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- All Subjects: value-added models
Description
This study examined the intended and unintended consequences associated with the Education Value-Added Assessment System (EVAAS) as perceived and experienced by teachers in the Houston Independent School District (HISD). To evaluate teacher effectiveness, HISD is using EVAAS for high-stakes consequences more than any other district or state in the country. A large-scale electronic survey was used to investigate the model's reliability and validity; to determine whether teachers used the EVAAS data in formative ways as intended; to gather teachers' opinions on EVAAS's claimed benefits and statements; and to understand the unintended consequences that occurred as a result of EVAAS use in HISD. Mixed methods data collection and analyses were used to present the findings in user-friendly ways, particularly when using the words and experiences of the teachers themselves. Results revealed that the reliability of the EVAAS model produced split and inconsistent results among teacher participants, and teachers indicated that students biased the EVAAS results. The majority of teachers did not report similar EVAAS and principal observation scores, reducing the criterion-related validity of both measures of teacher quality. Teachers revealed discrepancies in the distribution of EVAAS reports, the awareness of trainings offered, and among principals' understanding of EVAAS across the district. This resulted in an underwhelming number of teachers who reportedly used EVAAS data for formative purposes. Teachers disagreed with EVAAS marketing claims, implying the majority did not believe EVAAS worked as intended and promoted. Additionally, many unintended consequences associated with the high-stakes use of EVAAS emerged through teachers' responses, which revealed among others that teachers felt heightened pressure and competition, which reduced morale and collaboration, and encouraged cheating or teaching to the test in attempt to raise EVAAS scores. This study is one of the first to investigate how the EVAAS model works in practice and provides a glimpse of whether value-added models might produce desired outcomes and encourage best teacher practices. This is information of which policymakers, researchers, and districts should be aware and consider when implementing the EVAAS, or any value-added model for teacher evaluation, as many of the reported issues are not specific to the EVAAS model.
ContributorsCollins, Clarin (Author) / Amrein-Beardsley, Audrey (Thesis advisor) / Berliner, David C. (Committee member) / Fischman, Gustavo E (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
This mixed-methods study explored perceptions of new adjuncts on various trainings with regards to satisfying their professional and aspirational needs. Three trainings were offered in fall 2018 quarter as optional professional development: workshop, and two roundtable sessions. These trainings assisted adjuncts with their teaching skills, educational technology and pedagogy. Guidance was provided from experienced adjuncts and staff.
Surveys and interviews with adjuncts, along with a focus group with staff were the sources of data for this study. A repeated measures Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) model was utilized. Analysis of data showed that there was a positive and statistical significance of change in perceptions of adjuncts who participated in all trainings towards fulfilling their needs, as compared to those who did not participate in any trainings. Adjuncts perceived an improvement in their professional growth based on Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory and the trainings also fulfilled their higher-level growth needs based on Maslow’s hierarchical needs theory. A large practical significance was also found which measures the practical impact of such trainings at local communities of practice.
Surveys and interviews with adjuncts, along with a focus group with staff were the sources of data for this study. A repeated measures Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) model was utilized. Analysis of data showed that there was a positive and statistical significance of change in perceptions of adjuncts who participated in all trainings towards fulfilling their needs, as compared to those who did not participate in any trainings. Adjuncts perceived an improvement in their professional growth based on Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory and the trainings also fulfilled their higher-level growth needs based on Maslow’s hierarchical needs theory. A large practical significance was also found which measures the practical impact of such trainings at local communities of practice.
ContributorsSreekaram, Siddhartha (Author) / Marsh, Josephine (Thesis advisor) / Amrein-Beardsley, Audrey (Committee member) / Kim, Jeongeun (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
In 2010, the Arizona Legislature established a performance-based diploma initiative known as Move On When Ready (MOWR). The policy relies on an education model designed to evaluate students' college and career readiness by measuring their academic ability to succeed in the first credit-bearing course in community college. Move On When Ready is a structurally oriented, qualification system that attempts to attain a relatively narrow goal: increase the number of students able to successfully perform at a college-level academic standard. By relying on a set of benchmarked assessments to measure success and failure, MOWR propagates a categorical binary. The binary establishes explicit performance criteria on a set of examinations students are required to meet in order to earn a high school qualification that, by design, certifies whether students are ready or not ready for college.
This study sought to reveal how students’ perceptions of the policy and schooling in general affect their understanding of the concept of college readiness and the college readiness binary and to identify factors that help formulate those perceptions. This interpretivist, qualitative study relied on analysis of multiple face-to-face interviews with students to better understand how they think and act within the context of Move On When Ready, paying particular attention to students from historically vulnerable minority subgroups (e.g., the Latina (a)/Hispanic sub-population) enrolled in two schools deploying the MOWR strategy.
Findings suggest that interviewed students understand little about MOWR's design, intent or implications for their future educational trajectories. Moreover, what they believe is generally misinformed, regardless of aspiration, socio-cultural background, or academic standing. School-based sources of messaging (e.g., teachers and administrators) supply the bulk of information to students about MOWR. However, in these two schools, the flow of information is constricted. In addition, the information conveyed is either distorted by message mediators or misinterpreted by the students. The data reveal that formal and informal mediators of policy messages influence students’ engagement with the policy and affect students’ capacity to play an active role in determining the policy’s effect on their educational outcomes.
This study sought to reveal how students’ perceptions of the policy and schooling in general affect their understanding of the concept of college readiness and the college readiness binary and to identify factors that help formulate those perceptions. This interpretivist, qualitative study relied on analysis of multiple face-to-face interviews with students to better understand how they think and act within the context of Move On When Ready, paying particular attention to students from historically vulnerable minority subgroups (e.g., the Latina (a)/Hispanic sub-population) enrolled in two schools deploying the MOWR strategy.
Findings suggest that interviewed students understand little about MOWR's design, intent or implications for their future educational trajectories. Moreover, what they believe is generally misinformed, regardless of aspiration, socio-cultural background, or academic standing. School-based sources of messaging (e.g., teachers and administrators) supply the bulk of information to students about MOWR. However, in these two schools, the flow of information is constricted. In addition, the information conveyed is either distorted by message mediators or misinterpreted by the students. The data reveal that formal and informal mediators of policy messages influence students’ engagement with the policy and affect students’ capacity to play an active role in determining the policy’s effect on their educational outcomes.
ContributorsSilver, Michael Greg (Author) / Berliner, David C. (Thesis advisor) / Fischman, Gustavo (Committee member) / Amrein-Beardsley, Audrey (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
In this mixed-methods study, I sought to design and develop a test delivery method to reduce linguistic bias in English-based mathematics tests. Guided by translanguaging, a recent linguistic theory recognizing the complexity of multilingualism, I designed a computer-based test delivery method allowing test-takers to toggle between English and their self-identified dominant language. This three-part study asks and answers research questions from all phases of the novel test delivery design. In the first phase, I conducted cognitive interviews with 11 Mandarin Chinese dominant speakers and 11 Spanish speaking dominant undergraduate students while taking a well-regarded calculus conceptual exam, the Precalculus Concept Assessment (PCA). In the second phase, I designed and developed the linguistically adaptive test (LAT) version of the PCA using the Concerto test delivery platform. In the third phase, I conducted a within-subjects random-assignment study of the efficacy the LAT. I also conducted in-depth interviews with a subset of the test-takers.
Nine items on the PCA revealed linguistic issues during the cognitive interviews demonstrating the need to improve the linguistic bias on the test items. Additionally, the newly developed LAT demonstrated evidence of reliability and validity. However, the large-scale efficacy study showed that the LAT did not appear to make a significant difference in scores for dominant speakers of Spanish or dominant speakers of Mandarin Chinese. This finding held true for overall test scores as well as at the item level indicating that the LAT test delivery system does not appear to reduce linguistic bias in testing.
Additionally, in-depth interviews revealed that many students felt that the linguistically adaptive test was either the same or essentially the same as the non-LAT version of the test. Some participants felt that the toggle button was not necessary if they could understand the mathematics item well enough. As one participant noted, “It's math, It's math. It doesn't matter if it's in English or in Spanish.” This dissertation concludes with a discussion about the implications for test developers and suggestions for future direction of study.
ContributorsClose, Kevin (Author) / Zheng, Yi (Thesis advisor) / Amrein-Beardsley, Audrey (Thesis advisor) / Anderson, Kate (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
Teacher evaluation policies have recently shifted in the United States. For the first time in history, many states, districts, and administrators are now required to evaluate teachers by methods that are up to 50% based on their "value-added," as demonstrated at the classroom-level by growth on student achievement data over time. Other related instruments and methods, such as classroom observations and rubrics, have also become common practices in teacher evaluation systems. Such methods are consistent with the neoliberal discourse that has dominated the social and political sphere for the past three decades. Employing a discourse analytic approach that called upon a governmentality framework, the author used a complementary approach to understand how contemporary teacher evaluation polices, practices, and instruments work to discursively (re)define teachers and teacher quality in terms of their market value.
For the first part of the analysis, the author collected and analyzed documents and field notes related to the teacher evaluation system at one urban middle school. The analysis included official policy documents, official White House speeches and press releases, evaluation system promotional materials, evaluator training materials, and the like. For the second part of the analysis, she interviewed teachers and their evaluators at the local middle school in order to understand how the participants had embodied the market-based discourse to define themselves as teachers and qualify their practice, quality, and worth accordingly.
The findings of the study suggest that teacher evaluation policies, practices, and instruments make possible a variety of techniques, such as numericization, hierarchical surveillance, normalizing judgments, and audit, in order to first make teachers objects of knowledge and then act upon that knowledge to manage teachers' conduct. The author also found that teachers and their evaluators have taken up this discourse in order to think about and act upon themselves as responsibilized subjects. Ultimately, the author argues that while much of the attention related to teacher evaluations has focused on the instruments used to measure the construct of teacher quality, that teacher evaluation instruments work in a mutually constitutive ways to discursively shape the construct of teacher quality.
For the first part of the analysis, the author collected and analyzed documents and field notes related to the teacher evaluation system at one urban middle school. The analysis included official policy documents, official White House speeches and press releases, evaluation system promotional materials, evaluator training materials, and the like. For the second part of the analysis, she interviewed teachers and their evaluators at the local middle school in order to understand how the participants had embodied the market-based discourse to define themselves as teachers and qualify their practice, quality, and worth accordingly.
The findings of the study suggest that teacher evaluation policies, practices, and instruments make possible a variety of techniques, such as numericization, hierarchical surveillance, normalizing judgments, and audit, in order to first make teachers objects of knowledge and then act upon that knowledge to manage teachers' conduct. The author also found that teachers and their evaluators have taken up this discourse in order to think about and act upon themselves as responsibilized subjects. Ultimately, the author argues that while much of the attention related to teacher evaluations has focused on the instruments used to measure the construct of teacher quality, that teacher evaluation instruments work in a mutually constitutive ways to discursively shape the construct of teacher quality.
ContributorsHolloway-Libell, Jessica (Author) / Amrein-Beardsley, Audrey (Thesis advisor) / Anderson, Kate T. (Thesis advisor) / Berliner, David C. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Over the past 20 years in the United States (U.S.), teachers have seen a marked
shift in how teacher evaluation policies govern the evaluation of their performance.
Spurred by federal mandates, teachers have been increasingly held accountable for their
students’ academic achievement, most notably through the use of value-added models
(VAMs)—a statistically complex tool that aims to isolate and then quantify the effect of
teachers on their students’ achievement. This increased focus on accountability ultimately
resulted in numerous lawsuits across the U.S. where teachers protested what they felt
were unfair evaluations informed by invalid, unreliable, and biased measures—most
notably VAMs.
While New Mexico’s teacher evaluation system was labeled as a “gold standard”
due to its purported ability to objectively and accurately differentiate between effective
and ineffective teachers, in 2015, teachers filed suit contesting the fairness and accuracy
of their evaluations. Amrein-Beardsley and Geiger’s (revise and resubmit) initial analyses
of the state’s teacher evaluation data revealed that the four individual measures
comprising teachers’ overall evaluation scores showed evidence of bias, and specifically,
teachers who taught in schools with different student body compositions (e.g., special
education students, poorer students, gifted students) had significantly different scores
than their peers. The purpose of this study was to expand upon these prior analyses by
investigating whether those conclusions still held true when controlling for a variety of
confounding factors at the school, class, and teacher levels, as such covariates were not
included in prior analyses.
Results from multiple linear regression analyses indicated that, overall, the
measures used to inform New Mexico teachers’ overall evaluation scores still showed
evidence of bias by school-level student demographic factors, with VAMs potentially
being the most susceptible and classroom observations being the least. This study is
especially unique given the juxtaposition of such a highly touted evaluation system also
being one where teachers contested its constitutionality. Study findings are important for
all education stakeholders to consider, especially as teacher evaluation systems and
related policies continue to be transformed.
shift in how teacher evaluation policies govern the evaluation of their performance.
Spurred by federal mandates, teachers have been increasingly held accountable for their
students’ academic achievement, most notably through the use of value-added models
(VAMs)—a statistically complex tool that aims to isolate and then quantify the effect of
teachers on their students’ achievement. This increased focus on accountability ultimately
resulted in numerous lawsuits across the U.S. where teachers protested what they felt
were unfair evaluations informed by invalid, unreliable, and biased measures—most
notably VAMs.
While New Mexico’s teacher evaluation system was labeled as a “gold standard”
due to its purported ability to objectively and accurately differentiate between effective
and ineffective teachers, in 2015, teachers filed suit contesting the fairness and accuracy
of their evaluations. Amrein-Beardsley and Geiger’s (revise and resubmit) initial analyses
of the state’s teacher evaluation data revealed that the four individual measures
comprising teachers’ overall evaluation scores showed evidence of bias, and specifically,
teachers who taught in schools with different student body compositions (e.g., special
education students, poorer students, gifted students) had significantly different scores
than their peers. The purpose of this study was to expand upon these prior analyses by
investigating whether those conclusions still held true when controlling for a variety of
confounding factors at the school, class, and teacher levels, as such covariates were not
included in prior analyses.
Results from multiple linear regression analyses indicated that, overall, the
measures used to inform New Mexico teachers’ overall evaluation scores still showed
evidence of bias by school-level student demographic factors, with VAMs potentially
being the most susceptible and classroom observations being the least. This study is
especially unique given the juxtaposition of such a highly touted evaluation system also
being one where teachers contested its constitutionality. Study findings are important for
all education stakeholders to consider, especially as teacher evaluation systems and
related policies continue to be transformed.
ContributorsGeiger, Tray (Author) / Amrein-Beardsley, Audrey (Thesis advisor) / Anderson, Kate (Committee member) / McGuire, Keon (Committee member) / Holloway, Jessica (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020