National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards and Student Testing

#808 – Teaching Rational Number Addition Using Video Games: The Effects of Instructional Variation
Terry P. Vendlinski, Gregory K. W. K. Chung, Kevin R. Binning, and Rebecca E. Buschang

Summary

Understanding the meaning of rational numbers and how to perform mathematical operations seems to be a perennial problem in the United States for both adults and children. CRESST researchers hypothesized that giving students more time to practice using rational numbers in an environment that enticed them to apply their understanding might prove educationally beneficial. They developed a video game, based on two key ideas about addition and rational numbers, to investigate their hypothesis. in this initial study, they found that students using an appropriately design game increased their ability to add rational numbers even when playing the game for a relatively short period of time. The authors discuss implications for the larger efficacy study to follow.

#628 – Developing Assessments to Inform Teaching and Learning
Kristin M. Bass and Robert Glaser

Summary

The centrality of assessment for facilitating thinking, reasoning, and problem solving is well-documented and indisputable. Less apparent is how to create informative, yet practical measures for classroom use. Clearly, the changing of assessments alone will not in and of itself improve learning; teachers? beliefs and practices will need to be altered with various levels of support. The design of assessment situations can nevertheless have a substantial impact on the quality of information provided to teachers and students for instructional decision-making and meaningful learning. This report considers principles of informative assessments that improve teaching and learning by communicating learning goals, interpreting student performance, tracking progress over time, and suggesting appropriate corrective actions. In the report, we describe several properties of assessment design that enable teachers and students to describe progress in terms of cognitive features of performance, and then act on that information to improve learning. We review classroom assessment programs across subject matters and grade levels in order to suggest essential design elements for tasks, score forms, and interpretive materials that maximize the information provided by assessment of performance and competence. These principles are not intended to be comprehensive, but are meant to highlight some promising areas for informative assessment research.

#735 – Templates and Objects in Authoring Problem-Solving Assessments
Terry P. Vendlinski, Eva L. Baker, David Niemi

Summary

Assessing whether students can both re-present a corpus of learned knowledge and also demonstrate that they can apply that knowledge to solve problems is key to assessing student understanding. This notion, in turn, impacts our thinking about what we assess, how we author such assessments, and how we interpret assessment results. The diffusion of technology into venues of learning offers new opportunities in the area of student assessment. Specifically, computer-based simulations seem to provide sufficiently rich environments and the tools necessary to allow us to infer accurately how well a student’s individual mental model of the world can accommodate, integrate, and be used to exploit concepts from a domain of interest. In this paper then, we first identify the characteristics of simulations that our experience suggests are necessary to make them appropriate for pedagogical and assessment purposes. Next, we discuss the models and frameworks (templates) we have used to ensure these characteristics are considered. Finally, we describe two computerized instantiations (objects) of these frameworks and implications for the follow-on design of simulations.

#702 – English Language Learners and Math Achievement: A Study of Opportunity to Learn and Language Accommodation
Jamal Abedi, Mary Courtney, Seth Leon, Jenny Kao, and Tarek Azzam

Summary

This study investigated the interactive effects between students’ opportunity to learn (OTL) in the classroom, two language-related testing accommodations, and English language learner (ELL) students and other students of varying language proficiency, and how these variables impact mathematics performance. Hierarchical linear modeling was employed to investigate three class-level components of OTL, two language accommodations, and ELL status. The three class-level components of OTL were: (1) student report of content coverage; (2) teacher content knowledge; and (3) class prior math ability (as determined by an average of students’ Grade 7 math scores). A total of 2,321 Grade 8 students were administered one of three versions of an algebra test: a standard version with no accommodation, a dual-language (English and Spanish) test version accommodation, or a linguistically modified test version accommodation. These students’ teachers were administered a teacher content knowledge measure. Additionally, 369 of these students were observed for one class period for student-teacher interactions. Students’ scores from the prior year’s state mathematics and reading achievement tests, and other background information were also collected.

Results indicated that all three class-level components of OTL were significantly related to math performance, after controlling for prior math ability at the individual student level. Class prior math ability had the strongest effect on math performance. Results also indicated that teacher content knowledge had a significant differential effect on the math performance of students grouped by a quick reading proficiency measure, but not by students’ ELL status or by their reading achievement test percentile ranking. Results also indicated that the two language accommodations did not impact students’ math performance. Additionally, results suggested that, in general, ELL students reported less content coverage than their non-ELL peers, and they were in classes of overall lower math ability than their non-ELL peers.

While it is understandable why a student’s performance in seventh grade strongly determines the content she or he receives in eighth grade, there is some evidence in this study that students of lower language proficiency can learn algebra and demonstrate algebra knowledge and skills when they are provided with sufficient content and skills delivered by proficient math instructors in a classroom of students who are proficient in math.

#403 – Instructional Influences on Content Area Explanations and Representational Knowledge: Evidence for the Construct Validity of Measures of Principled Understanding
David Niemi

Summary

Recent calls for understanding-based mathematics instruction imply a need for alternative kinds of assessment. The purpose of this study was to determine if elementary students who received understanding-based mathematics instruction in a key domain (fractions), would outperform students who received more traditional instruction. The results showed that students who received understandings-based instruction on fraction principles performed better than students in a more traditionally instructed group on nearly all measures of principled understanding, and equally well on measures of computation. In response to understandings-based instruction, many students appeared to add new ideas about fractions to their existing knowledge, without discarding or reworking previously learned ideas. Results also showed the feasibility of assessing important aspects of mathematical understanding through students' use of mathematical representations and language. Further, students used their representational knowledge when they wrote justifications and explanations to the assessment.

#507 – Knowledge Mapping in the Classroom: A Tool for Examining the Development of Students' Conceptual Understandings
Ellen Osmundson, Gregory Chung, Howard E. Herl, and Davina C. D. Klein

Summary

The objective of this study was to investigate how computer-based knowledge mapping could be used simultaneously as an instructional tool and an assessment tool in a classroom setting. Data are presented that demonstrate how knowledge mapping served as a tool to support, facilitate, promote, and evaluate students' development of understandings in science. In this study, knowledge mapping was (a) integrated into instruction, (b) employed as a repeated measure to capture the ongoing development of ideas, (c) used individually as well as collaboratively, (d) scored according to algorithms that emphasized the recursive and incremental nature of both learning and the development of scientific ideas, and (e) accessed online through the computer. A non-equivalent control group design was utilized. Fifty-two fourth- and fifth-grade students from two intact classrooms participated in this study. Both groups generated pretest and posttest knowledge maps of their understandings of the digestive, respiratory, and circulatory systems. Students in the experimental group created three additional (collaborative) maps during the course of instruction. Students in the control condition worked in small groups on three occasions to research the human body by using the Internet and related instructional materials. Results suggest that for students in the experimental group, repeated use of the mapping software supported and facilitated the development of scientific and principled understandings. Further, collaborative work with the mapper also afforded students the opportunity to establish connections between the systems in the human body to more fully develop their understandings of the domain--both integral components of learning and the development of scientific understandings.

#704 – Developing Expertise With Classroom Assessment in K-12 Science: Learning to Interpret Student Work
Interim Findings From a 2-Year Study
Maryl Gearhart, Sam Nagashima, Jennifer Pfotenhauer, Shaunna Clark, Cheryl Schwab, Terry Vendlinski, Ellen Osmundson, Joan Herman, Diana J. Bernbaum

Summary

This article reports findings on growth in three science teachers’ expertise with interpretation of student work over 1 year of participation in a program. The program was designed to strengthen classroom assessment in the middle grades. Using a framework for classroom assessment expertise, we analyzed patterns of teacher learning, and the roles of the professional program and the quality of the assessments provided with teachers’ instructional materials.

#615 – Artifact Packages for Measuring Instructional Practice: A Pilot Study
Brian M. Stecher, Alicia Alonzo, Hilda Borko, Shannon Moncure and Sherie McClam

Summary

A number of educational researchers are currently developing alternatives to survey and case study methods for measuring instructional practice. These alternative strategies involve gathering and analyzing artifact data related to teachers’ use of instructional materials and strategies, classroom learning activities, and students’ work, and other important features of practice. “The Impact of Accountability Systems on Classroom Practice” is one such effort. The goals of this 5-year project, funded through the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST), are to develop artifact collection and scoring procedures designed to measure classroom practice in mathematics and science; validate these procedures through classroom observations, discourse analysis, and teacher interviews; and then use the procedures, in conjunction with other CRESST projects, to conduct comparative studies of the impact of different approaches to school reform on school and classroom practices. The first phase of the project was a set of pilot studies, conducted in a small number of middle school science and mathematics classrooms, to provide initial information about the reliability, validity, and feasibility of artifact collections as measures of classroom practice. This report presents results of these pilot studies.

#786 – IES Teacher Assignment Final Report
Yael Silk, David Silver, Stephanie Amerian, Claire Nishimura, and Christy Boscardin

Summary

The goal of this study was to test the effectiveness of WestEd¹s Reading Apprenticeship (RA) professional development program on teacher practices and student learning. The professional development is designed to teach high school teachers how to integrate subject-specific literacy instruction into their regular curricula. The CRESST researchers found that history and biology treatment teachers significantly outscored control teachers on three dimensions (reading comprehension strategies, metacognitive processes, and collaborative meaning making). History treatment teachers outperformed control teachers on an additional three dimensions (reading opportunities, support for reading engagement, and student feedback); biology treatment teachers scored higher on the adjusting instruction measure as compared to control teachers.

#639 – Informal Formative Assessment of Students' Understanding of Scientific Inquiry
Maria Araceli Ruiz-Primo and Erin Marie Furtak

Summary

This paper provides information on an exploratory study about informal formative assessment practices in three science classrooms implementing a physical science curriculum focusing in buoyancy. We provide a framework for examining these practices based on three components of formative assessment (eliciting, recognizing and using information) and three domains linked to science inquiry (epistemic frameworks, conceptual structures, and social processes). We developed a coding system to track strategies teachers used across the three informal formative assessments components. The coding system could capture differences in assessment practices across the three teachers. Furthermore, based on three questions used for assessing studentsí performance we linked studentsí level to the quality of the teachersí assessment practices. We concluded that the strategies provided important information about the teacher informal assessment practices.

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