teacher educators’ work. We consider how a formative intervention approach (Engeström, 2011) can address these tensions and create a system that collectively apprentices pre-service teachers into the profession.
Methods. Data include video recordings of seven professional development meetings and transcripts of video-based discussions. First, we identified and traced the trajectory of key ideas developed through the intervention (Ermeling, 2010). Next, we focused on how video helped participants develop more precise language to describe mathematics teaching, engage in joint sense-making, and explore alternative explanations and inferences (Sherin, Linsenmeier, & van Es, 2009; van Es, Tunney, Goldsmith, & Seago, 2014). Finally, we considered the role video played in supporting the group as they moved through the formative intervention framework, starting point, process, outcome, and researcher’s role (Engeström, 2011; Engeström & Sannino, 2010).
Results. We found that video afforded the group opportunities to address historical challenges in coordinating learning between universities and schools by providing a context to attend to the particulars of teaching. Importantly, video artifacts allowed the group to draw upon knowledge brought by both school-based and university-based teacher educators as they negotiated a common vision of mathematics instruction using a specific and precise language of teaching. In doing so, the group was able to connect the core instructional practices presented in university coursework with the practices modeled by mentor teachers and enacted in the classroom.
Scholarly significance. Video holds promise for supporting teacher educators in developing a shared vision of their work, as it allows groups to examine and respond to the complexity of mentoring student teachers in classrooms. In addition, we see video as a valuable tool for building a common language of instruction and an enriched knowledge base of practice-based pedagogies for learning to teach.
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Event: Explorations in Mathematics in the Elementary Grades
Title: Which Kindergarten Common Core Domains Are Most Predictive of Later Mathematics Achievement?
Authors: Tyler Watts, Greg Duncan, Douglas H. Clements, Julie Sarama, Christopher B. Wolfe, Mary Elaine Spiller
Abstract
The era of standards reform in mathematics has recently culminated in the adoption of the Common Core Standards for Mathematical Practice (CCSSM) by over 40 states. However, little research has investigated whether the domains of knowledge endorsed by the CCSSM predict later mathematics achievement. The current study examined the extent to which the various domain-specific proficiencies in mathematical knowledge promoted by the CCSSM in kindergarten (e.g. counting, operations, measurement, geometry) predicted fifth grade mathematics achievement. Data were drawn from a sample of 765 children from low-income communities. Findings indicated that early numeracy competencies, counting and operations, were the strongest predictors of fifth-grade mathematics achievement. Further, kindergarten operations was also the strongest predictor of both later calculation skills and geometry knowledge.
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Event: Exploring Different Theoretical Frontiers in Mathematics Education Research: Toward an Empowering Mathematical Experience for All
Title: Leveraging Feminist Theory to Disrupt Gendered Mathematics Teaching and Learning
Authors: Indigo Esmonde, Tesha Sengupta-Irving
Abstract
In this presentation, the panelists leverage three key insights from feminist theory to understand the manifest ways sexism and genderism (Esmonde, 2011), in particular, constrain what is possible for sociopolitical analyses of mathematics education, and for advancing a transformative praxis of research. These insights offer greater freedom to think radically about the role of mathematics education and research in the disruption of social oppressions. The panelists begin by recognizing schools as gendered, racialized, classed, and sexualized spaces (Mellor & Epstein, 2003), and so too, mathematics classrooms.
First, feminist theories recognize sex and gender as constructs mobilized to turn perceived differences (in bodies and behaviors) into oppositions (Mendick, 2006; West & Zimmerman, 2009). The current rhetoric and research in mathematics education does not similarly recognize this. Whether articulating gaps in achievement or opportunities, or defining pedagogies for “boys” or “girls,” the field most often relies on the normalization of gender binaries to justify inquiry instead of interrogating what these constructs presuppose, misrepresent, or obscure about mathematics learning opportunities.
Building from the first insight, the panelists argue for the centrality of variability (and not binaries) in research. Thus the second insight they leverage is intersectionality (West & Fenstermaker, 1995; Crenshaw, 1991), which recognizes the simultaneity of multiple systems of oppression (e.g., gender, race, class, (dis)ability). For example, when critiquing mathematics as a discipline reflecting social conceptions of masculinity—rigorous, logical, unemotional, objective—we privilege conceptions of white, middle-class masculinity and ignore other forms of racialized or classed masculinities (McCready, 2010). Intersectional analyses, seen elsewhere in educational research (e.g., Lei, 2003), therefore bear great promise for advancing a more transformative approach to social science research in mathematics education.
The third insight the panelist leverage takes the body as a necessary site of inquiry in understanding mathematics learning experiences. Despite the recent interest in embodiment and gesture in mathematics (e.g., Alibali & Nathan, 2012), the learner’s body itself remains largely undertheorized. And yet, considerable research attests to the regulation (and exploitation) of the racialized, gendered, and sexualized body of youth in schools (e.g., Noguera, 2003). From a feminist perspective, drawing together these literatures reminds us that social actors (peers, teachers) see, read, and interact through and on the body in profound ways that can impact what learning opportunities are possible. It was Dewey (1900/1980) who used the experience of buying classroom furniture to first illustrate how schools constrain the possibilities of learning even in physical ways (i.e., desks built for listening). Now, fat studies (influenced by feminist theories) offer related insights about how the physical learning environment, including desks, pre-imagine a learner’s body that “best fits” (Hetrick & Attig, 2009).
These three insights compel the panelists to ask, what role might normative (binary) displays of gender play in mathematics learning opportunities? How might we explore variability in these displays, and with what implications for understanding learning and identity development as intersectional projects? How might regulation of the learner’s body (talking, moving, silence) be understood as demanding visibility and/or vulnerability in learning? In short, what new inquiries might feminist theories inspire?
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Event: Exploring the Current Landscape of Technology, Instruction, Cognition, and Learning Poster Session
Title: Goal Setting and Learning Outcomes in Massive Open Online Courses
Author: Suhang Jiang
Abstract
The study presents a structural equation model of goal setting and learning outcomes in a MOOC. It suggests that setting goals is positively correlated with learning outcomes and higher goals are associated with better learning outcomes. These results inform the role of goal setting in the participation and completion of MOOCs. Future research directions regarding goal setting and MOOCs are discussed.
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Event: Focus on Outcomes: Evaluating Out-of-School Time Settings
Title: How the Power of Discovery: STEM2 Out-of-School Time Initiative Influenced Staff Efficacy and Student Outcomes
Authors: Rahila Munshi Simzar, Deborah Lowe Vandell, Teomara Rutherford, Pilar O’Cadiz, Valerie Hall
Abstract
This paper presents findings from the Power of Discovery: STEM2 out-of-school (OST) time learning initiative implemented during the 2013-14 academic year. The initiative sought to provide technical support of afterschool programs in the STEM area to improve staff efficacy for implementing STEM activities and student outcomes. Using two-waves of survey data collected from 48 staff members and 826 students from 35 program sites, analyses revealed which of the initiative supports successfully predicted increases in staff efficacy in the spring of 2014, controlling for staff-reported efficacy in the fall of 2013. Similarly, initiative supports that associated positively with increases in student outcomes were uncovered. Findings suggest that building networks between OST staff, parents, and classroom teachers can benefit staff and students.
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Event: Focus on Outcomes: Evaluating Out-of-School Time Settings
Title: Psychological and Behavioral Characteristics Moderating Longitudinal Associations Between Out-of-School Experiences and Youth Outcomes
Authors: Sabrina Kataoka, Deborah Lowe Vandell
Abstract
Organized activity participation is associated positively with school-related functioning and negatively with a range of risk-taking outcomes, but it remains unclear who benefits most from activity participation. To address this issue, we use a sample of middle school youth (N = 695) to examine two psychological and behavioral youth characteristics, defiance and college expectations, as moderators of the relation between activity participation and changes in youth functioning over two years. Multiple regression results are consistent with a compensatory hypothesis, such that the largest gains from participation are seen among youth who are highly defiant or have low college expectations. Future organized activity research should account for the moderating role of psychological and behavioral youth characteristics in organized activity outcomes.
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Event: Future Directions for Professional Development
Title: The Influence of Contextual Factors on the Sustainability of Professional Development Outcomes
Authors: Judith Sandholtz, Cathy Ringstaff
Abstract
This study investigated how contextual factors influenced the sustainability of outcomes from a 3-year, state-funded professional development program that provided science assistance for K-2 teachers in small school districts. The research used a case-study approach with a purposive sample of five schools that varied in participating teachers’ instructional time in science several years after the funding period. The primary data sources were surveys and interviews conducted with teachers and principals two and three years after the end of the professional development. Findings highlight the influence of principal support, resources, collegial support, personal commitment, and external factors. The research holds practical implications for enhancing long-term sustainability of professional development outcomes in science education.
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Event: Global Culture, Diversity, and Educational Understanding
Title: The Cultural Nature of Teacher Noticing: Analyzing Teacher Commentaries From TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study)
Authors: Jessica Tunney, Rossella Santagata
Abstract
This study adopts a cross-cultural lens to examine teachers’ noticing of mathematics instruction as a potential barrier to broad integration of the reform-oriented mathematics teaching practices advocated by research and policy in the US for many years. Data sources include publicly-released videos and teacher written commentaries from four countries participating in the Third International Mathematics and Science Video Study. These are compared qualitatively using two theoretical frameworks: “teacher noticing” and “usable knowledge for teaching mathematics.” Findings suggest cultural differences in what teachers attend to during teaching, how they interpret classroom events, and the ways they make instructional decisions in the moment. Results support previous research and provide implications for both research and professional development focused on noticing and cultural awareness.
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Event: Human Development Session 3
Title: Which Kindergarteners Are at Greatest Risk for Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity and Conduct Disorder Symptomatology as Adolescents?
Authors: Paul Morgan, Hui Li, Michael Cook, George Farkas, Marianne Hillemeier, Yu-Chu Lin
Abstract
We identified which U.S. children are at risk of symptomatology in both attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and conduct disorder (CD) as adolescents. Regression analyses of multi-informant ratings of a population-based, longitudinal sample of kindergarten children (N = 7,456) identified those displaying comorbid ADHD-CD symptomatology by 8th grade. Children frequently engaging in ADHD-CD-type behaviors by the end of kindergarten were more likely to later experience ADHD-CD symptomatology. Low academic achievement uniquely increased this risk. School-based mental health efforts to identify and reduce ADHD-CD symptomatology may require screening, monitoring, and targeting children manifesting both low behavioral and low academic functioning by the end of kindergarten as together they increase odds of severe ADHD-CD symptomatology by adolescence by a multiplicative factor of 8.1.
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Event: Identity Production in Progress! Multimodal and Creative Engagements With Media Across Genres
Title: Building Blocks of Identity-Making: Semiotic Resources in Story Sharing and Construction Play Sites
Author: Ksenia Korobkova
Abstract
This research presentation uses a multimodal discourse approach to show how media technologies such as popular websites, games, and toys, make available multiple resources for young people's practices of identity making (see Halliday, 1978, Radway, 2002). Two studies are presented, one dealing with a popular story-sharing app and one focusing on web sites and games of a prominent toy manufacturer. In both cases, available texts, genres, and technologies provide structured yet open-ended pathways through which young people make meaning of salient identity categories such as being a “girl”, being an “expert”, and being a "writer".
The first presented study uses content analyses and interviews with young girls writing, reading, and talking about stories based on a popular boyband and shared on a mobile story-sharing app. Discussion centers on how their discourses and experiences of using this app are generative of specific kinds of identities that track with being a teen girl and being a nonserious writer. The interviews show that the reliance on mobile technologies, pop culture content, and chat-based applications places the reading and writing experiences of these girls squarely into the "nonschool" genre which is discussed in opposition to school-based genre. Available narratives and technologies constructed paths to how “being a girl” and “being a writer” was defined. A theory of cultural genre (Bawarshi, 2003; Miller, 1994; Yates & Orlikowski, 1992), pointing to how material and semiotic resources cluster together in contexts, offers insights into how the same sort of practice (e.g. writing) can “feel” differently depending on the nature of tools, actors, and contexts involved. A genre cues certain practices imbued with relevance, value, and the scope of the activity. The next step would be to understand how cultural genres change, why some genres are more resistant to change than others, and what happens when the social actor, such as a learner, can recognize genres and use features from one genre of practice as resources in another.
The second study compares the texts and technologies associated with the Lego Friends franchise, which is primarily aimed at female audiences, and the Lego City franchise that is marketed to male audiences, to understand if and how the resources provided by the gendered franchises differ. Using quantitative and qualitative analyses, we examine how certain configurations of play and discourse are privileged through in the toys and associated media narratives. Findings show that the narrative and technical resources coded "for boys" and those coded "for girls" were different but call for a more nuanced explanation. The franchises, clustered through genres (action games for boys and avatar customization games for girls), provided different kinds of resources that paved multiple paths for identity production.
Tying the two studies together, the presentation considers the ways new technologies present multiple and multimodal resources for identity making and representing. This research complicates and extends the strand of thought on identity production in new media by showing how youth engagements with multiple semiotic and material resources yield multiple available repertoires of practices and identities.
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Event: Innovation in Doctoral Education Practice
Title: Drawing on Practitioner Knowledge to Enrich and Inform: Educating Doctoral Students With Backgrounds in Teaching
Authors: Karen E. Lafferty, Jessica Tunney
Abstract
This conceptual paper argues that doctoral students in education who bring substantial classroom teaching experience to their programs have unique contributions to make toward understanding how theory intersects with practice. By framing tensions around institutional status, learning objectives, and priorities in situated learning theory and cultural-historical activity theory, the authors suggest how university faculty can support P-12 practitioners in the transition to doctoral study. Implications are for drawing on practitioner knowledge to enrich and inform doctoral study and research.
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Event: Integrating Engineering Experiences in Science Education
Title: Anticipating Change: Secondary Teachers' Beliefs About Engineering, Students, and Science Reforms
Authors: Tesha Sengupta-Irving, Janet Mercado
Abstract
Science education reforms in the United States include the first-ever articulation of pre-college engineering standards. This analysis draws on focus group interviews in a case study of professional development for secondary math/science teachers designed jointly by a School of Education and Engineering. Twelve teachers working with students underrepresented in STEM were selected to learn engineering design from engineers. We examine teachers’ beliefs about engineering and its anticipated impact on students. We found teachers recognize engineering as interdisciplinary but underestimate the intellectual complexity of design. They also anticipate design will invert achievement hierarchies rather than dismantle them. For reforms to actualize justice for non-dominant youth, identifying and addressing teachers’ conceptions of what engineering involves and who achieves at it, is critical.
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Event: Kindergarten in Transition: Purpose, Entry Age, Curriculum, and Student Outcomes
Title: Kindergarten Mathematics Instruction and the Common Core
Authors: Tyler Watts, George Farkas, Greg Duncan
Abstract
Objective: The current study investigates whether kindergarten mathematics instruction has changed during the past decade, as standards-era reform movements have attempted to overhaul K-12 education. We conceptualize mathematics instruction along Common Core dimensions, and investigate whether changes in time spent on Common Core topics relate to student achievement gains during the kindergarten year.
Data and Methods: Data come from the both the 1998-1999 and 2010-2011 samples of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study- Kindergarten Cohort datasets that contain independent, nationally representative samples of children recruited at the beginning of kindergarten. We used teacher report measures in which teachers indicated how much time per month was spent on various mathematics instructional topics (e.g., counting to 10, adding and subtracting single-digit numbers). We then categorized instructional topics into the domains specified by the Kindergarten level of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematical Practice (CCSSM). This categorization led to three broad categories (Kindergarten CCSSM Topics; Advanced CCSSM Topics (topics beyond kindergarten); Non-CCSSM Topics).
The samples (1999: n= 15,090; 2010: n= 12,880) were restricted to students who: 1) could be matched to the same kindergarten teacher in fall and spring; 2) had valid fall and spring test scores; 3) had instructional data from the spring. We used a dummy variable approach to handle missing data on covariates.
Results: We found that kindergarten teachers report spending significantly more time on mathematics instruction in 2010-2011 than in 1998-1999. We did not find that children receive different amounts of time on mathematics instruction based on their school-entry test scores, but children in full-day kindergarten receive significantly more mathematics instruction than children in half-day kindergarten. We did not find that socioeconomic status or race was systematically related to instructional time.
Finally, results from OLS regression analyses indicate that time spent on certain mathematical domains recommended by the CCSSM (Operations and Algebraic Thinking; Number and Operations in Base Ten) is more strongly associated with kindergarten achievement gains than time spent on other domains (Geometry; Measurement and Data) in both the 1998 and 2010 cohorts.
We investigated whether time spent on various instructional topics differed based on certain child characteristics. In both samples, interactions between levels of the fall math score (low, average, high) and instructional topic failed to produce significant patterns, and joint-tests revealed that the set of interaction variables did not significantly contribute to the models. This same pattern held for interactions between family socioeconomic status and time spent on instructional topic.
Significance: These results lend support to the recent research that suggests that the benefits of advanced mathematics instruction during early childhood appear to be shared across students at all levels of school-entry skills and socioeconomic status. Results also suggest that while the CCSSM for kindergarten do include mathematics content that most kindergarteners will benefit from learning, the standards also recommend covering content in kindergarten that many students 1) already know, and 2) that increased focus on this basic content may result in smaller learning gains for the vast majority of students.
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Event: Kindergarten in Transition: Purpose, Entry Age, Curriculum, and Student Outcomes
Title: Will Increasing the Kindergarten Birth Date Cutoff Improve Student Test Score Outcomes? Evidence From North Carolina
Authors: Charles Kevin Fortner, Jade Jenkins
Abstract
Objectives and Perspective: In recent years, several states increased the age cutoffs for kindergarten entry requiring that children are at least five years old at the start of kindergarten (e.g., moving the date from December to September). Influencing these decisions is some early evidence of the positive effects from entering school at an older age, and marked increases in educational accountability and performance demands for secondary and elementary education; these factors have increased the importance of policy decisions concerning early education. The principal focus of this study is to determine whether age at school entry is beneficial for children’s outcomes in the short- and long-term given the equivocal nature of existing research.
Data and Methods: In 2009, North Carolina moved the kindergarten birthdate cutoff from October 15th to September 1st, requiring kindergarten entrants to be 5 years old on or before September 1st of the 2009-10 school year (and thereafter) to enroll in kindergarten. We leverage this policy change in a quasi-experimental research design to determine the impact of the change in birthdate cutoff on student test score achievement and proficiency in 3rd grade reading and mathematics. We also examine whether the change influenced the incidence of redshirting (parental decisions to delay entry into kindergarten by one year). To control for school district-level influences, we conduct both statewide and within-district difference-in-difference models.
We use recent (2007-2013) statewide micro-level census data from North Carolina, including student’s exact birthdates and information from kindergarten through 3rd grade. For robustness, we also compare the test score gap between 3rd and 4th graders who entered school under the October 15th cutoff policy with the test score gap between 3rd and 4th graders who entered school under the September 1st cutoff policy.
Results and Implications: In a prior study of the effects of kindergarten redshirting in North Carolina, we found that redshirted students were overwhelmingly more likely to be designated by their school as having a disability - up to 2.8 times the risk of being designated as disabled in 3rd grade. Therefore we also test whether the birthdate policy change influenced other available outcomes by the end of the third grade year (i.e., designation as gifted, retention before 3rd grade).
We are in receipt of test score and demographic data from the 2012-13 school year capturing the first year of statewide testing data for kindergarten students enrolled under the new cutoff policy. Our preliminary analyses show changes in the test score gap and proficiency rates across grade levels. The statewide incidence of redshirting decreased by 1.8 percentage points, going from 4.3% in 2008 to 2.6% in 2009, and dropping to 2.2% in 2010. Work on this study is in progress and will be completed in September 2014.
This is the first statewide evaluation of a change in birthdate cutoff policy in a large and diverse state. States are increasingly considering policy changes to birthdate cutoffs; the findings from our study are therefore extremely relevant in the current education policy discussion across the country.
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Event: Meet Journal Editors: Journal Talks 2
Title: AERA Open
Author: Mark Warschauer
Abstract
AERA Open is an open access journal covering all fields of educational research. We welcome submissions that examine learning processes and outcomes in any context or country and that are based on any disciplinary or interdisciplinary perspective. We ask contributors to publish their research instruments, protocols, guides, and, to the extent possible, data, and, if appropriate, include direct replications of related findings from published research. We also invite manuscripts that report precisely-estimated null results. Consistent with "the new statistics," we encourage estimations based on effect sizes, confidence intervals, and meta-analysis. Also welcome are submissions of rigorous empirical studies that draw on quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods traditions other than null hypothesis statistical testing, such as ethnography or data mining.
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Event: Motivational and Cognitive Processes: Math and Science Education
Title: Exploring Relationships Between Plausibility, Critical Evaluation, the Refutation Text Effect, and Students' Climate Change Knowledge
Authors: Doug Lombardi, Robert William Danielson, Neil Young
Abstract
Students often make evaluations and plausibility judgments about scientific explanations. In this study, we investigated how undergraduate students’ critical evaluation abilities and plausibility perceptions of climate change related to knowledge of global warming. We found that greater levels of critical evaluation and higher plausibility perceptions predicted more knowledge. We also examined students’ changes in both plausibility (i.e., plausibility reappraisal) and knowledge after reading a text about global warming. Specifically, our study revealed that reading a refutational text (a text designed to counter common misconceptions about climate change) led to significant plausibility reappraisal and knowledge change toward the scientific explanation of human-induced climate change. On the other hand, students who read a comparable expository text experienced no significant change.
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Event: Motivational and Cognitive Processes: Self-Regulation, Emotions, and Memory
Title: A Look at Executive Control in the Lab, in the Classroom, and in Real-World Achievement
Authors: Teomara Rutherford, Martin Buschkuehl, Susanne M. Jaeggi, George Farkas
Abstract
We use longitudinal data to investigate the relation between laboratory measures of executive control (EC), classroom self-regulated learning (SRL) behaviors, and ecologically valid measures of academic achievement in math and English/Language Arts. Theoretical definitions of EC have substantial overlap with the educational concept of SRL, where students must engage higher order cognitive skills to plan, monitor progress, and adjust behavior to attain goals. In support of our theory that EC skills are required for successful SRL, we find that student SRL behaviors mediate between 24 and 44 percent of the association between EC and achievement. Our results have implications for cognitive and educational interventions, suggesting that EC can support or may be a bottleneck for SRL and thus academic achievement.
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Event: Moving Utility Value Research Forward: Examining Moderators, Mediators, and Context
Title: The Robin Hood Effect? Benefits of a Relevance Intervention for Students From Families With Low Motivational Beliefs
Authors: Isabelle Hafner, Barbara Flunger, Anna-Lena Dicke, Hanna Gaspard, Brigitte Maria Schreier, Benjamin Nagengast, Urich Trautwein
Abstract
The current study aimed at investigating whether the effects of a relevance intervention on students’ value beliefs, self-concept, and effort differed depending on family characteristics (SES, family interest, parent’s intrinsic and utility value).
Theoretical Perspective
Previous research showed that students’ motivation in the subject of mathematics is decreasing during secondary school (e.g., Jacobs, Lanza, Osgood, Eccles, & Wigfield, 2002), which has triggered the call for interventions buffering against this development. According to the expectancy-value theory (Eccles et al., 1983), students’ achievement-related behavior and academic choices are influenced by students’ value beliefs (utility value, attainment value, intrinsic value and cost) and expectancy beliefs. There is first evidence that relevance interventions promoting students’ utility value perceptions can also increase further motivational outcomes and students’ achievement (Hulleman, Godes, Hendricks, & Harackiewicz, 2010; Hulleman & Harackiewicz, 2009).
So far, it is unknown whether such interventions are a means to reduce gaps in academic motivation between privileged and unprivileged students. Research demonstrated that students with lower socioeconomic status and lower motivational family characteristics, e.g. parents’ value beliefs, also show lower levels of value beliefs and self-concept (e.g., Jodl, Michael, Malanchuk, Eccles, & Sameroff, 2001; Simpkins, Fredricks, & Eccles, 2012; Steinmayr, Dinger, & Spinath, 2012). Considering differential effects of relevance interventions in mathematics, families with high motivational characteristics might have ample knowledge about the utility and interestingness of math, whereas families with low motivational characteristics might not have these math-specific resources and therefore cannot pass them on to their children. Hence, relevance interventions might create a Robin Hood effect by passing on math-specific utility information to students whose families do not hold these resources.
Methods
For the purpose of this study, 82 math classrooms in Germany were randomly assigned to either one of two relevance intervention conditions or a control group. The interventions consisted of a 1.5 hours lesson about the relevance of mathematics to students’ future lives. In the intervention condition “text”, students were asked to write a text about the relevance of mathematics to their lives. In the intervention condition “quotation”, students were asked to evaluate interview quotations on the usefulness of mathematics. Data from 1522 students and their parents were analyzed. Students and parents answered questionnaires at a pretest; students additionally completed questionnaires six weeks and five months after the intervention.
Results
Using multilevel regression analyses, significant main effects of the intervention on students’ value beliefs emerged. Additionally, significant cross-level interactions were found between the intervention and family’s math interest as well as parents’ intrinsic math value. Five months after the intervention, the effects on value beliefs and on effort were higher for students whose parents reported lower levels of family interest and lower intrinsic math values than their counterparts, thus creating a Robin Hood effect: Students with lower motivational family characteristics gained more from the intervention.
Significance
Based on a large data set and a randomized controlled trial, our results highlight the effectiveness of relevance interventions in promoting value beliefs for students in need, thereby compensating for low motivational family characteristics.
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Event: Online Teaching and Learning SIG Poster Session 1
Title: English Language Learners in Massive Open Online Courses
Authors: Suhang Jiang, Yu Liu, Mark Warschauer
Abstract
The study compares the academic performance and social presence of learners with limited English proficiency and advanced/native English speakers in an Algebra MOOC. We found out that learners with limited English proficiency outperformed native English speakers, but they were more peripheral in the learning community. Implications and suggestions are discussed.
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Event: Procrastination and Calibration: Factors Impacting College Students' Self-Regulated Learning
Title: I Thought I Was Going to Get an A! Understanding the Role of Self-Efficacy and Calibration in Student Achievement and Help Seeking
Authors: Katerina Schenke, Cathy Tran, Tutrang Chung Nguyen, Lynn C. Reimer, Thurston Domina
Abstract
We examined the contribution of self-efficacy beliefs and calibration on student achievement and help seeking in a sample of 4,197 STEM undergraduates. OLS regression revealed that students’ self-efficacy was positively related to grade at the end of the term; however, the inaccuracy of predicted grade had a strong negative association with actual course grade when controlling for whether or not the student had over predicted. Results obtained from looking at students’ need for help, their reported help from a teaching assistant or instructor, and their reported help from peers reveal different patterns among the variables of interest. We discuss results with regard to the importance of considering self-efficacy as well as calibration in examining students’ achievement and help seeking.
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Event: Promising Scholarship in Education: Dissertation Fellows and Their Research
Title: Designing for Productive Persistence After Failure
Author: Cathy Tran
Abstract
We could not learn without failure. In fact, trial and error may be the most fundamental learning mechanism in nature. It is how babies explore and get to know the world. What tastes good? What hurts? What makes us laugh? We try. We stumble. We revise. We try again. Sometimes we get it. Sometimes we abandon the task. If we only did things we already knew how to do, we would not learn anything. This kind of productive failure is prevalent in children's play and inherent in their games, particularly video games. Failure is the norm in most video games—success is the exception. How many replays does it take to complete a level of Angry Birds successfully? Players experiment with one strategy after another, making adjustments, keeping what works, and discarding what proves to be unsuccessful. It is a wonderful iterative learning process.
Sadly, those same players who show such resilience in games often view failure in school as confirmation of their inability. This dissertation tackles that challenge of how to design learning environments that embrace failure and the benefits of learning from failure. Deep knowledge is more likely to be developed through failures than successes since we are more likely to search for causes for failure than causes for success (for a review, see Weiner, 1985). For instance, research with tutors shows that students learn more from explanations given by tutors after, rather than before, they have experienced a lack of requisite knowledge to solve a given task (VanLehn, Siler, Murray, Yamuachi, & Baggett, 2003). Research in productive failure shows that students are more prepared to learn after they generate several solutions to a complex, open-ended problem even when those solutions are rarely accurate (Kapur, 2008). Finally, work in the area of desirable difficulties provides evidence that instructional manipulations that introduce difficulties can be strategically designed such that they slow down the rate of knowledge acquisition but enhance recall and transfer (Bjork, 2013). This body of work illustrates that learning profits from instances of failure, but to reap those benefits, one must persist in the face of failure.
My research provides insight on how to design learning environments in a manner that elicits productive persistence after failure. Through two projects, I bridge the work in educational psychology, cognition, affective science, and game design to facilitate the study of what influences persistence after failure and how knowledge about those influential factors can inform the development of educational environments. Designing effective instructional games that promote productive persistence goes beyond imposing game elements such as reward points into existing educational tasks or integrating educational elements such as multiple-choice questions into existing games. My research identifies the underlying elements, structures, and contexts that are likely to promote productive persistence in games to investigate how to more effectively apply these elements to the challenges of more formal learning environments.
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Event: Relational Reasoning in STEM Domains: What Empirical Research Can Contribute to the National Dialogue
Title: Relational Thinking in Elementary Mathematics
Authors: Lindsey Richland, Kreshnik Begolli, Rebecca Frausel
Abstract
Purpose/Theoretical Framework
Relational thinking is core to mathematical thinking and generalizable learning, in the form of representing problems or concepts as systems of relationships, yet relational thinking is seriously underutilized in U.S. classroom teaching (Hiebert et al, 2003; Richland, Zur & Holyoak, 2007), and many students graduate from k-12 instruction with explicit beliefs that mathematics is a discipline of memorization as opposed to reasoning (Givven, Stigler & Thompson, 2011).
We describe key pedagogical strategies for using relational thinking in classroom practice for drawing connections: comparing students' solutions to one problem (Ball et al, 2008; Stein, et al, 2008). A common strategy for leading classroom discussions in which solutions to a single problem are compared draws in part on the Japanese instructional model and the conceptual change model (see Stigler & Hiebert, 1999, Vosniadou & Brewer, 1987). In this routine, the teacher selects multiple students to present their solutions, typically beginning with a student demonstrating a common misconception, followed by students who use variations of valid solutions. However, we previously found that when a student misconception was presented first and inadequately compared with more appropriate strategies, students were likely to continue or begin using the misconception strategy (Begolli & Richland, 2013).
A set of experiments tested whether the comparison between solution strategies was best organized by beginning or ending with the misconception, and whether the challenges of ignoring a presented misconception at the beginning of a lesson is more difficult for students with low inhibitory control and executive function skills.
Method
In all experiments, fifth and sixth-grade students individually interacted with videotaped classroom instruction on rate/ratio. A whole class lesson was videotaped and broken into segments that were presented to students in a new school using an interactive computer program. Participants were administered a pretest, immediate posttest, and delayed posttest with validated procedural and conceptual subscales. In experiment 1, the misconception and valid solutions were presented in different orders, randomized within classroom, with either misconception shown first followed by valid (n = 47), or the opposite (n = 48). Participants also completed a battery of working memory and executive function measures. Experiment 2 replicated Experiment 1 with additional cognitive measures and a larger sample on the misconception first condition. Experiment 3 replicated the effect of presentation order.
Results
A median split design was used to examine the relations among instructional order, cognitive skills and posttest scores. Analyses controlled for pretest so to minimize relations between prior knowledge and cognitive skills. See table 3.1 for information on significance tests.
In sum, comparing solution strategies can be a powerful way to support students in developing procedural and conceptual knowledge, but only when they have adequate processing resources or pedagogical support to ensure that they make the comparisons. If not, presenting a misconception before valid instruction may lead to greater use of the misconception at posttest.
Significance
With careful support, relational thinking is a powerful tool for promoting flexible procedural and conceptual knowledge in mathematics education.
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Event: Roundtable 4: Students’ Mathematical Thinking: Grades 5-8
Title: Productive Struggle and the Development of Relational Equity in a Mathematics Learning Community
Authors: Tesha Sengupta Irving, Priyanka Agarwal
Abstract
Developing conceptual understanding takes productive struggle – students grappling with important mathematical ideas that are not yet apparent. Our analysis explored productive struggle in a novel way by examining struggle in relation to the achievement of relational equity: students communicating effectively, appreciating others’ perspectives and engaging respectfully. Drawing on video of small group collaborations in two 5th grade elementary classes, we present a two-part analysis: The first are prospective indicators that attune teachers and researchers to significant moments of struggle as they unfold. Second, we offer video analyses of select problem solving episodes. We argue that while struggle marks the intellectual work of learning communities, it also reveals important dynamics that serve to strengthen or threaten equity within the community.
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Event: Roundtable 6: Thriving and Surviving in STEM: Improving Outcomes for Underrepresented Populations in the Sciences
Title: Problem-Solving Pedagogies: Enhancing Undergraduate STEM Outcomes for Underrepresented Students
Authors: Lynn C. Reimer, Amanda Nill, Tutrang Chung Nguyen, Thurston Domina, Mark Warschauer
Abstract
Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields require creativity to solve real-world problems. How do STEM students develop this expertise? Inclusion of advanced problem solving strategies in STEM courses is associated with positive student outcomes. Results reported here are taken from of a larger study of promising instructional practices in entry-level STEM courses with enrollments of 250 or more. Institutional data and an observation protocol identified problem solving in introductory chemistry courses (N = 1,265). Results indicated students exposed to algorithmic problem solving during large lecture courses in introductory chemistry tend to progress to the next course and international students exposed to advanced problem solving pedagogies in the first course, they tend to have higher grades in the subsequent course.
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Event: Roundtable 16: Studying Achievement in Math and Science
Title: Bridging the Achievement Gap: A Longitudinal Study of the Differentiated Lingering Effect of Flipped Instruction
Authors: Wenliang He, Renee Link
Abstract
Our study involved two lower-level Chemistry courses, Chem 51A & 51B, taught in five consecutive years from 2009 to 2013. Flipped instruction was introduced in Chem 51A since 2012. The effect of flipped instruction was examined using student exam scores in Chem 51B, which has always been taught using traditional lectures. Results indicated that for academically advantaged students, the effect of flipped instruction did not persist beyond the course where it was originally applied. However, flipped instruction had lingering effect on at-risk students who had failed Chem 51A at least once before. In effect, the achievement gap between advantaged and at-risk students was greatly reduced after the introduction of flipped instruction.
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Event: Roundtable 19: Adolescents, Parents, and Peers; Patterns and Issues
Title: Adolescent Work Intensity and Youth Development: Links Vary by Family Income
Author: NaYoung Hwang
Abstract
Research suggests that the relations between adolescent employment and developmental outcomes differ according to family background. Using data from the Educational Longitudinal Study (ELS), this study examines whether the links between varying levels of work intensity and several youth developmental outcomes, including peer group, college aspirations, and educational outcomes, vary by family income. Results show that for students who are not living in poverty, high-intensity work is associated with an increase in friendship with high school dropouts and a decrease in homework hours, math achievement, and educational attainment. However, for students from very low-income families, high-intensity work is either unrelated to youth outcomes or linked with positive outcomes.
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Event: Student Heterogeneity in the Classroom: Precursors and Links to Outcomes
Title: Ethnic Composition and Heterogeneity in the Classroom: Measurement and Relationship With Student Outcomes
Authors: Camilla Rjosk, Dirk Richter, Oliver Ludtke, Petra Stanat, Jacquelynne Eccles
Abstract
As societies become more diverse in terms of ethnic background, the composition of the student body within educational systems diversifies as well. Various theoretical accounts commonly assume a negative relationship between the proportion of ethnic minority students and student achievement due to school resources, instructional quality, language spoken with peers, and learning culture (Driessen, 2002; Goldsmith, 2011; Raudenbush, Fotiu, & Cheong, 1998; Stipek, 2004). Research on the degree to which this ethnic makeup of schools or classrooms affects student achievement shows mixed results: The proportion of ethnic minority students in a school or classroom often has no or slightly negative effects on student achievement (Mickelson et al., 2013; Van Ewijk & Sleegers, 2010). Yet, some studies report that a higher proportion of heterogeneous minority students may lead to higher achievement (e.g., Benner & Crosnoe, 2011; Peetsma, Van der Veen, Koopman, & Van Schooten, 2006; Gurin et al. 2003; Tam & Bassett, 2004), as students in such learning environments encounter and have to work through contradictions and discrepancies in everyday life, which helps them to expand their intellectual capacities. These mixed results may be due to the operationalization of the ethnic composition: Most studies so far have only distinguished between ethnic minority and majority without addressing ethnic heterogeneity.
The present study explores various measures of ethnic composition and heterogeneity, such as Simpson’s D, Shannon’s H, and Kvalseth’s OD, used in different disciplines as a key to understanding the inconsistent findings (see Budescu & Budescu, 2012; McDonald & Dimmick, 2003). Our aim is to find out whether measures of ethnic diversity are related to student achievement and psychosocial outcomes over and above commonly investigated characteristics of classroom composition (i.e., average cognitive abilities, average socioeconomic status). Our multi-level analyses are based on data from a representative sample of 19,457 elementary school students in western states of Germany in 908 4th grade classrooms (Stanat, Pant, Böhme, & Richter, 2012). Student achievement outcomes in reading and mathematics were assessed with standardized tests. In addition to student achievement, we examine the effects of ethnic heterogeneity on students’ sense of belongingness to their classmates. This variable was assessed with a 4-item-scale in the student questionnaire.
Multilevel structural equation models revealed that the proportion of minority students in the classroom showed the strongest association with student outcomes (reading: beta = -.29, p < .01; mathematics: beta = -.36, p < .01; belongingness: beta = -.28, p < .01). After including measures of ethnic diversity in addition to the proportion of minority students, we found different patterns of results: While ethnic diversity in the classroom was not significantly related with reading achievement (beta = -.06, p > .05) or with sense of belongingness to classmates (beta = .05, p > .05), students showed higher mathematics achievement in ethnically more diverse classrooms (beta = .23, p < .01). The presentation will discuss possible explanations for the differential findings as well as implications of using different measures to describe the ethnic makeup of classrooms.
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Event: Student Heterogeneity in the Classroom: Precursors and Links to Outcomes
Title: Heterogeneity of Student Perceptions of the Classroom Climate: A Latent Profile Approach
Authors: Katerina Schenke, Arena C. Lam, Erik Ruzek, AnneMarie M. Conley, Stuart A. Karabenick
Abstract
Motivation scholars underscore the importance of students’ individual perceptions of the learning environment for explaining learning-related outcomes, such as academic motivation and achievement (Ames, 1992; Eccles, 1983). Indeed, students in the same classroom often perceive their teacher’s instructional or motivational practices quite differently (Chang, Ruzek, Schenke, Conley, & Karabenick, under review; Miller & Murdock, 2007). However, systematic investigation of within-classroom differences in student reports of the classroom climate is exceedingly rare, and an understanding of how the qualitative differences in these perceptions relate to classroom-level outcomes is lacking. Accordingly, this paper explores heterogeneity of student perceptions of the classroom emotional (emotional support), motivational (achievement goal structure), and instructional (academic press) climate in relation to classroom-level mathematics achievement.
Motivational climate is indicated by classroom goal structure, i.e., the extent to which the classroom is focused on learning and understanding (mastery) and the extent to which it is focused on demonstrating performance (Ames, 1992). A classroom is classified as emotionally-supportive to the extent that students’ social and emotional functioning is promoted (Pianta, Hamre, Haynes, Mintz, & LeParo, 2012). Academic press involves a classroom emphasis on student explanations that demonstrate comprehension and an encouraging of effort (Middleton & Blumenfeld, 2000). Using these classroom climate dimensions, we aim to: identify and describe the profiles of students’ perceptions of the classroom along these dimensions of the classroom, and understand the association between number of profiles present in the classroom and classroom achievement.
Student survey and achievement data are drawn from 3,486 ethnically diverse 7th through 11th grade students in 210 mathematics classrooms. We examined end of the school year student survey responses (PALS; Midgley et al., 2000) and mathematics achievement on the California Standards Test (CST). Scales of students’ perceptions of the mastery goal structure, performance goal structure, emotional support, and academic press were created by averaging their corresponding items (alphas for the scales = .83-.95).
We used Latent Profile Analysis to identify common patterns of student perceptions across the four classroom scales, settling on a four-profile solution (Figure 1), which described students that perceive the classroom as: cold and hands off (Profile 1; 7% student endorsement), goldilocks (Profile 2; 25% student endorsement), some warmth (Profile 3; 37% student endorsement), and warm promoting effort and challenge (Profile 4; 35% student endorsement). The number of profiles contained in classrooms ranged from two to four.
Results of ordinary least squares regression (Table 1) indicated that the presence of fewer profiles in a classroom was associated with higher classroom mathematics achievement such that two profiles was the most adaptive when compared with three and four profiles (beta = .48, p = .001). Further, classroom achievement improved the most when a higher percentage of classmates endorsed the warm promoting effort and challenge profile (beta = .19, p < .001). Additional analyses will describe how the combination of number and type of profiles present, dominant classroom profile, and the combination of number and type of profiles present relate to classroom level outcomes (i.e., achievement, motivation, help seeking).
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Event: Supporting Students: The Role of Social Support, Belonging, and Adversity in Learning Outcomes
Title: Promoting Adolescents' Academic Performance: A District-Wide Randomized Trial of a Social-Belonging Intervention
Authors: Geoffrey Borman, Chris Rozek, Rachel Feldman, Paul Hanselman
Abstract
Treated sixth-grade students performed at statistically significantly higher levels on GPA and received fewer failing grades than their control group peers after participating in a district-wide randomized controlled trial of a social-psychological intervention designed to lessen belonging uncertainty and increase positive interpretations of adversity in academic settings. The randomized design and district-wide implementation provide strong warrants that such interventions can make a difference at scale.
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Event: Why Teacher Motivation Matters: Implications for Instructional Practice, Professional Engagement, and Well-Being
Title: Person and Situation Contributions to Teacher Motivation for Professional Development
Authors: Stuart Karabenick, AnneMarie Conley
Abstract
Although there is general consensus regarding the features of PD programs that are more or less likely to be successful in producing behavioral and attitudinal changes conducive to improved student learning and achievement (e.g., Darling-Hammond et al., 2009; Penuel et al., 2007), systematic analyses and empirical evidence focused on teachers’ motivation to participate and be engaged in PD (PDM) is virtually absent from the discourse surrounding teacher PD. We present results of an anonymous national survey in the U.S. that describes middle and high school teachers’ (n = 816) PDM. In addition to teachers’ general level of PDM and its relation to PD participation, we examined the network of variables with which PDM is potentially associated, including (a) retrospective PD experiences, (b) PDM and prospective features of PD, (c) teacher characteristics, (d) teaching-related emotions, and (e) school context variables and teacher wellbeing. Theoretical frameworks include expectancy-value and achievement goal theories.
Among the results is clear evidence that most teachers have high levels of PDM given a mean of 5 on a 0 (none at all) to 6 (extremely) scale. As expected, the 75% of teachers who had participated in PD during the previous year indicated being more motivated; they reported that participation was a positive rather than a negative experience and judged it to be useful for increasing their teaching effectiveness. Teachers who engaged in PD because it was required reported having had a more negative experience and judged PD less effective. Those with higher PDM reported experiencing more positive and less negative emotions during PD, had more positive PD experiences, and were more likely to participate in the future. Among the teacher characteristics examined, PDM was higher for those who chose teaching to provide a societal benefit, less for those who did so for intrinsic and least for extrinsic reasons (cf. Watt & Richardson, 2007). PDM was most highly related to teachers’ mastery and less so to a performance approach to teaching, and related to secondary teachers’ personal sense of responsibility for student motivation and achievement. PDM was directly related to teachers’ higher sense of personal accomplishment, and among those reporting being less emotionally exhausted and under less stress. Regarding context, higher PDM was reported by teachers in schools characterized by stronger principal-collegial leadership and those with fewer school problems.
Evidence is consistent with reviews of PD pracdesign_videotices (e.g., Avalos, 2011; Timperley, Wilson, Barrar, & Fung, 2007). In general, results indicate that teachers in general are more positively motivated to engage in PD than is often assumed. Understanding and measuring the malleable factors that increase PDM suggests ways to improve teachers’ PD experiences and the likelihood they will enact recommended instructional practices that facilitate student learning and performance. Results indicate a clear need to take PDM into consideration when planning and evaluating the consequences of PD, as well as PDM’s potential contributions to the teacher motivation literature in general (Richardson, Karabenick, & Watt, 2014).
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In-Progress Research Presentations
Title: Improving Reading Comprehension and Achievement in Science Classes: Working Memory Training for Dyslexic Children
Author: Masha Jones
Abstract
With the advent of the Common Core State Standards and Next Generation Science Standards, students are being asked to engage with texts of higher complexity and to reach learning objectives that are more demanding than ever before. This places children with reading difficulties such as dyslexia at an unprecedented disadvantage, especially when it comes to science achievement, which now relies even more heavily on science literacy. Reading comprehension, especially in the case of science learning, involves a great deal of working memory, and individuals with dyslexia have marked working memory deficits. Because an accumulating body of research demonstrates the malleability of working memory skills, we are conducting a study in which working memory skills will be trained in the hope of improving reading comprehension and science achievement for children with dyslexia.
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Title: Increasing STEM-Major Persistence Through Social Interactive Pedagogies
Author: Peter McPartlan
Abstract
Producing more college graduates who are prepared to enter the U.S. STEM workforce is vital. A promising approach to accomplishing this goal is to mitigate high rates of STEM-major attrition among undergraduates, which is highest among racial/ethnic minorities and women. Research on college persistence suggests that developing social connectedness is essential, but that introductory STEM course environments may be especially poor at fostering such connectedness. In this study, I propose implementing an intervention designed to increase STEM persistence by increasing social connectedness and belongingness in an introductory STEM classroom. I propose this can be done very simply by using an increasingly popular tool, clickers, in a social, interactive way. Furthermore, increasing social connectedness and belongingness would be expected to have an especially significant impact on the persistence of underrepresented groups in STEM.
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Title: From Keystrokes to Achievement Scores: The Effects of Prior Computer Use on Computer-Based Writing
Author: Tamara Tate, Mark Warschauer, Jamal Abedi
Abstract
Writing achievement levels are chronically low for K-12 students. As assessments transition to computers, differences in access may exacerbate difficulties. We use structural equation modeling to examine the relationship between a student’s reported prior use of computers and achievement on the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) computer-based writing assessment. NAEP data contains information for over 24,100 eighth grade students. The “prior use” latent variable created using factor analysis had a direct effect on writing achievement scores on the computer-based assessment. One standard deviation increase in prior use led to a .21 standard deviation increase in writing achievement scores. Although all groups benefited from prior computer use, certain groups benefited more than others.
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In addition to the above,
Gilberto Conchas chaired (a) AERA Books Editorial Board closed session, (b) Interest in Mathematics and Science: A New Publication, and (c) Socializing Intelligence Through Academic Talk and Dialogue: A New AERA Publication.
Greg Duncan was the Invited Speaker for Perspectives on Replication in Education Research.
Jacquelynne Eccles chaired AERA Grants Program Dissertation Grantee Capstone Conference (Day 1 of 2) and AERA Grants
Program Governing Board: Closed Meeting; and served as a Discussant for (a) Student Heterogeneity in the Classroom: Precursors and Links to Outcomes; (b) Systematic Approaches to Mindfulness-Based Interventions for Teachers and Students: Early Childhood and Elementary School Settings; and (c) Promising Scholarship in Education: Dissertation Fellows and Their Research.
Hosun Kang and Elizabeth van Es co-chaired the session Design Principles for a Pedagogy of Teacher Education.
Title, abstracts, and authors are organized by event (in alphabetical order).
Event: College Student Access Poster Session
Title: Reexamining Transfer Rates and Bachelor Degree Attainment of Community College Students Using Current Data and Methodology
Authors: Nicholas Graham, Yuine Ikari
Abstract
Community colleges may not be the best option for students of color or less affluent students. The present study utilizes the nationally representative ELS 2012 follow-up data to reevaluate earlier studies on transfer rates and degree attainment. Of interest are findings regarding lower rates for Latinos and higher rates for affluent students. Preliminary findings suggest transfer rates are lower than earlier indicated. Latinos are less likely than other groups to transfer, but all minority groups are equally less likely than Whites to graduate. Affluent students are shown to be more likely to transfer to selective institutions, although their odds of graduation are less likely than rising juniors.
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Event: Correlates of Academic Achievement
Title: 24-Month-Old Children With Larger Oral Vocabularies Display Greater Academic and Behavioral Functioning at Kindergarten Entry
Authors: Paul Morgan, Carol Hammer, George Farkas, Marianne Hillemeier, Steve Maczuga
Abstract
Data were analyzed from 8,650 children participating in a nationally representative, longitudinal study to identify socio-demographic, gestational and birth, cognitive and behavioral, and family functioning factors associated with or predictive of U.S. children’s oral vocabularies at 24 months of age. Additional analyses then evaluated whether the children’s oral vocabularies, measured using a brief parental survey of 50 possible spoken words, uniquely predicted their academic and behavioral functioning at 60 months of age. Prior to and following extensive statistical control for possible confounds, children with larger oral vocabularies at 24 months of age displayed (a) greater reading achievement, (b) greater mathematics achievement, (c) increased behavioral self-regulation, and (d) fewer externalizing and internalizing problem behaviors at kindergarten entry.
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Event: Design Principles for a Pedagogy of Teacher Education
Title: Articulating Design Principles for Productive Use of Videos to Facilitate Professional Learning Toward Ambitious Teaching
Authors: Hosun Kang, Elizabeth van Es
Abstract
Objectives. We seek to explicate design principles for using video to cultivate pre-service teachers’ ways of seeing, enacting, and analyzing ambitious mathematics and science instruction.
Theoretical Framework. The focal phenomenon is pre-service teachers’ interactions with one another facilitated by a teacher educator with video in teacher preparation contexts. Drawing on a situative perspective on learning (Greeno, 2006), we attend to principles of coordination that support communication and reasoning in complex activity systems that contain learners, facilitators, curriculum materials, and tools and how they are related to professionals’ learning. Framing and noticing (Levin, Hammer, & Coffey, 2009; Sherin & van Es, 2005; van Es & Sherin, 2008) are used as the analytical lens to examine discourses mediated by the use of video.
Methods. Techniques, or Modes of Inquiry. Informed by design research (e.g. Design-Based Research Collective, 2003; Edelson, 2002; Sandoval, 2013), we construct a design framework that articulates components for designing and orchestrating productive learning opportunities with video, and characterize participants’ learning with video through cycles of design, enactment, analysis, and revision. Data comes from three pre-service teacher education contexts in which video was used to help pre-service teachers: (a) decomposing and developing a vision of ambitious mathematics and science teaching through cycles of video analysis; (b) studying enactments of ambitious instruction through self-captured representations of teaching; and (c) systematically reflecting on practice to learn in and from one’s practice over time. We analyzed: (a) what was shown with video (i.e., selection of clip) and why (i.e., objective of outcomes), (b) when and how the videos were used in each context, (c) how the task was framed before viewing the video and discussions were facilitated after watching videos, (d) the roles of facilitators and participating teachers, and (e) any changes of discourse over time.
Results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view. Based on the analysis, we propose five design principles for the productive use of video to facilitate professional learning toward ambitious vision of teaching. These include: (a) foregrounding student thinking and learning in tasks, video and discussions, (b) stance-taking as a learner of teaching and about K-12 students’ abilities when framing tasks and problems of practices, (c) describing and naming pedagogical practices as they arise in representations of teaching, (d) eliciting and responding to pre-service teachers’ progresses in learning as reflected in their use of languages and practices, and (e) publicizing (de-privatizing) pedagogical decision-making in the moment by engaging in joint design, enactment and shared noticing.
Scholarly significance. We extend prior research that examines effective uses of video (Sherin, Linsenmeier & van Es, 2009; Zhou & Lundenberg, 2012) to advance research and practice for developing a pedagogy of teacher education. This study contributes to efforts to develop a pedagogy for teacher education (Grossman, Hammerness, & McDonald, 2009), with a particular focus on the use of tools to facilitate professional learning in context.
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Event: Design Principles for a Pedagogy of Teacher Education
Title: Video as a Central Artifact in Formative Intervention for Teacher Educators: Negotiating a Shared Approach to Working With Preservice Teachers
Authors: Jessica Tunney, Elizabeth van Es
Abstract
Objectives. We investigate professional development that brings together practitioners of teacher education -- university supervisors and classroom mentor teachers -- to design and implement a protocol for mentoring pre-service teachers in clinical placements. Guided by the notion of formative intervention (Engeström, 2011), this intervention aims to elicit the expertise of teacher educators themselves to specify the core practices of instruction that will guide observations and feedback on teaching. We consider the unique affordances of video for making progress toward these goals, focusing on how video helps the group negotiate a shared vision of supporting pre-service teacher learning in practice.
Theoretical Framework. We approach learning to teach from a practice-based perspective, understanding that newcomers are apprenticed by more knowledgeable others into the practices of the field (Lave & Wenger, 1999). For teacher education, assumptions in this theory of learning have been challenged by historical tensions within the system. We focus on two tensions: 1) the disconnect between universities and clinical sites in the vision of educating future teachers; and 2) the lack of a shared framework to guide teacher educators’ work. We consider how a formative intervention approach (Engeström, 2011) can address these tensions and create a system that collectively apprentices pre-service teachers into the profession.
Methods. Data include video recordings of seven professional development meetings and transcripts of video-based discussions. First, we identified and traced the trajectory of key ideas developed through the intervention (Ermeling, 2010). Next, we focused on how video helped participants develop more precise language to describe mathematics teaching, engage in joint sense-making, and explore alternative explanations and inferences (Sherin, Linsenmeier, & van Es, 2009; van Es, Tunney, Goldsmith, & Seago, 2014). Finally, we considered the role video played in supporting the group as they moved through the formative intervention framework, starting point, process, outcome, and researcher’s role (Engeström, 2011; Engeström & Sannino, 2010).
Results. We found that video afforded the group opportunities to address historical challenges in coordinating learning between universities and schools by providing a context to attend to the particulars of teaching. Importantly, video artifacts allowed the group to draw upon knowledge brought by both school-based and university-based teacher educators as they negotiated a common vision of mathematics instruction using a specific and precise language of teaching. In doing so, the group was able to connect the core instructional practices presented in university coursework with the practices modeled by mentor teachers and enacted in the classroom.
Scholarly significance. Video holds promise for supporting teacher educators in developing a shared vision of their work, as it allows groups to examine and respond to the complexity of mentoring student teachers in classrooms. In addition, we see video as a valuable tool for building a common language of instruction and an enriched knowledge base of practice-based pedagogies for learning to teach.
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Event: Explorations in Mathematics in the Elementary Grades
Title: Which Kindergarten Common Core Domains Are Most Predictive of Later Mathematics Achievement?
Authors: Tyler Watts, Greg Duncan, Douglas H. Clements, Julie Sarama, Christopher B. Wolfe, Mary Elaine Spiller
Abstract
The era of standards reform in mathematics has recently culminated in the adoption of the Common Core Standards for Mathematical Practice (CCSSM) by over 40 states. However, little research has investigated whether the domains of knowledge endorsed by the CCSSM predict later mathematics achievement. The current study examined the extent to which the various domain-specific proficiencies in mathematical knowledge promoted by the CCSSM in kindergarten (e.g. counting, operations, measurement, geometry) predicted fifth grade mathematics achievement. Data were drawn from a sample of 765 children from low-income communities. Findings indicated that early numeracy competencies, counting and operations, were the strongest predictors of fifth-grade mathematics achievement. Further, kindergarten operations was also the strongest predictor of both later calculation skills and geometry knowledge.
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Event: Exploring Different Theoretical Frontiers in Mathematics Education Research: Toward an Empowering Mathematical Experience for All
Title: Leveraging Feminist Theory to Disrupt Gendered Mathematics Teaching and Learning
Authors: Indigo Esmonde, Tesha Sengupta-Irving
Abstract
In this presentation, the panelists leverage three key insights from feminist theory to understand the manifest ways sexism and genderism (Esmonde, 2011), in particular, constrain what is possible for sociopolitical analyses of mathematics education, and for advancing a transformative praxis of research. These insights offer greater freedom to think radically about the role of mathematics education and research in the disruption of social oppressions. The panelists begin by recognizing schools as gendered, racialized, classed, and sexualized spaces (Mellor & Epstein, 2003), and so too, mathematics classrooms.
First, feminist theories recognize sex and gender as constructs mobilized to turn perceived differences (in bodies and behaviors) into oppositions (Mendick, 2006; West & Zimmerman, 2009). The current rhetoric and research in mathematics education does not similarly recognize this. Whether articulating gaps in achievement or opportunities, or defining pedagogies for “boys” or “girls,” the field most often relies on the normalization of gender binaries to justify inquiry instead of interrogating what these constructs presuppose, misrepresent, or obscure about mathematics learning opportunities.
Building from the first insight, the panelists argue for the centrality of variability (and not binaries) in research. Thus the second insight they leverage is intersectionality (West & Fenstermaker, 1995; Crenshaw, 1991), which recognizes the simultaneity of multiple systems of oppression (e.g., gender, race, class, (dis)ability). For example, when critiquing mathematics as a discipline reflecting social conceptions of masculinity—rigorous, logical, unemotional, objective—we privilege conceptions of white, middle-class masculinity and ignore other forms of racialized or classed masculinities (McCready, 2010). Intersectional analyses, seen elsewhere in educational research (e.g., Lei, 2003), therefore bear great promise for advancing a more transformative approach to social science research in mathematics education.
The third insight the panelist leverage takes the body as a necessary site of inquiry in understanding mathematics learning experiences. Despite the recent interest in embodiment and gesture in mathematics (e.g., Alibali & Nathan, 2012), the learner’s body itself remains largely undertheorized. And yet, considerable research attests to the regulation (and exploitation) of the racialized, gendered, and sexualized body of youth in schools (e.g., Noguera, 2003). From a feminist perspective, drawing together these literatures reminds us that social actors (peers, teachers) see, read, and interact through and on the body in profound ways that can impact what learning opportunities are possible. It was Dewey (1900/1980) who used the experience of buying classroom furniture to first illustrate how schools constrain the possibilities of learning even in physical ways (i.e., desks built for listening). Now, fat studies (influenced by feminist theories) offer related insights about how the physical learning environment, including desks, pre-imagine a learner’s body that “best fits” (Hetrick & Attig, 2009).
These three insights compel the panelists to ask, what role might normative (binary) displays of gender play in mathematics learning opportunities? How might we explore variability in these displays, and with what implications for understanding learning and identity development as intersectional projects? How might regulation of the learner’s body (talking, moving, silence) be understood as demanding visibility and/or vulnerability in learning? In short, what new inquiries might feminist theories inspire?
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Event: Exploring the Current Landscape of Technology, Instruction, Cognition, and Learning Poster Session
Title: Goal Setting and Learning Outcomes in Massive Open Online Courses
Author: Suhang Jiang
Abstract
The study presents a structural equation model of goal setting and learning outcomes in a MOOC. It suggests that setting goals is positively correlated with learning outcomes and higher goals are associated with better learning outcomes. These results inform the role of goal setting in the participation and completion of MOOCs. Future research directions regarding goal setting and MOOCs are discussed.
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Event: Focus on Outcomes: Evaluating Out-of-School Time Settings
Title: How the Power of Discovery: STEM2 Out-of-School Time Initiative Influenced Staff Efficacy and Student Outcomes
Authors: Rahila Munshi Simzar, Deborah Lowe Vandell, Teomara Rutherford, Pilar O’Cadiz, Valerie Hall
Abstract
This paper presents findings from the Power of Discovery: STEM2 out-of-school (OST) time learning initiative implemented during the 2013-14 academic year. The initiative sought to provide technical support of afterschool programs in the STEM area to improve staff efficacy for implementing STEM activities and student outcomes. Using two-waves of survey data collected from 48 staff members and 826 students from 35 program sites, analyses revealed which of the initiative supports successfully predicted increases in staff efficacy in the spring of 2014, controlling for staff-reported efficacy in the fall of 2013. Similarly, initiative supports that associated positively with increases in student outcomes were uncovered. Findings suggest that building networks between OST staff, parents, and classroom teachers can benefit staff and students.
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Event: Focus on Outcomes: Evaluating Out-of-School Time Settings
Title: Psychological and Behavioral Characteristics Moderating Longitudinal Associations Between Out-of-School Experiences and Youth Outcomes
Authors: Sabrina Kataoka, Deborah Lowe Vandell
Abstract
Organized activity participation is associated positively with school-related functioning and negatively with a range of risk-taking outcomes, but it remains unclear who benefits most from activity participation. To address this issue, we use a sample of middle school youth (N = 695) to examine two psychological and behavioral youth characteristics, defiance and college expectations, as moderators of the relation between activity participation and changes in youth functioning over two years. Multiple regression results are consistent with a compensatory hypothesis, such that the largest gains from participation are seen among youth who are highly defiant or have low college expectations. Future organized activity research should account for the moderating role of psychological and behavioral youth characteristics in organized activity outcomes.
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Event: Future Directions for Professional Development
Title: The Influence of Contextual Factors on the Sustainability of Professional Development Outcomes
Authors: Judith Sandholtz, Cathy Ringstaff
Abstract
This study investigated how contextual factors influenced the sustainability of outcomes from a 3-year, state-funded professional development program that provided science assistance for K-2 teachers in small school districts. The research used a case-study approach with a purposive sample of five schools that varied in participating teachers’ instructional time in science several years after the funding period. The primary data sources were surveys and interviews conducted with teachers and principals two and three years after the end of the professional development. Findings highlight the influence of principal support, resources, collegial support, personal commitment, and external factors. The research holds practical implications for enhancing long-term sustainability of professional development outcomes in science education.
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Event: Global Culture, Diversity, and Educational Understanding
Title: The Cultural Nature of Teacher Noticing: Analyzing Teacher Commentaries From TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study)
Authors: Jessica Tunney, Rossella Santagata
Abstract
This study adopts a cross-cultural lens to examine teachers’ noticing of mathematics instruction as a potential barrier to broad integration of the reform-oriented mathematics teaching practices advocated by research and policy in the US for many years. Data sources include publicly-released videos and teacher written commentaries from four countries participating in the Third International Mathematics and Science Video Study. These are compared qualitatively using two theoretical frameworks: “teacher noticing” and “usable knowledge for teaching mathematics.” Findings suggest cultural differences in what teachers attend to during teaching, how they interpret classroom events, and the ways they make instructional decisions in the moment. Results support previous research and provide implications for both research and professional development focused on noticing and cultural awareness.
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Event: Human Development Session 3
Title: Which Kindergarteners Are at Greatest Risk for Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity and Conduct Disorder Symptomatology as Adolescents?
Authors: Paul Morgan, Hui Li, Michael Cook, George Farkas, Marianne Hillemeier, Yu-Chu Lin
Abstract
We identified which U.S. children are at risk of symptomatology in both attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and conduct disorder (CD) as adolescents. Regression analyses of multi-informant ratings of a population-based, longitudinal sample of kindergarten children (N = 7,456) identified those displaying comorbid ADHD-CD symptomatology by 8th grade. Children frequently engaging in ADHD-CD-type behaviors by the end of kindergarten were more likely to later experience ADHD-CD symptomatology. Low academic achievement uniquely increased this risk. School-based mental health efforts to identify and reduce ADHD-CD symptomatology may require screening, monitoring, and targeting children manifesting both low behavioral and low academic functioning by the end of kindergarten as together they increase odds of severe ADHD-CD symptomatology by adolescence by a multiplicative factor of 8.1.
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Event: Identity Production in Progress! Multimodal and Creative Engagements With Media Across Genres
Title: Building Blocks of Identity-Making: Semiotic Resources in Story Sharing and Construction Play Sites
Author: Ksenia Korobkova
Abstract
This research presentation uses a multimodal discourse approach to show how media technologies such as popular websites, games, and toys, make available multiple resources for young people's practices of identity making (see Halliday, 1978, Radway, 2002). Two studies are presented, one dealing with a popular story-sharing app and one focusing on web sites and games of a prominent toy manufacturer. In both cases, available texts, genres, and technologies provide structured yet open-ended pathways through which young people make meaning of salient identity categories such as being a “girl”, being an “expert”, and being a "writer".
The first presented study uses content analyses and interviews with young girls writing, reading, and talking about stories based on a popular boyband and shared on a mobile story-sharing app. Discussion centers on how their discourses and experiences of using this app are generative of specific kinds of identities that track with being a teen girl and being a nonserious writer. The interviews show that the reliance on mobile technologies, pop culture content, and chat-based applications places the reading and writing experiences of these girls squarely into the "nonschool" genre which is discussed in opposition to school-based genre. Available narratives and technologies constructed paths to how “being a girl” and “being a writer” was defined. A theory of cultural genre (Bawarshi, 2003; Miller, 1994; Yates & Orlikowski, 1992), pointing to how material and semiotic resources cluster together in contexts, offers insights into how the same sort of practice (e.g. writing) can “feel” differently depending on the nature of tools, actors, and contexts involved. A genre cues certain practices imbued with relevance, value, and the scope of the activity. The next step would be to understand how cultural genres change, why some genres are more resistant to change than others, and what happens when the social actor, such as a learner, can recognize genres and use features from one genre of practice as resources in another.
The second study compares the texts and technologies associated with the Lego Friends franchise, which is primarily aimed at female audiences, and the Lego City franchise that is marketed to male audiences, to understand if and how the resources provided by the gendered franchises differ. Using quantitative and qualitative analyses, we examine how certain configurations of play and discourse are privileged through in the toys and associated media narratives. Findings show that the narrative and technical resources coded "for boys" and those coded "for girls" were different but call for a more nuanced explanation. The franchises, clustered through genres (action games for boys and avatar customization games for girls), provided different kinds of resources that paved multiple paths for identity production.
Tying the two studies together, the presentation considers the ways new technologies present multiple and multimodal resources for identity making and representing. This research complicates and extends the strand of thought on identity production in new media by showing how youth engagements with multiple semiotic and material resources yield multiple available repertoires of practices and identities.
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Event: Innovation in Doctoral Education Practice
Title: Drawing on Practitioner Knowledge to Enrich and Inform: Educating Doctoral Students With Backgrounds in Teaching
Authors: Karen E. Lafferty, Jessica Tunney
Abstract
This conceptual paper argues that doctoral students in education who bring substantial classroom teaching experience to their programs have unique contributions to make toward understanding how theory intersects with practice. By framing tensions around institutional status, learning objectives, and priorities in situated learning theory and cultural-historical activity theory, the authors suggest how university faculty can support P-12 practitioners in the transition to doctoral study. Implications are for drawing on practitioner knowledge to enrich and inform doctoral study and research.
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Event: Integrating Engineering Experiences in Science Education
Title: Anticipating Change: Secondary Teachers' Beliefs About Engineering, Students, and Science Reforms
Authors: Tesha Sengupta-Irving, Janet Mercado
Abstract
Science education reforms in the United States include the first-ever articulation of pre-college engineering standards. This analysis draws on focus group interviews in a case study of professional development for secondary math/science teachers designed jointly by a School of Education and Engineering. Twelve teachers working with students underrepresented in STEM were selected to learn engineering design from engineers. We examine teachers’ beliefs about engineering and its anticipated impact on students. We found teachers recognize engineering as interdisciplinary but underestimate the intellectual complexity of design. They also anticipate design will invert achievement hierarchies rather than dismantle them. For reforms to actualize justice for non-dominant youth, identifying and addressing teachers’ conceptions of what engineering involves and who achieves at it, is critical.
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Event: Kindergarten in Transition: Purpose, Entry Age, Curriculum, and Student Outcomes
Title: Kindergarten Mathematics Instruction and the Common Core
Authors: Tyler Watts, George Farkas, Greg Duncan
Abstract
Objective: The current study investigates whether kindergarten mathematics instruction has changed during the past decade, as standards-era reform movements have attempted to overhaul K-12 education. We conceptualize mathematics instruction along Common Core dimensions, and investigate whether changes in time spent on Common Core topics relate to student achievement gains during the kindergarten year.
Data and Methods: Data come from the both the 1998-1999 and 2010-2011 samples of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study- Kindergarten Cohort datasets that contain independent, nationally representative samples of children recruited at the beginning of kindergarten. We used teacher report measures in which teachers indicated how much time per month was spent on various mathematics instructional topics (e.g., counting to 10, adding and subtracting single-digit numbers). We then categorized instructional topics into the domains specified by the Kindergarten level of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematical Practice (CCSSM). This categorization led to three broad categories (Kindergarten CCSSM Topics; Advanced CCSSM Topics (topics beyond kindergarten); Non-CCSSM Topics).
The samples (1999: n= 15,090; 2010: n= 12,880) were restricted to students who: 1) could be matched to the same kindergarten teacher in fall and spring; 2) had valid fall and spring test scores; 3) had instructional data from the spring. We used a dummy variable approach to handle missing data on covariates.
Results: We found that kindergarten teachers report spending significantly more time on mathematics instruction in 2010-2011 than in 1998-1999. We did not find that children receive different amounts of time on mathematics instruction based on their school-entry test scores, but children in full-day kindergarten receive significantly more mathematics instruction than children in half-day kindergarten. We did not find that socioeconomic status or race was systematically related to instructional time.
Finally, results from OLS regression analyses indicate that time spent on certain mathematical domains recommended by the CCSSM (Operations and Algebraic Thinking; Number and Operations in Base Ten) is more strongly associated with kindergarten achievement gains than time spent on other domains (Geometry; Measurement and Data) in both the 1998 and 2010 cohorts.
We investigated whether time spent on various instructional topics differed based on certain child characteristics. In both samples, interactions between levels of the fall math score (low, average, high) and instructional topic failed to produce significant patterns, and joint-tests revealed that the set of interaction variables did not significantly contribute to the models. This same pattern held for interactions between family socioeconomic status and time spent on instructional topic.
Significance: These results lend support to the recent research that suggests that the benefits of advanced mathematics instruction during early childhood appear to be shared across students at all levels of school-entry skills and socioeconomic status. Results also suggest that while the CCSSM for kindergarten do include mathematics content that most kindergarteners will benefit from learning, the standards also recommend covering content in kindergarten that many students 1) already know, and 2) that increased focus on this basic content may result in smaller learning gains for the vast majority of students.
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Event: Kindergarten in Transition: Purpose, Entry Age, Curriculum, and Student Outcomes
Title: Will Increasing the Kindergarten Birth Date Cutoff Improve Student Test Score Outcomes? Evidence From North Carolina
Authors: Charles Kevin Fortner, Jade Jenkins
Abstract
Objectives and Perspective: In recent years, several states increased the age cutoffs for kindergarten entry requiring that children are at least five years old at the start of kindergarten (e.g., moving the date from December to September). Influencing these decisions is some early evidence of the positive effects from entering school at an older age, and marked increases in educational accountability and performance demands for secondary and elementary education; these factors have increased the importance of policy decisions concerning early education. The principal focus of this study is to determine whether age at school entry is beneficial for children’s outcomes in the short- and long-term given the equivocal nature of existing research.
Data and Methods: In 2009, North Carolina moved the kindergarten birthdate cutoff from October 15th to September 1st, requiring kindergarten entrants to be 5 years old on or before September 1st of the 2009-10 school year (and thereafter) to enroll in kindergarten. We leverage this policy change in a quasi-experimental research design to determine the impact of the change in birthdate cutoff on student test score achievement and proficiency in 3rd grade reading and mathematics. We also examine whether the change influenced the incidence of redshirting (parental decisions to delay entry into kindergarten by one year). To control for school district-level influences, we conduct both statewide and within-district difference-in-difference models.
We use recent (2007-2013) statewide micro-level census data from North Carolina, including student’s exact birthdates and information from kindergarten through 3rd grade. For robustness, we also compare the test score gap between 3rd and 4th graders who entered school under the October 15th cutoff policy with the test score gap between 3rd and 4th graders who entered school under the September 1st cutoff policy.
Results and Implications: In a prior study of the effects of kindergarten redshirting in North Carolina, we found that redshirted students were overwhelmingly more likely to be designated by their school as having a disability - up to 2.8 times the risk of being designated as disabled in 3rd grade. Therefore we also test whether the birthdate policy change influenced other available outcomes by the end of the third grade year (i.e., designation as gifted, retention before 3rd grade).
We are in receipt of test score and demographic data from the 2012-13 school year capturing the first year of statewide testing data for kindergarten students enrolled under the new cutoff policy. Our preliminary analyses show changes in the test score gap and proficiency rates across grade levels. The statewide incidence of redshirting decreased by 1.8 percentage points, going from 4.3% in 2008 to 2.6% in 2009, and dropping to 2.2% in 2010. Work on this study is in progress and will be completed in September 2014.
This is the first statewide evaluation of a change in birthdate cutoff policy in a large and diverse state. States are increasingly considering policy changes to birthdate cutoffs; the findings from our study are therefore extremely relevant in the current education policy discussion across the country.
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Event: Meet Journal Editors: Journal Talks 2
Title: AERA Open
Author: Mark Warschauer
Abstract
AERA Open is an open access journal covering all fields of educational research. We welcome submissions that examine learning processes and outcomes in any context or country and that are based on any disciplinary or interdisciplinary perspective. We ask contributors to publish their research instruments, protocols, guides, and, to the extent possible, data, and, if appropriate, include direct replications of related findings from published research. We also invite manuscripts that report precisely-estimated null results. Consistent with "the new statistics," we encourage estimations based on effect sizes, confidence intervals, and meta-analysis. Also welcome are submissions of rigorous empirical studies that draw on quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods traditions other than null hypothesis statistical testing, such as ethnography or data mining.
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Event: Motivational and Cognitive Processes: Math and Science Education
Title: Exploring Relationships Between Plausibility, Critical Evaluation, the Refutation Text Effect, and Students' Climate Change Knowledge
Authors: Doug Lombardi, Robert William Danielson, Neil Young
Abstract
Students often make evaluations and plausibility judgments about scientific explanations. In this study, we investigated how undergraduate students’ critical evaluation abilities and plausibility perceptions of climate change related to knowledge of global warming. We found that greater levels of critical evaluation and higher plausibility perceptions predicted more knowledge. We also examined students’ changes in both plausibility (i.e., plausibility reappraisal) and knowledge after reading a text about global warming. Specifically, our study revealed that reading a refutational text (a text designed to counter common misconceptions about climate change) led to significant plausibility reappraisal and knowledge change toward the scientific explanation of human-induced climate change. On the other hand, students who read a comparable expository text experienced no significant change.
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Event: Motivational and Cognitive Processes: Self-Regulation, Emotions, and Memory
Title: A Look at Executive Control in the Lab, in the Classroom, and in Real-World Achievement
Authors: Teomara Rutherford, Martin Buschkuehl, Susanne M. Jaeggi, George Farkas
Abstract
We use longitudinal data to investigate the relation between laboratory measures of executive control (EC), classroom self-regulated learning (SRL) behaviors, and ecologically valid measures of academic achievement in math and English/Language Arts. Theoretical definitions of EC have substantial overlap with the educational concept of SRL, where students must engage higher order cognitive skills to plan, monitor progress, and adjust behavior to attain goals. In support of our theory that EC skills are required for successful SRL, we find that student SRL behaviors mediate between 24 and 44 percent of the association between EC and achievement. Our results have implications for cognitive and educational interventions, suggesting that EC can support or may be a bottleneck for SRL and thus academic achievement.
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Event: Moving Utility Value Research Forward: Examining Moderators, Mediators, and Context
Title: The Robin Hood Effect? Benefits of a Relevance Intervention for Students From Families With Low Motivational Beliefs
Authors: Isabelle Hafner, Barbara Flunger, Anna-Lena Dicke, Hanna Gaspard, Brigitte Maria Schreier, Benjamin Nagengast, Urich Trautwein
Abstract
The current study aimed at investigating whether the effects of a relevance intervention on students’ value beliefs, self-concept, and effort differed depending on family characteristics (SES, family interest, parent’s intrinsic and utility value).
Theoretical Perspective
Previous research showed that students’ motivation in the subject of mathematics is decreasing during secondary school (e.g., Jacobs, Lanza, Osgood, Eccles, & Wigfield, 2002), which has triggered the call for interventions buffering against this development. According to the expectancy-value theory (Eccles et al., 1983), students’ achievement-related behavior and academic choices are influenced by students’ value beliefs (utility value, attainment value, intrinsic value and cost) and expectancy beliefs. There is first evidence that relevance interventions promoting students’ utility value perceptions can also increase further motivational outcomes and students’ achievement (Hulleman, Godes, Hendricks, & Harackiewicz, 2010; Hulleman & Harackiewicz, 2009).
So far, it is unknown whether such interventions are a means to reduce gaps in academic motivation between privileged and unprivileged students. Research demonstrated that students with lower socioeconomic status and lower motivational family characteristics, e.g. parents’ value beliefs, also show lower levels of value beliefs and self-concept (e.g., Jodl, Michael, Malanchuk, Eccles, & Sameroff, 2001; Simpkins, Fredricks, & Eccles, 2012; Steinmayr, Dinger, & Spinath, 2012). Considering differential effects of relevance interventions in mathematics, families with high motivational characteristics might have ample knowledge about the utility and interestingness of math, whereas families with low motivational characteristics might not have these math-specific resources and therefore cannot pass them on to their children. Hence, relevance interventions might create a Robin Hood effect by passing on math-specific utility information to students whose families do not hold these resources.
Methods
For the purpose of this study, 82 math classrooms in Germany were randomly assigned to either one of two relevance intervention conditions or a control group. The interventions consisted of a 1.5 hours lesson about the relevance of mathematics to students’ future lives. In the intervention condition “text”, students were asked to write a text about the relevance of mathematics to their lives. In the intervention condition “quotation”, students were asked to evaluate interview quotations on the usefulness of mathematics. Data from 1522 students and their parents were analyzed. Students and parents answered questionnaires at a pretest; students additionally completed questionnaires six weeks and five months after the intervention.
Results
Using multilevel regression analyses, significant main effects of the intervention on students’ value beliefs emerged. Additionally, significant cross-level interactions were found between the intervention and family’s math interest as well as parents’ intrinsic math value. Five months after the intervention, the effects on value beliefs and on effort were higher for students whose parents reported lower levels of family interest and lower intrinsic math values than their counterparts, thus creating a Robin Hood effect: Students with lower motivational family characteristics gained more from the intervention.
Significance
Based on a large data set and a randomized controlled trial, our results highlight the effectiveness of relevance interventions in promoting value beliefs for students in need, thereby compensating for low motivational family characteristics.
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Event: Online Teaching and Learning SIG Poster Session 1
Title: English Language Learners in Massive Open Online Courses
Authors: Suhang Jiang, Yu Liu, Mark Warschauer
Abstract
The study compares the academic performance and social presence of learners with limited English proficiency and advanced/native English speakers in an Algebra MOOC. We found out that learners with limited English proficiency outperformed native English speakers, but they were more peripheral in the learning community. Implications and suggestions are discussed.
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Event: Procrastination and Calibration: Factors Impacting College Students' Self-Regulated Learning
Title: I Thought I Was Going to Get an A! Understanding the Role of Self-Efficacy and Calibration in Student Achievement and Help Seeking
Authors: Katerina Schenke, Cathy Tran, Tutrang Chung Nguyen, Lynn C. Reimer, Thurston Domina
Abstract
We examined the contribution of self-efficacy beliefs and calibration on student achievement and help seeking in a sample of 4,197 STEM undergraduates. OLS regression revealed that students’ self-efficacy was positively related to grade at the end of the term; however, the inaccuracy of predicted grade had a strong negative association with actual course grade when controlling for whether or not the student had over predicted. Results obtained from looking at students’ need for help, their reported help from a teaching assistant or instructor, and their reported help from peers reveal different patterns among the variables of interest. We discuss results with regard to the importance of considering self-efficacy as well as calibration in examining students’ achievement and help seeking.
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Event: Promising Scholarship in Education: Dissertation Fellows and Their Research
Title: Designing for Productive Persistence After Failure
Author: Cathy Tran
Abstract
We could not learn without failure. In fact, trial and error may be the most fundamental learning mechanism in nature. It is how babies explore and get to know the world. What tastes good? What hurts? What makes us laugh? We try. We stumble. We revise. We try again. Sometimes we get it. Sometimes we abandon the task. If we only did things we already knew how to do, we would not learn anything. This kind of productive failure is prevalent in children's play and inherent in their games, particularly video games. Failure is the norm in most video games—success is the exception. How many replays does it take to complete a level of Angry Birds successfully? Players experiment with one strategy after another, making adjustments, keeping what works, and discarding what proves to be unsuccessful. It is a wonderful iterative learning process.
Sadly, those same players who show such resilience in games often view failure in school as confirmation of their inability. This dissertation tackles that challenge of how to design learning environments that embrace failure and the benefits of learning from failure. Deep knowledge is more likely to be developed through failures than successes since we are more likely to search for causes for failure than causes for success (for a review, see Weiner, 1985). For instance, research with tutors shows that students learn more from explanations given by tutors after, rather than before, they have experienced a lack of requisite knowledge to solve a given task (VanLehn, Siler, Murray, Yamuachi, & Baggett, 2003). Research in productive failure shows that students are more prepared to learn after they generate several solutions to a complex, open-ended problem even when those solutions are rarely accurate (Kapur, 2008). Finally, work in the area of desirable difficulties provides evidence that instructional manipulations that introduce difficulties can be strategically designed such that they slow down the rate of knowledge acquisition but enhance recall and transfer (Bjork, 2013). This body of work illustrates that learning profits from instances of failure, but to reap those benefits, one must persist in the face of failure.
My research provides insight on how to design learning environments in a manner that elicits productive persistence after failure. Through two projects, I bridge the work in educational psychology, cognition, affective science, and game design to facilitate the study of what influences persistence after failure and how knowledge about those influential factors can inform the development of educational environments. Designing effective instructional games that promote productive persistence goes beyond imposing game elements such as reward points into existing educational tasks or integrating educational elements such as multiple-choice questions into existing games. My research identifies the underlying elements, structures, and contexts that are likely to promote productive persistence in games to investigate how to more effectively apply these elements to the challenges of more formal learning environments.
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Event: Relational Reasoning in STEM Domains: What Empirical Research Can Contribute to the National Dialogue
Title: Relational Thinking in Elementary Mathematics
Authors: Lindsey Richland, Kreshnik Begolli, Rebecca Frausel
Abstract
Purpose/Theoretical Framework
Relational thinking is core to mathematical thinking and generalizable learning, in the form of representing problems or concepts as systems of relationships, yet relational thinking is seriously underutilized in U.S. classroom teaching (Hiebert et al, 2003; Richland, Zur & Holyoak, 2007), and many students graduate from k-12 instruction with explicit beliefs that mathematics is a discipline of memorization as opposed to reasoning (Givven, Stigler & Thompson, 2011).
We describe key pedagogical strategies for using relational thinking in classroom practice for drawing connections: comparing students' solutions to one problem (Ball et al, 2008; Stein, et al, 2008). A common strategy for leading classroom discussions in which solutions to a single problem are compared draws in part on the Japanese instructional model and the conceptual change model (see Stigler & Hiebert, 1999, Vosniadou & Brewer, 1987). In this routine, the teacher selects multiple students to present their solutions, typically beginning with a student demonstrating a common misconception, followed by students who use variations of valid solutions. However, we previously found that when a student misconception was presented first and inadequately compared with more appropriate strategies, students were likely to continue or begin using the misconception strategy (Begolli & Richland, 2013).
A set of experiments tested whether the comparison between solution strategies was best organized by beginning or ending with the misconception, and whether the challenges of ignoring a presented misconception at the beginning of a lesson is more difficult for students with low inhibitory control and executive function skills.
Method
In all experiments, fifth and sixth-grade students individually interacted with videotaped classroom instruction on rate/ratio. A whole class lesson was videotaped and broken into segments that were presented to students in a new school using an interactive computer program. Participants were administered a pretest, immediate posttest, and delayed posttest with validated procedural and conceptual subscales. In experiment 1, the misconception and valid solutions were presented in different orders, randomized within classroom, with either misconception shown first followed by valid (n = 47), or the opposite (n = 48). Participants also completed a battery of working memory and executive function measures. Experiment 2 replicated Experiment 1 with additional cognitive measures and a larger sample on the misconception first condition. Experiment 3 replicated the effect of presentation order.
Results
A median split design was used to examine the relations among instructional order, cognitive skills and posttest scores. Analyses controlled for pretest so to minimize relations between prior knowledge and cognitive skills. See table 3.1 for information on significance tests.
In sum, comparing solution strategies can be a powerful way to support students in developing procedural and conceptual knowledge, but only when they have adequate processing resources or pedagogical support to ensure that they make the comparisons. If not, presenting a misconception before valid instruction may lead to greater use of the misconception at posttest.
Significance
With careful support, relational thinking is a powerful tool for promoting flexible procedural and conceptual knowledge in mathematics education.
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Event: Roundtable 4: Students’ Mathematical Thinking: Grades 5-8
Title: Productive Struggle and the Development of Relational Equity in a Mathematics Learning Community
Authors: Tesha Sengupta Irving, Priyanka Agarwal
Abstract
Developing conceptual understanding takes productive struggle – students grappling with important mathematical ideas that are not yet apparent. Our analysis explored productive struggle in a novel way by examining struggle in relation to the achievement of relational equity: students communicating effectively, appreciating others’ perspectives and engaging respectfully. Drawing on video of small group collaborations in two 5th grade elementary classes, we present a two-part analysis: The first are prospective indicators that attune teachers and researchers to significant moments of struggle as they unfold. Second, we offer video analyses of select problem solving episodes. We argue that while struggle marks the intellectual work of learning communities, it also reveals important dynamics that serve to strengthen or threaten equity within the community.
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Event: Roundtable 6: Thriving and Surviving in STEM: Improving Outcomes for Underrepresented Populations in the Sciences
Title: Problem-Solving Pedagogies: Enhancing Undergraduate STEM Outcomes for Underrepresented Students
Authors: Lynn C. Reimer, Amanda Nill, Tutrang Chung Nguyen, Thurston Domina, Mark Warschauer
Abstract
Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields require creativity to solve real-world problems. How do STEM students develop this expertise? Inclusion of advanced problem solving strategies in STEM courses is associated with positive student outcomes. Results reported here are taken from of a larger study of promising instructional practices in entry-level STEM courses with enrollments of 250 or more. Institutional data and an observation protocol identified problem solving in introductory chemistry courses (N = 1,265). Results indicated students exposed to algorithmic problem solving during large lecture courses in introductory chemistry tend to progress to the next course and international students exposed to advanced problem solving pedagogies in the first course, they tend to have higher grades in the subsequent course.
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Event: Roundtable 16: Studying Achievement in Math and Science
Title: Bridging the Achievement Gap: A Longitudinal Study of the Differentiated Lingering Effect of Flipped Instruction
Authors: Wenliang He, Renee Link
Abstract
Our study involved two lower-level Chemistry courses, Chem 51A & 51B, taught in five consecutive years from 2009 to 2013. Flipped instruction was introduced in Chem 51A since 2012. The effect of flipped instruction was examined using student exam scores in Chem 51B, which has always been taught using traditional lectures. Results indicated that for academically advantaged students, the effect of flipped instruction did not persist beyond the course where it was originally applied. However, flipped instruction had lingering effect on at-risk students who had failed Chem 51A at least once before. In effect, the achievement gap between advantaged and at-risk students was greatly reduced after the introduction of flipped instruction.
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Event: Roundtable 19: Adolescents, Parents, and Peers; Patterns and Issues
Title: Adolescent Work Intensity and Youth Development: Links Vary by Family Income
Author: NaYoung Hwang
Abstract
Research suggests that the relations between adolescent employment and developmental outcomes differ according to family background. Using data from the Educational Longitudinal Study (ELS), this study examines whether the links between varying levels of work intensity and several youth developmental outcomes, including peer group, college aspirations, and educational outcomes, vary by family income. Results show that for students who are not living in poverty, high-intensity work is associated with an increase in friendship with high school dropouts and a decrease in homework hours, math achievement, and educational attainment. However, for students from very low-income families, high-intensity work is either unrelated to youth outcomes or linked with positive outcomes.
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Event: Student Heterogeneity in the Classroom: Precursors and Links to Outcomes
Title: Ethnic Composition and Heterogeneity in the Classroom: Measurement and Relationship With Student Outcomes
Authors: Camilla Rjosk, Dirk Richter, Oliver Ludtke, Petra Stanat, Jacquelynne Eccles
Abstract
As societies become more diverse in terms of ethnic background, the composition of the student body within educational systems diversifies as well. Various theoretical accounts commonly assume a negative relationship between the proportion of ethnic minority students and student achievement due to school resources, instructional quality, language spoken with peers, and learning culture (Driessen, 2002; Goldsmith, 2011; Raudenbush, Fotiu, & Cheong, 1998; Stipek, 2004). Research on the degree to which this ethnic makeup of schools or classrooms affects student achievement shows mixed results: The proportion of ethnic minority students in a school or classroom often has no or slightly negative effects on student achievement (Mickelson et al., 2013; Van Ewijk & Sleegers, 2010). Yet, some studies report that a higher proportion of heterogeneous minority students may lead to higher achievement (e.g., Benner & Crosnoe, 2011; Peetsma, Van der Veen, Koopman, & Van Schooten, 2006; Gurin et al. 2003; Tam & Bassett, 2004), as students in such learning environments encounter and have to work through contradictions and discrepancies in everyday life, which helps them to expand their intellectual capacities. These mixed results may be due to the operationalization of the ethnic composition: Most studies so far have only distinguished between ethnic minority and majority without addressing ethnic heterogeneity.
The present study explores various measures of ethnic composition and heterogeneity, such as Simpson’s D, Shannon’s H, and Kvalseth’s OD, used in different disciplines as a key to understanding the inconsistent findings (see Budescu & Budescu, 2012; McDonald & Dimmick, 2003). Our aim is to find out whether measures of ethnic diversity are related to student achievement and psychosocial outcomes over and above commonly investigated characteristics of classroom composition (i.e., average cognitive abilities, average socioeconomic status). Our multi-level analyses are based on data from a representative sample of 19,457 elementary school students in western states of Germany in 908 4th grade classrooms (Stanat, Pant, Böhme, & Richter, 2012). Student achievement outcomes in reading and mathematics were assessed with standardized tests. In addition to student achievement, we examine the effects of ethnic heterogeneity on students’ sense of belongingness to their classmates. This variable was assessed with a 4-item-scale in the student questionnaire.
Multilevel structural equation models revealed that the proportion of minority students in the classroom showed the strongest association with student outcomes (reading: beta = -.29, p < .01; mathematics: beta = -.36, p < .01; belongingness: beta = -.28, p < .01). After including measures of ethnic diversity in addition to the proportion of minority students, we found different patterns of results: While ethnic diversity in the classroom was not significantly related with reading achievement (beta = -.06, p > .05) or with sense of belongingness to classmates (beta = .05, p > .05), students showed higher mathematics achievement in ethnically more diverse classrooms (beta = .23, p < .01). The presentation will discuss possible explanations for the differential findings as well as implications of using different measures to describe the ethnic makeup of classrooms.
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Event: Student Heterogeneity in the Classroom: Precursors and Links to Outcomes
Title: Heterogeneity of Student Perceptions of the Classroom Climate: A Latent Profile Approach
Authors: Katerina Schenke, Arena C. Lam, Erik Ruzek, AnneMarie M. Conley, Stuart A. Karabenick
Abstract
Motivation scholars underscore the importance of students’ individual perceptions of the learning environment for explaining learning-related outcomes, such as academic motivation and achievement (Ames, 1992; Eccles, 1983). Indeed, students in the same classroom often perceive their teacher’s instructional or motivational practices quite differently (Chang, Ruzek, Schenke, Conley, & Karabenick, under review; Miller & Murdock, 2007). However, systematic investigation of within-classroom differences in student reports of the classroom climate is exceedingly rare, and an understanding of how the qualitative differences in these perceptions relate to classroom-level outcomes is lacking. Accordingly, this paper explores heterogeneity of student perceptions of the classroom emotional (emotional support), motivational (achievement goal structure), and instructional (academic press) climate in relation to classroom-level mathematics achievement.
Motivational climate is indicated by classroom goal structure, i.e., the extent to which the classroom is focused on learning and understanding (mastery) and the extent to which it is focused on demonstrating performance (Ames, 1992). A classroom is classified as emotionally-supportive to the extent that students’ social and emotional functioning is promoted (Pianta, Hamre, Haynes, Mintz, & LeParo, 2012). Academic press involves a classroom emphasis on student explanations that demonstrate comprehension and an encouraging of effort (Middleton & Blumenfeld, 2000). Using these classroom climate dimensions, we aim to: identify and describe the profiles of students’ perceptions of the classroom along these dimensions of the classroom, and understand the association between number of profiles present in the classroom and classroom achievement.
Student survey and achievement data are drawn from 3,486 ethnically diverse 7th through 11th grade students in 210 mathematics classrooms. We examined end of the school year student survey responses (PALS; Midgley et al., 2000) and mathematics achievement on the California Standards Test (CST). Scales of students’ perceptions of the mastery goal structure, performance goal structure, emotional support, and academic press were created by averaging their corresponding items (alphas for the scales = .83-.95).
We used Latent Profile Analysis to identify common patterns of student perceptions across the four classroom scales, settling on a four-profile solution (Figure 1), which described students that perceive the classroom as: cold and hands off (Profile 1; 7% student endorsement), goldilocks (Profile 2; 25% student endorsement), some warmth (Profile 3; 37% student endorsement), and warm promoting effort and challenge (Profile 4; 35% student endorsement). The number of profiles contained in classrooms ranged from two to four.
Results of ordinary least squares regression (Table 1) indicated that the presence of fewer profiles in a classroom was associated with higher classroom mathematics achievement such that two profiles was the most adaptive when compared with three and four profiles (beta = .48, p = .001). Further, classroom achievement improved the most when a higher percentage of classmates endorsed the warm promoting effort and challenge profile (beta = .19, p < .001). Additional analyses will describe how the combination of number and type of profiles present, dominant classroom profile, and the combination of number and type of profiles present relate to classroom level outcomes (i.e., achievement, motivation, help seeking).
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Event: Supporting Students: The Role of Social Support, Belonging, and Adversity in Learning Outcomes
Title: Promoting Adolescents' Academic Performance: A District-Wide Randomized Trial of a Social-Belonging Intervention
Authors: Geoffrey Borman, Chris Rozek, Rachel Feldman, Paul Hanselman
Abstract
Treated sixth-grade students performed at statistically significantly higher levels on GPA and received fewer failing grades than their control group peers after participating in a district-wide randomized controlled trial of a social-psychological intervention designed to lessen belonging uncertainty and increase positive interpretations of adversity in academic settings. The randomized design and district-wide implementation provide strong warrants that such interventions can make a difference at scale.
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Event: Why Teacher Motivation Matters: Implications for Instructional Practice, Professional Engagement, and Well-Being
Title: Person and Situation Contributions to Teacher Motivation for Professional Development
Authors: Stuart Karabenick, AnneMarie Conley
Abstract
Although there is general consensus regarding the features of PD programs that are more or less likely to be successful in producing behavioral and attitudinal changes conducive to improved student learning and achievement (e.g., Darling-Hammond et al., 2009; Penuel et al., 2007), systematic analyses and empirical evidence focused on teachers’ motivation to participate and be engaged in PD (PDM) is virtually absent from the discourse surrounding teacher PD. We present results of an anonymous national survey in the U.S. that describes middle and high school teachers’ (n = 816) PDM. In addition to teachers’ general level of PDM and its relation to PD participation, we examined the network of variables with which PDM is potentially associated, including (a) retrospective PD experiences, (b) PDM and prospective features of PD, (c) teacher characteristics, (d) teaching-related emotions, and (e) school context variables and teacher wellbeing. Theoretical frameworks include expectancy-value and achievement goal theories.
Among the results is clear evidence that most teachers have high levels of PDM given a mean of 5 on a 0 (none at all) to 6 (extremely) scale. As expected, the 75% of teachers who had participated in PD during the previous year indicated being more motivated; they reported that participation was a positive rather than a negative experience and judged it to be useful for increasing their teaching effectiveness. Teachers who engaged in PD because it was required reported having had a more negative experience and judged PD less effective. Those with higher PDM reported experiencing more positive and less negative emotions during PD, had more positive PD experiences, and were more likely to participate in the future. Among the teacher characteristics examined, PDM was higher for those who chose teaching to provide a societal benefit, less for those who did so for intrinsic and least for extrinsic reasons (cf. Watt & Richardson, 2007). PDM was most highly related to teachers’ mastery and less so to a performance approach to teaching, and related to secondary teachers’ personal sense of responsibility for student motivation and achievement. PDM was directly related to teachers’ higher sense of personal accomplishment, and among those reporting being less emotionally exhausted and under less stress. Regarding context, higher PDM was reported by teachers in schools characterized by stronger principal-collegial leadership and those with fewer school problems.
Evidence is consistent with reviews of PD pracdesign_videotices (e.g., Avalos, 2011; Timperley, Wilson, Barrar, & Fung, 2007). In general, results indicate that teachers in general are more positively motivated to engage in PD than is often assumed. Understanding and measuring the malleable factors that increase PDM suggests ways to improve teachers’ PD experiences and the likelihood they will enact recommended instructional practices that facilitate student learning and performance. Results indicate a clear need to take PDM into consideration when planning and evaluating the consequences of PD, as well as PDM’s potential contributions to the teacher motivation literature in general (Richardson, Karabenick, & Watt, 2014).
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In-Progress Research Presentations
Title: Improving Reading Comprehension and Achievement in Science Classes: Working Memory Training for Dyslexic Children
Author: Masha Jones
Abstract
With the advent of the Common Core State Standards and Next Generation Science Standards, students are being asked to engage with texts of higher complexity and to reach learning objectives that are more demanding than ever before. This places children with reading difficulties such as dyslexia at an unprecedented disadvantage, especially when it comes to science achievement, which now relies even more heavily on science literacy. Reading comprehension, especially in the case of science learning, involves a great deal of working memory, and individuals with dyslexia have marked working memory deficits. Because an accumulating body of research demonstrates the malleability of working memory skills, we are conducting a study in which working memory skills will be trained in the hope of improving reading comprehension and science achievement for children with dyslexia.
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Title: Increasing STEM-Major Persistence Through Social Interactive Pedagogies
Author: Peter McPartlan
Abstract
Producing more college graduates who are prepared to enter the U.S. STEM workforce is vital. A promising approach to accomplishing this goal is to mitigate high rates of STEM-major attrition among undergraduates, which is highest among racial/ethnic minorities and women. Research on college persistence suggests that developing social connectedness is essential, but that introductory STEM course environments may be especially poor at fostering such connectedness. In this study, I propose implementing an intervention designed to increase STEM persistence by increasing social connectedness and belongingness in an introductory STEM classroom. I propose this can be done very simply by using an increasingly popular tool, clickers, in a social, interactive way. Furthermore, increasing social connectedness and belongingness would be expected to have an especially significant impact on the persistence of underrepresented groups in STEM.
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Title: From Keystrokes to Achievement Scores: The Effects of Prior Computer Use on Computer-Based Writing
Author: Tamara Tate, Mark Warschauer, Jamal Abedi
Abstract
Writing achievement levels are chronically low for K-12 students. As assessments transition to computers, differences in access may exacerbate difficulties. We use structural equation modeling to examine the relationship between a student’s reported prior use of computers and achievement on the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) computer-based writing assessment. NAEP data contains information for over 24,100 eighth grade students. The “prior use” latent variable created using factor analysis had a direct effect on writing achievement scores on the computer-based assessment. One standard deviation increase in prior use led to a .21 standard deviation increase in writing achievement scores. Although all groups benefited from prior computer use, certain groups benefited more than others.
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In addition to the above,
Gilberto Conchas chaired (a) AERA Books Editorial Board closed session, (b) Interest in Mathematics and Science: A New Publication, and (c) Socializing Intelligence Through Academic Talk and Dialogue: A New AERA Publication.
Greg Duncan was the Invited Speaker for Perspectives on Replication in Education Research.
Jacquelynne Eccles chaired AERA Grants Program Dissertation Grantee Capstone Conference (Day 1 of 2) and AERA Grants
Program Governing Board: Closed Meeting; and served as a Discussant for (a) Student Heterogeneity in the Classroom: Precursors and Links to Outcomes; (b) Systematic Approaches to Mindfulness-Based Interventions for Teachers and Students: Early Childhood and Elementary School Settings; and (c) Promising Scholarship in Education: Dissertation Fellows and Their Research.
Hosun Kang and Elizabeth van Es co-chaired the session Design Principles for a Pedagogy of Teacher Education.
Faculty and Student Present at 2015 Society for Research in Educational Effectiveness Annual Conference
Faculty and Ph.D. student presented at the Society for Research in Educational Effectiveness (SREE) Spring 2015 Conference, held in Washington, D.C. from March 5-7, 2015.
The conference theme was Learning Curves: Creating and Sustaining Gains from Early Childhood through Adulthood.
Distinguished Professor of Education Greg J. Duncan delivered the Opening Address: "Fade-Out in Human Capital Intervention: Death, Miracles, and Resurrection."
Associate Professor Thurston Domina moderated the Transitions for Youth Panel: "Nudges Along the Path from High School to College: Designing and Evaluating Informational Interventions."
School of Education Presentations (organized alphabetically by category)
Early Childhood Education: Altering the Curve: Improving Math Outcomes through Curriculum and Teacher Expectations
Title: “Great Expectations: The Effect of High Teacher Expectations on the Mathematics Achievement of African American Students in a Preschool Math Intervention”
Authors: Tyler Watts & Greg J. Duncan, University of California, Irvine; Douglas H. Clements & Julie Sarama, University of Denver; Christopher B. Wolfe, Indiana University, Kokomo; Mary Elaine Spitler, ABET
Abstract
Early mathematics interventions have the potential to not only influence the quality of mathematics students are exposed to but also be delivered in a way that can be targeted towards a particular group. One such mechanism for improving achievement outcomes is the expectations teachers have for their students. Although teacher expectations have been linked with achievement outcomes for students, previous research suggests that African American students are held to lower academic standards in early grade classrooms. In the current study, we investigate whether teacher expectations mediate the treatment impact on mathematics achievement outcomes. Further, we tested whether these expectations had differential effects based on students’ ethnicity. Indeed, we found a 37% percent increase in the effectiveness of the intervention for African American students, and teacher expectations mediated 25% of this effect. These results held when controlling for other mediational features of the treatment, such as time spent on mathematics.
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Early Childhood Education Symposium: Preschool Program Fadeout: Examining Three Common Hypotheses and Providing New Directions for Policy
Title: "Preschool Program Fadeout: Examining Three Common Hypotheses and Providing New Directions for Policy"
Authors: Drew H. Bailey, Tutrang Nguyen, Jade Marcus Jenkins, & Thurston Domina, University of California, Irvine; Douglas Clements & Julie Sarama, University of Denver; Christopher B. Wolfe, Indiana University, Kokomo; Mary Elaine Spitler, University at Buffalo
Abstract
Little research has focused on why short-term gains from preschool may disappear and the conditions under which gains from preschool might be sustained into elementary school. We investigate whether two aspects of the elementary school environment may help to sustain the academic gains made during preschool using two random assignment preschool studies: 1) whether advanced and challenging instruction in kindergarten and first grade; 2) professional supports in which preschool teachers interact with their kindergarten and first grade counterparts to coordinate instruction and transition. We also assess whether the child’s home learning environment moderates the persistence of preschool effects. We did not find any evidence to support the hypothesis that better instructional quality mitigates the fadeout of preschool treatment effects during elementary school. However, we did find some evidence that when the preschool intervention was coupled with teacher professional supports in kindergarten and first grade, this all but eliminated the fadeout of effects observed between kindergarten and first grade. We also did not find that factors in the home environment, parents education and home learning activities, help to sustain the gains made during preschool. Future research should investigate aligned preschool-elementary school curricular approaches to sustain the benefits of ECE programs for low-income children.
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Early Childhood Education Symposium: Preschool Program Fadeout: Examining Three Common Hypotheses and Providing New Directions for Policy
Title: “Preventing Preschool Fadeout through Instructional Intervention in Kindergarten and First Grade”
Authors: Greg J. Duncan, Jade Marcus Jenkins, & Tyler W. Watts, University of California, Irvine; Katherine Magnuson, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Douglas Clements & Julie Sarama, University of Denver; Christopher B. Wolfe, Indiana University, Kokomo; Mary Elaine Spitler, University at Buffalo
Abstract
Little research has focused on why short-term gains from preschool may disappear and the conditions under which gains from preschool might be sustained into elementary school. We investigate whether two aspects of the elementary school environment may help to sustain the academic gains made during preschool using two random assignment preschool studies: 1) whether advanced and challenging instruction in kindergarten and first grade; 2) professional supports in which preschool teachers interact with their kindergarten and first grade counterparts to coordinate instruction and transition. We also assess whether the child’s home learning environment moderates the persistence of preschool effects. We did not find any evidence to support the hypothesis that better instructional quality mitigates the fadeout of preschool treatment effects during elementary school. However, we did find some evidence that when the preschool intervention was coupled with teacher professional supports in kindergarten and first grade, this all but eliminated the fadeout of effects observed between kindergarten and first grade. We also did not find that factors in the home environment, parents education and home learning activities, help to sustain the gains made during preschool. Future research should investigate aligned preschool-elementary school curricular approaches to sustain the benefits of ECE programs for low-income children.
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Early Childhood Education Poster
Title: “Comparing the Effectiveness of Targeted Curricula in Head Start and Public Pre-K Classrooms"
Author: Tutrang Nguyen, Jade Marcus Jenkins, Anamarie Auger, & Thurston Domina, University of California, Irvine
Abstract
There is a wealth of studies on the effectiveness of Head Start and pre-k programs individually in boosting children’s cognitive and social-emotional skills, though there is little research that compares the two. Given current efforts at the federal and state levels to expand early childhood education programs, understanding differences between curricula packages in addition to program type is essential; especially when investing billions of federal and state dollars each year on curricula for public preschool programs. The present study is uniquely positioned to examine both the effectiveness of targeted curricula and make direct comparisons between Head Start and pre-k. We use a national, experimental dataset where children in the study were randomly assigned to content-specific curricula in a pre-kindergarten or Head Start classroom. We can therefore provide correlational evidence about the effects of targeted, content-specific curricula on children’s outcomes and on how program type may interact with content-specific curricular implementation.
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Early Childhood Education Poster
Title: “What Specific Preschool Math Skills Predict Later Math Achievement?”
Authors: Tutrang Nguyen, Tyler W. Watts, & Greg J. Duncan, University of California,Irvine
Abstract
Research has shown that kindergarten mathematics achievement at school entry is the strongest predictor of later school success. This study expands our understanding of children’s mathematics achievement in their earliest years of schooling using longitudinal data from a low-income and minority sample of preschoolers. We use OLS regression to relate specific preschool mathematical competencies to achievement in kindergarten, 1st, 4th, and 5th grade. Counting skills and understanding numbers most predict mathematics achievement even through 5th grade when controlling for other domains of mathematical knowledge, preschool classroom fixed effects, and a host of child and family characteristics. Results suggest strong support of mathematics in preschool.
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Social and Emotional Interventions in Educational Settings Symposium: Scaling Up a Social-Psychological Invervenmtion to Combat Stereotype Threat and Narrow Achievement Gaps: Enduring Impacts
Title: “Inside the Black Box of Self-Affirmation: Which Parts of Affirmation Exercises Are Critical for Treatment Efficacy?”
Authors: Christopher Rozek, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Paul Hanselman, University of California, Irvine; Rachel C. Feldman, Erin A. Quast, & Evan P. Crawford, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Abstract
Brief self-affirmation writing exercises have been offered as a promising corrective to some of the social psychological processes of disadvantage in school, but relatively little is known about the mechanisms through which these interventions may impact ultimate student outcomes. Drawing on a large-scale field trial of self-affirmation activities among 7th grade students in Madison, WI, we explore student responses to the writing prompts. We find that nominal take-up of the task was high, with most students completing activities as intended. We code students' responses for evidence of self-directed affirming statements, and find this measure was influenced greatly but not universally by the intervention. Treatment on the treated analyses suggest that that engaging briefly in self-affirmation provided benefits to black and Hispanic students.
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Social and Emotional Interventions in Educational Settings Symposium: Scaling Up a Social-Psychological Invervention to Combat Stereotype Threat and Narrow Achievement Gaps: Enduring Impacts
Title: “The Sustained Effects of a Brief Self-Affirmation Intervention on Students' Academic Outcomes Across Middle and High School”
Authors: Geoffrey Borman, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Jeffrey Grigg, Johns Hopkins University; Chris Rozek, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Paul Hanselman, University of California, Irvine
Abstract
This paper reports on the 3-year follow-up results of a randomized trial of self-affirmation writing activities for 7th grade students, which are designed to buffer minority students from the negative consequences of stereotype threat in school. Students in all 11 middle schools in Madison, WI completed 3-4 writing exercises during 7th grade. Treatment effects on grade point average were also observed for black and Hispanic students in the study grades 8 and 9, suggesting lasting benefits, particularly in reducing the number of Ds and Fs these students earned. The results are consistent with the argument that seemingly subtle social psychological interventions can generate lasting benefits for students.
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Transitions for Youth Poster
Title: “Mentor Age and Youth Developmental Outcomes in School-Based Mentoring Programs”
Author: NaYoung Hwang, University of California, Irvine
Abstract
Although some studies have shown that teenagers have advantages when serving as mentors, other studies have warned of the possible iatrogenic effects of interventions that encourage a teenager to spend more time with another teenager. This study asks whether meeting with teenage mentors is associated with more positive youth developmental outcomes, such as increased GPA and scholastic efficacy and decreased behavioral problems, than meeting with non-teenage mentors. Using data on school-based mentoring programs in the US, we examine whether the relation between mentoring and the developmental outcomes of mentees vary with the relative age of their mentors (teenage mentor vs. non-teenage mentor). Results demonstrate that mentees who had teenage mentors exhibit significantly greater scholastic efficacy than mentees who were in the control group. However, mentees who had teenage mentors do not show any significant changes in developmental outcomes compared with mentees who had non-teenage mentors.
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Understanding the Effects of Education Policies, Teacher Performance and Teacher Recruitment Incentives: Evidence from the United States and Canada
Title: “Effects of Cumulative Exposure to Low and High Value-Added Teachers”
Author: Paul Hanselman, University of California, Irvine
Abstract
Much attention focuses on the value of effective teachers for students' academic outcomes, but prior research focuses on the effects of point in time teacher assignments. Using administrative data from North Carolina, I describe how students are exposed to effective and ineffective teachers over four years (grades 4-7) and I estimate the effects of cumulative exposure on grade 8 mathematics outcomes using inverse probability of selection weighting methods to address dynamic confounding. I find that the consequences of a good or bad "run" of teachers are substantial, but students rarely experience consistent exposure to most or least effective teachers.
Faculty and Ph.D. student presented at the Society for Research in Educational Effectiveness (SREE) Spring 2015 Conference, held in Washington, D.C. from March 5-7, 2015.
The conference theme was Learning Curves: Creating and Sustaining Gains from Early Childhood through Adulthood.
Distinguished Professor of Education Greg J. Duncan delivered the Opening Address: "Fade-Out in Human Capital Intervention: Death, Miracles, and Resurrection."
Associate Professor Thurston Domina moderated the Transitions for Youth Panel: "Nudges Along the Path from High School to College: Designing and Evaluating Informational Interventions."
School of Education Presentations (organized alphabetically by category)
Early Childhood Education: Altering the Curve: Improving Math Outcomes through Curriculum and Teacher Expectations
Title: “Great Expectations: The Effect of High Teacher Expectations on the Mathematics Achievement of African American Students in a Preschool Math Intervention”
Authors: Tyler Watts & Greg J. Duncan, University of California, Irvine; Douglas H. Clements & Julie Sarama, University of Denver; Christopher B. Wolfe, Indiana University, Kokomo; Mary Elaine Spitler, ABET
Abstract
Early mathematics interventions have the potential to not only influence the quality of mathematics students are exposed to but also be delivered in a way that can be targeted towards a particular group. One such mechanism for improving achievement outcomes is the expectations teachers have for their students. Although teacher expectations have been linked with achievement outcomes for students, previous research suggests that African American students are held to lower academic standards in early grade classrooms. In the current study, we investigate whether teacher expectations mediate the treatment impact on mathematics achievement outcomes. Further, we tested whether these expectations had differential effects based on students’ ethnicity. Indeed, we found a 37% percent increase in the effectiveness of the intervention for African American students, and teacher expectations mediated 25% of this effect. These results held when controlling for other mediational features of the treatment, such as time spent on mathematics.
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Early Childhood Education Symposium: Preschool Program Fadeout: Examining Three Common Hypotheses and Providing New Directions for Policy
Title: "Preschool Program Fadeout: Examining Three Common Hypotheses and Providing New Directions for Policy"
Authors: Drew H. Bailey, Tutrang Nguyen, Jade Marcus Jenkins, & Thurston Domina, University of California, Irvine; Douglas Clements & Julie Sarama, University of Denver; Christopher B. Wolfe, Indiana University, Kokomo; Mary Elaine Spitler, University at Buffalo
Abstract
Little research has focused on why short-term gains from preschool may disappear and the conditions under which gains from preschool might be sustained into elementary school. We investigate whether two aspects of the elementary school environment may help to sustain the academic gains made during preschool using two random assignment preschool studies: 1) whether advanced and challenging instruction in kindergarten and first grade; 2) professional supports in which preschool teachers interact with their kindergarten and first grade counterparts to coordinate instruction and transition. We also assess whether the child’s home learning environment moderates the persistence of preschool effects. We did not find any evidence to support the hypothesis that better instructional quality mitigates the fadeout of preschool treatment effects during elementary school. However, we did find some evidence that when the preschool intervention was coupled with teacher professional supports in kindergarten and first grade, this all but eliminated the fadeout of effects observed between kindergarten and first grade. We also did not find that factors in the home environment, parents education and home learning activities, help to sustain the gains made during preschool. Future research should investigate aligned preschool-elementary school curricular approaches to sustain the benefits of ECE programs for low-income children.
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Early Childhood Education Symposium: Preschool Program Fadeout: Examining Three Common Hypotheses and Providing New Directions for Policy
Title: “Preventing Preschool Fadeout through Instructional Intervention in Kindergarten and First Grade”
Authors: Greg J. Duncan, Jade Marcus Jenkins, & Tyler W. Watts, University of California, Irvine; Katherine Magnuson, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Douglas Clements & Julie Sarama, University of Denver; Christopher B. Wolfe, Indiana University, Kokomo; Mary Elaine Spitler, University at Buffalo
Abstract
Little research has focused on why short-term gains from preschool may disappear and the conditions under which gains from preschool might be sustained into elementary school. We investigate whether two aspects of the elementary school environment may help to sustain the academic gains made during preschool using two random assignment preschool studies: 1) whether advanced and challenging instruction in kindergarten and first grade; 2) professional supports in which preschool teachers interact with their kindergarten and first grade counterparts to coordinate instruction and transition. We also assess whether the child’s home learning environment moderates the persistence of preschool effects. We did not find any evidence to support the hypothesis that better instructional quality mitigates the fadeout of preschool treatment effects during elementary school. However, we did find some evidence that when the preschool intervention was coupled with teacher professional supports in kindergarten and first grade, this all but eliminated the fadeout of effects observed between kindergarten and first grade. We also did not find that factors in the home environment, parents education and home learning activities, help to sustain the gains made during preschool. Future research should investigate aligned preschool-elementary school curricular approaches to sustain the benefits of ECE programs for low-income children.
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Early Childhood Education Poster
Title: “Comparing the Effectiveness of Targeted Curricula in Head Start and Public Pre-K Classrooms"
Author: Tutrang Nguyen, Jade Marcus Jenkins, Anamarie Auger, & Thurston Domina, University of California, Irvine
Abstract
There is a wealth of studies on the effectiveness of Head Start and pre-k programs individually in boosting children’s cognitive and social-emotional skills, though there is little research that compares the two. Given current efforts at the federal and state levels to expand early childhood education programs, understanding differences between curricula packages in addition to program type is essential; especially when investing billions of federal and state dollars each year on curricula for public preschool programs. The present study is uniquely positioned to examine both the effectiveness of targeted curricula and make direct comparisons between Head Start and pre-k. We use a national, experimental dataset where children in the study were randomly assigned to content-specific curricula in a pre-kindergarten or Head Start classroom. We can therefore provide correlational evidence about the effects of targeted, content-specific curricula on children’s outcomes and on how program type may interact with content-specific curricular implementation.
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Early Childhood Education Poster
Title: “What Specific Preschool Math Skills Predict Later Math Achievement?”
Authors: Tutrang Nguyen, Tyler W. Watts, & Greg J. Duncan, University of California,Irvine
Abstract
Research has shown that kindergarten mathematics achievement at school entry is the strongest predictor of later school success. This study expands our understanding of children’s mathematics achievement in their earliest years of schooling using longitudinal data from a low-income and minority sample of preschoolers. We use OLS regression to relate specific preschool mathematical competencies to achievement in kindergarten, 1st, 4th, and 5th grade. Counting skills and understanding numbers most predict mathematics achievement even through 5th grade when controlling for other domains of mathematical knowledge, preschool classroom fixed effects, and a host of child and family characteristics. Results suggest strong support of mathematics in preschool.
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Social and Emotional Interventions in Educational Settings Symposium: Scaling Up a Social-Psychological Invervenmtion to Combat Stereotype Threat and Narrow Achievement Gaps: Enduring Impacts
Title: “Inside the Black Box of Self-Affirmation: Which Parts of Affirmation Exercises Are Critical for Treatment Efficacy?”
Authors: Christopher Rozek, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Paul Hanselman, University of California, Irvine; Rachel C. Feldman, Erin A. Quast, & Evan P. Crawford, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Abstract
Brief self-affirmation writing exercises have been offered as a promising corrective to some of the social psychological processes of disadvantage in school, but relatively little is known about the mechanisms through which these interventions may impact ultimate student outcomes. Drawing on a large-scale field trial of self-affirmation activities among 7th grade students in Madison, WI, we explore student responses to the writing prompts. We find that nominal take-up of the task was high, with most students completing activities as intended. We code students' responses for evidence of self-directed affirming statements, and find this measure was influenced greatly but not universally by the intervention. Treatment on the treated analyses suggest that that engaging briefly in self-affirmation provided benefits to black and Hispanic students.
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Social and Emotional Interventions in Educational Settings Symposium: Scaling Up a Social-Psychological Invervention to Combat Stereotype Threat and Narrow Achievement Gaps: Enduring Impacts
Title: “The Sustained Effects of a Brief Self-Affirmation Intervention on Students' Academic Outcomes Across Middle and High School”
Authors: Geoffrey Borman, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Jeffrey Grigg, Johns Hopkins University; Chris Rozek, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Paul Hanselman, University of California, Irvine
Abstract
This paper reports on the 3-year follow-up results of a randomized trial of self-affirmation writing activities for 7th grade students, which are designed to buffer minority students from the negative consequences of stereotype threat in school. Students in all 11 middle schools in Madison, WI completed 3-4 writing exercises during 7th grade. Treatment effects on grade point average were also observed for black and Hispanic students in the study grades 8 and 9, suggesting lasting benefits, particularly in reducing the number of Ds and Fs these students earned. The results are consistent with the argument that seemingly subtle social psychological interventions can generate lasting benefits for students.
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Transitions for Youth Poster
Title: “Mentor Age and Youth Developmental Outcomes in School-Based Mentoring Programs”
Author: NaYoung Hwang, University of California, Irvine
Abstract
Although some studies have shown that teenagers have advantages when serving as mentors, other studies have warned of the possible iatrogenic effects of interventions that encourage a teenager to spend more time with another teenager. This study asks whether meeting with teenage mentors is associated with more positive youth developmental outcomes, such as increased GPA and scholastic efficacy and decreased behavioral problems, than meeting with non-teenage mentors. Using data on school-based mentoring programs in the US, we examine whether the relation between mentoring and the developmental outcomes of mentees vary with the relative age of their mentors (teenage mentor vs. non-teenage mentor). Results demonstrate that mentees who had teenage mentors exhibit significantly greater scholastic efficacy than mentees who were in the control group. However, mentees who had teenage mentors do not show any significant changes in developmental outcomes compared with mentees who had non-teenage mentors.
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Understanding the Effects of Education Policies, Teacher Performance and Teacher Recruitment Incentives: Evidence from the United States and Canada
Title: “Effects of Cumulative Exposure to Low and High Value-Added Teachers”
Author: Paul Hanselman, University of California, Irvine
Abstract
Much attention focuses on the value of effective teachers for students' academic outcomes, but prior research focuses on the effects of point in time teacher assignments. Using administrative data from North Carolina, I describe how students are exposed to effective and ineffective teachers over four years (grades 4-7) and I estimate the effects of cumulative exposure on grade 8 mathematics outcomes using inverse probability of selection weighting methods to address dynamic confounding. I find that the consequences of a good or bad "run" of teachers are substantial, but students rarely experience consistent exposure to most or least effective teachers.
Faculty and Students Volunteer at Orange County Head Start Family Festival
Orange County Head Start, Inc. and its collaborative partners hosted the 8th Annual Family Festival on April 18, 2015, from 12:00 to 4:00 PM at the Atlantis Play Center in Garden Grove. The festival is held yearly in the spring to promote healthy development in young children and to provide information to families about the resources available throughout Orange county.
School of Education faculty and students volunteered for the Reading Booth where they distributed free books to parents and children and hosted a reading area. Participation was coordinated by Associate Professor Stephanie Reich, who serves as a Board Member for Orange County Head Start, Inc., and by Joyce Lin, President of Associated Doctoral Students in Education (ADSE).
Volunteering in the reading areas were Ph.D. students Huy Chung, Joyce Lin, David Liu, Chris Stillwell, Rachel Stumpf, Wendy Ochoa, Melissa Powell, Joanna Yau, Winnie Yu, and Ben Yu and Education students Nohely Diaz, Jessica Escobar, Edith Esparza, Lea Ibalio, Joe Kirpichyan, Tallin Muskat, and Emily Ramirez.
Orange County Head Start, Inc. and its collaborative partners hosted the 8th Annual Family Festival on April 18, 2015, from 12:00 to 4:00 PM at the Atlantis Play Center in Garden Grove. The festival is held yearly in the spring to promote healthy development in young children and to provide information to families about the resources available throughout Orange county.
School of Education faculty and students volunteered for the Reading Booth where they distributed free books to parents and children and hosted a reading area. Participation was coordinated by Associate Professor Stephanie Reich, who serves as a Board Member for Orange County Head Start, Inc., and by Joyce Lin, President of Associated Doctoral Students in Education (ADSE).
Volunteering in the reading areas were Ph.D. students Huy Chung, Joyce Lin, David Liu, Chris Stillwell, Rachel Stumpf, Wendy Ochoa, Melissa Powell, Joanna Yau, Winnie Yu, and Ben Yu and Education students Nohely Diaz, Jessica Escobar, Edith Esparza, Lea Ibalio, Joe Kirpichyan, Tallin Muskat, and Emily Ramirez.
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Very Special Arts - April 18, 2015, Westfield Mall, Santa Ana
Under the guidance of Lecturer Kimberly Burge, Ed.D., and Multiple Subject Coordinator Susan Toma-Berge, Ph.D., 54 School of Education student teachers assisted at the 39th Very Special Arts (VSA) Festival held April 18th at the Westfield Mall in Santa Ana.
VSA Orange County provides arts, education, and cultural opportunities by, with, and for people with disabilities. The annual VSA Festival is held each spring to culminate year-round, school and community-based arts program efforts, including hands-on workshops, demonstrations, performances, and a visual art exhibit, serving all ages and all disabilities. Student teachers from UC Irvine's School of Education have been volunteering at the VSA Festival for more than 15 years.
This year the main stage area featured singing, dancing, and instrumental performances, and visual art was exhibited throughtout the mall. School of Education student teachers assisted with arts and crafts activities at 18 different workshops.
Volunteer Natalie Beth Markus, student teacher in the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT)/Single Subject Credential program, reflected on her experiences volunteering in the maracas booth - "Maraca Me."
Under the guidance of Lecturer Kimberly Burge, Ed.D., and Multiple Subject Coordinator Susan Toma-Berge, Ph.D., 54 School of Education student teachers assisted at the 39th Very Special Arts (VSA) Festival held April 18th at the Westfield Mall in Santa Ana.
VSA Orange County provides arts, education, and cultural opportunities by, with, and for people with disabilities. The annual VSA Festival is held each spring to culminate year-round, school and community-based arts program efforts, including hands-on workshops, demonstrations, performances, and a visual art exhibit, serving all ages and all disabilities. Student teachers from UC Irvine's School of Education have been volunteering at the VSA Festival for more than 15 years.
This year the main stage area featured singing, dancing, and instrumental performances, and visual art was exhibited throughtout the mall. School of Education student teachers assisted with arts and crafts activities at 18 different workshops.
Volunteer Natalie Beth Markus, student teacher in the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT)/Single Subject Credential program, reflected on her experiences volunteering in the maracas booth - "Maraca Me."
Working at the VSA festival was such a fun experience! While I was there, I helped at the “Maraca Me” station. We helped kids make maracas out of plastic Easter eggs and spoons, different noise makers like popcorn kernels and uncooked macaroni, and decorative tape to add color to the maracas. I started by making my own maraca to get familiar with how to actually make them. Instead of just telling a child how to make one, it was helpful to have experienced making one myself.
While helping different children all through the day, I quickly realized that there was a wide range of levels of need for each child. For example, some children ran up to the table and immediately went to work making a maraca on their own. They were fully capable of making the maraca without any assistance from me. Then, there were other children who seemed a bit shy and would keep their distance. I did what I could to make them feel welcome and invited them over to join us. In addition to the more independent children that I mentioned, there were also several children who needed me to help them get started on making the maracas, and then others who needed me to walk them through every single step of the process.
The best thing I can take from this experience is the awareness that people of all ages will strive and struggle in different ways. One child may need help with something in particular, while another could need little to no help with the same task. As a teacher, it will be important that I understand that not all kids are the same, nor do they succeed or struggle in the same ways. I will need to be aware of when my support is needed and at what level, and when it will be necessary for me to back off. I’m also glad that I started by making a maraca to get a glimpse of what the children would be experiencing. It helped to anticipate what some children might have trouble with when making the maracas.
I had one particularly sweet and special moment with a child. After making a maraca, this boy told me that he wanted to someday volunteer to help others make maracas because he had so much fun. I told him he could even do it now! He could start by showing his friends or his classmates how to make them. I told him that I had just learned how to make the maracas five minutes before helping him. I assured him that if I could do it, he definitely could do it, too.
"Freedom Writers: Stories from an Undeclared War" Premieres at UC Irvine
On March 25, The School of Education partnered with UCI's School of Humanities, Alumni Association, and Student Center & Event Services to present a special screening of the new documentary "Freedom Writers: Stories from an Undeclared War."
Featuring educator Erin Gruwell and 150 students from her original class at Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach, the documentary celebrates 20 years of achievements by students who were considered "those kids" - disengaged, unteachable, and poised to turn their backs on the educational system.
The film unveils how the students, "encouraged by Ms. Gruwell and inspired by the writing of Anne Frank, discovered a new way to express themselves and began to care about history, humanity, and their future."
Graduates from the original class of Freedom Writers, currently members of the Freedom Writers Foundation, attended the premiere and fielded questions from the audience following the screening.
The trailer for "Freedom Writers: Stories from an Undeclared War" is available at https://vimeo.com/120704626 (password: freedom).
On March 25, The School of Education partnered with UCI's School of Humanities, Alumni Association, and Student Center & Event Services to present a special screening of the new documentary "Freedom Writers: Stories from an Undeclared War."
Featuring educator Erin Gruwell and 150 students from her original class at Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach, the documentary celebrates 20 years of achievements by students who were considered "those kids" - disengaged, unteachable, and poised to turn their backs on the educational system.
The film unveils how the students, "encouraged by Ms. Gruwell and inspired by the writing of Anne Frank, discovered a new way to express themselves and began to care about history, humanity, and their future."
Graduates from the original class of Freedom Writers, currently members of the Freedom Writers Foundation, attended the premiere and fielded questions from the audience following the screening.
The trailer for "Freedom Writers: Stories from an Undeclared War" is available at https://vimeo.com/120704626 (password: freedom).
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