"Using Assessment to Improve the Accuracy of Teachers’ Perceptions of Students’ Academic Competence"

Assistant Professor Brandy Gatlin-Nash, alumna Jin Kyoung Hwang, Assistant Professor Novell E. Tani (Florida A&M), doctoral candidate Elham Zargar, alumna Taffeta Star Wood, fourth-year doctoral student Dandan Yang, fourth-year doctoral student Khamia Powell, and Chancellor's Professor Carol McDonald Connor published an article in The Elementary School Journal.
 
The title of the article is “Using Assessment to Improve the Accuracy of Teachers’ Perceptions of Students’ Academic Competence.”
 
Gatlin-Nash’s research interests include achievement gap, culture and learning, diversity and equity, language and literacy acquisition and instruction, learning disabilities, linguistic diversity, race and urban education, teacher education, and writing. Her current research explores relations among language variation and literacy achievement among culturally and linguistically diverse students. In addition to her contributions to the School of Education, she is also affiliated faculty in the Center for Creating Opportunities for Disadvantaged Students and the Department of Language Science in UCI’s School of Social Science.
 
Abstract

Brandy Gatlin-Nash

​Teachers’ perceptions of their students’ academic skills can affect students’ achievement and may be influenced by unrelated student characteristics such as socioeconomic status (SES). In this ad hoc randomized controlled trial, teachers (n = 28) were randomly assigned to receive training on using assessment to guide literacy instruction, Assessment-to-Instruction (A2i), or on Math PALS (control). Teachers rated students’ (n=446) academic competence. A2i teachers’ ratings did not vary by SES, and their ratings correlated more strongly with students’ literacy and mathematics assessment scores compared with those of the control teachers. Control teachers generally underestimated lower SES students’ academic competence; underestimation was greater at more affluent schools. Teachers’ ratings of students’ academic competence predicted reading and mathematics outcomes. Thoughtful use of assessments to guide instruction appeared to improve the precision of teachers’ ratings of students’ academic competence, improve student outcomes, and reduce potential teacher biases about children from higher-poverty families.