Showing papers on "Academic achievement published in 1981"

Student Ratings of Instruction and Student Achievement: A Meta-analysis of Multisection Validity Studies:

Abstract: The present study used meta-analytic methodology to synthesize research on the relationship between student ratings of instruction and student achievement. The data for the meta-analysis came from 41 independent validity studies reporting on 68 separate multisection courses relating student ratings to student achievement. The average correlation between an overall instructor rating and student achievement was .43; the average correlation between an overall course rating and student achievement was .47. While large effect sizes were also found for more specific rating dimensions such as Skill and Structure, other dimensions showed more modest relationships with student achievement. A hierarchical multiple regression analysis showed that rating/achievement correlations were larger for full-time faculty when students knew their final grades before rating instructors and when an external evaluator graded students’ achievement tests. The results of the meta-analysis provide strong support for the validity of s...

Synthesis of Research on Cooperative Learning.

Abstract: T here was once a time when it was taken for granted that a quiet class was a learning class, when principals walked down the hall expecting to be able to hear a pin drop. Today, however, many schools are using programs that foster the hum of voices in classrcxims. These programs, called cooperative learn ing, encourage students to discuss, debate, disagree, and ultimately to teach one another Cooperative learning has been sug gested as ihe solution for an astonish ing array of educational problems: it is often cited as a means of emphasizing thinking skills and increasing higherorder learning, as an alternative to ability grouping, remediation, or spe cial education; as a means of improv ing race relations and acceptance of mainstreamed students; and as a way to prepare students for an increasingly collaborative work force How many of these claims are justified? What ef fects do the various cooperative learn ing methods have on student achieve ment and other outcomes? Which forms of ccx>perative learning are most effective, and what components must be in place for cooperative learn ing to work? To answer these questions, I've syn thesized in this article the findings of studies of cooperative learning in ele mentary and secondary schools that have compared ccx>perative learning to traditionally taught control groups studying the same objectives over a peritxj of at least four weeks (and up to a full school year or more) Here I present a brief summary of the effects of cxxjperative learning on achieve ment and noncognitive outcomes; for a more extensive review, see Cooper-

Perceived Personal Control and Academic Achievement

Abstract: Perceived control of events is one motivational variable that appears to affect children’s academic achievement. In this review the conceptualization and measurement of the control dimension is discussed from three theoretical perspectives: social learning theory, attribution theory, and intrinsic motivation theories. For each of these three perspectives evidence on the relationship between achievement and perceptions of control is summarized, and possible explanations for the relationship are discussed. Throughout this review similarities and differences among these orientations are pointed out. Specific recommendations are made for research which will advance our understanding of this relationship and which will provide the most useful information to educators.

A Meta-Analysis of Experimental Research on Teacher Questioning Behavior

Abstract: The meta-analytic technique was used to synthesize experimental research findings on the relationship between level of teacher questioning and student achievement. Twenty studies on teachers’ use of “higher” and “lower” cognitive questions were reviewed. Higher cognitive questions require pupils to manipulate information to create and support a response; lower cognitive questions call for verbatim recall or recognition of factual information. Effect sizes were computed to investigate the impact of program monitoring, experimental validity, and level of teacher questioning. Results show that gains in achievement can be expected when higher cognitive questions assume a predominant role during classroom instruction.

Student-Student Interaction: The Neglected Variable In Education

Abstract: Like all social systems, the school (and the classroom) is made up of a network of interpersonal relationships structured to facilitate the achievement of educational goals (Johnson, 1970, 1979). Broadly, the educational goals consist of transferring knowledge and skills; socializing children and adolescents into the perspectives, values, and attitudes they need to function effectively within our society; and facilitating the cognitive, social, and physical development of each individual student. While there are a variety of relationships within the school structured to achieve these goals, the primary educational relationships are between teachers and students and among students themselves. Educational psychology has traditionally focused on teacher-student interaction. It has been assumed by some that students' learning, socialization, and development are primarily dependent on their interaction with teachers; that peer relationships have little impact on the student and, therefore, could be ignored; and that the infrequent and minor peer influences that do exist in. the classroom are an unhealthy and bothersome influence, discouraging academic achievement and encouraging off-task, disruptive behavior in the classroom. The adult centrism in our

Social organizational factors in learning to read: The balance of rights hypothesis*

Abstract: of disadvantaged 7 year-old Hawaiian students, were analyzed. One teacher (LC) had had little contact with Hawaiian children, while the other (HC) had worked successfully with Hawaiian students for five years. Consistent with their backgrounds, it was found that the two teachers managed interaction in their lessons very differently. Teacher LC used participation structures which are commonly used with children from the mainstream culture; the major structure requires them to wait to be called on and to speak one at a time. On the other hand, Teacher HC conducted much of her lessons in a different participation structure, one which allowed the children to share turns in joint performance. This structure follows interactional rules much like those in talk story, a common nonclassroom speech event for Hawaiian children. The results supported a social organizational hypothesis. The lessons of Teacher HC displayed much higher levels of achievement-related student behavior than those of Teacher LC. Furthermore, student productivity appeared to vary as a function of specific characteristics of participation structures, within and across the lessons of the two teachers. A new construct, the balance of rights in speaking and turntaking between teacher and students, was formulated to explain the relationship between classroom social structure and student productivity.

Do Academically Able Teachers Leave Education? The North Carolina Case.

Abstract: A longitudinal study of North Carolina teachers reveals, among other findings, that the most academically proficient teachers are also the most likely to leave teaching. The result: a steadily deteriorating talent pool. Por teacher educators, school admin istrators, classroom teachers, and education researchers, the relationship be tween measured academic ability and teacher competence seems problematic. For many legislators and others in posi tions to influence policy with regard to teacher education ? and for many critics of teacher education as well ? there is nothing problematic about the relation ship. For policy makers and critics, the relevant facts are these: There is considerable evidence that those who choose to major in teacher edu cation are, as a group, less academically able than most other college majors.1 There is some strong evidence that graduates of teacher education institu tions are not as academically proficient as most other categories of college gradu ates.2 There is now some evidence to sug gest that some teacher education gradu ates do not perform as well on tests of academic achievement as do many of the students they intend to teach.3 These facts, coupled with the account ability movement and reports in the popu lar press of an oversupply of teachers, have encouraged teacher educators, state boards of education, and state legislators to seek ways of upgrading standards for admission to teaching. Most teacher educators are uneasy about using measures of academic ability as predictors of teaching skill. But the fact remains that, in recent years, more than half the states have actively considered screening prospective teachers through the use of tests that ? either implicitly or ex plicitly ? measure academic ability. Researchers may quarrel with the assump tion that measures of academic ability can predict teaching competence. Many policy makers seem willing to bet, however, that people who perform poorly on tests of

Achievement and Participation of Women in Mathematics: Results of Two National Surveys.

Abstract: scores and are frequently reported as doing better on higher level cognitive tasks as well. In most cases, males have been compared with females who had taken fewer high school mathematics courses. Because few studies have controlled for students' mathematics course-taking histories, it is possible that the sex differences in achievement found in previous studies could be explained by differential mathematics participation. The results of two national surveys reported here provide information on mathematics achievement and participation for males and females and allow comparisons of achievement scores within levels of mathematics participation to determine whether or not sex differences in achievement persist when course taking is controlled. The first data source is the Women in Mathematics Project, a survey conducted by the Education Commission of the States (ECS) in the fall of 1978. This project collected national data on achievement and participation in mathematics as well as information on attitudinal, social, and educational variables related to participation and achievement for 13year-olds and high school seniors. Only the results of the achievement tests and course background are reported here. The second data source is from the second mathematics assessment conducted during the 1977-78 school year by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). In this assessment, approximately 700 test items were administered to a national probability sample of 75,000 9-yearolds, 13-year-olds, and 17-year-olds in school. Information contained in this article is based on a project supported by the National Institute of Education under Grant No. NIE-G-77-0061. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this report are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Institute of Education.

Home Resources and Children's Achievement.

Abstract: IN 1966, the Coleman Report provided compelling evidence of the importance of the home environment in determining children's cognitive skill levels. This evidence, coupled with doubts about the effectiveness of school-based compensatory education programs, has led policymakers to consider programs that aim at improving school achievement by providing additional resources to the families of low achieving children. Efforts to design such programs have been hindered, however, by a lack of knowledge concerning the key resources in the home that influence children's achievement. This paper reports the results of research that attempts to reduce this knowledge gap by examining the roles played by particular resources in the home in influencing children's achievement. This study extends previous work on home investments in children in two significant ways. First, the analysis focuses on black children living in low income, urban families. Most previous research has studied children in middle class families. Second, the stability of the results is examined by estimating the same model for two samples of children. Previous studies have reported results for a single sample. Differences in results across studies have raised questions concerning the stability of relationships between particular home resources and children's achievement. In this study, the stability issue is addressed directly. The central finding of our research is that the skills of the mother, measured by the extent of her formal schooling, are a critical resource in determining children's achievement. Our results demonstrate that these skills affect children through the mechanism of child care, and not simply through genetically transmitted endowments. Another key result is that goods inputs in the home do not appear to have consistent effects on children's learning. Thus, our findings support the results of other recent research that has emphasized the importance of human resources (such as mothers and teachers) rather than material inputs in determining children's achievement. These and other findings are discussed in detail later in the paper. The next section of the paper lists the hypotheses examined in this study. Section III describes the analytical framework within which these hypotheses were tested. Section IV describes the data. Section V describes the problem of interpreting correlations between attributes of the home environment and children's achievement. Section VI presents the results, and section VII discusses their implications.

Necessary English: A Faculty Survey

Abstract: An Academic Skills Questionnaire was distributed at San Diego State University to 200 randomly selected faculty from all departments in order to determine which skills (reading, writing, speaking or listening) were most essential to non-native speaker success in university classes. The receptive skills, reading and listening, were ranked first by faculty teaching both lower division and upper division/graduate classes. The faculty of all departments but Engineering ranked General English above Specific Purposes English. This study concludes with implications for testing, literacy requirements and curriculum development.

Interpreting the Evidence on School Effectiveness.

Abstract: The purpose of this article is to examine what has been learned from quantitative studies of school effectiveness and to assess the implications of the research results for public policy. Now is a particularly appropriate time to discuss this research because in these days of declining enrollments, severe budget constraints, and court-mandated school finance reform, the results of studies in this tradition are often cited in public policy debates concerning the role of public schools. These public policy debates frequently center on questions such as:

Improving elementary mathematics education in Nicaragua : an experimental study of the impact of textbooks and radio on achievement

Abstract: Because widespread availability of textbooks in the United States preceded research on the effectiveness of instructional materials, there has been little systematic study of their impact on student achievement. The developing world provides an appropriate setting for such studies. This article reports an experimental study of the impact of textbook availability on mathematics achievement of students in Nicaraguan first-grade classes. This intervention is compared with control classes in which textbooks are relatively rare and with a radio-based instructional program that uses student worksheets but no other textual material. Classes were assigned at random to the three conditions. The control and two treatment groups scored similarly on a pretest of mathematical readiness. Both the textbook and the radio treatments had significant positive effects on achievement. Availability of textbooks increased student posttest scores by about 3.5 items correct, approximately .33 of a standard deviation. Availability of the radio instructional program increased student posttest scores 14.9 items, about 1.5 standard deviations. Both interventions reduced the achievement gap between urban and rural students.

Teacher Race and Expectations for Student Achievement

Abstract: This study investigated whether the race of elementary school teachers in black schools was associated with teachers' expectations for student achievement and perceptions of effort. A factor analysis revealed four clusters of items dealing with teacher perceptions of elementary school students' achievement and effort, and teachers' expectations for future student success in high school and college. Controlling for teachers' sex, education and years of teaching experience, and average school achievement and SES, teacher race was associated only with expectations for college success. Black teachers expected more of their students to enter and complete college than white teachers. Additional evidence suggested that this teacher race difference was relatively independent of the student racial composition of the schools. The implications of teacher race as a determinant of differential expectations for the success of black students are discussed.

Effects of Cooperative Learning Teams on Student Achievement and Race Relations: Treatment by Race Interactions.

Abstract: grades." Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association Meeting, Los Angeles. National Education Association 1968 Ability Grouping. Washington: NEA. Rist, Ray C. 1970 "Student social class and teacher expectations: The self-fulfilling prophecy in ghetto education." Harvard Educational Review 40:411-51. Robinson, J., R. Athanasiou and K. Head 1969 Measures of Occupational Attitudes and Occupational Characteristics. Ann Arbor, MI: Institute for Social Research. Rosenbaum, J. 1976 Making Inequality. New York: Wiley. Schafer, W. and C. Olexa 1971 Tracking and Opportunity. Scranton: Chandler. Thomison, R. 1981 "Class versus status: Alternative conceptualizations of the school bias argument." Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association Meeting, Los Angeles.

Measurement and Modeling Choices in Studies of Time and Learning

Abstract: The consequences of using alternative measures of time and achievement are examined in an observational study of 18 elementary school classes. Of the four measures of time used—scheduled time, actual instructional time, engaged time and engaged rate—the engagement measures produced the more consequential effects of time for learning. Nonetheless, measures of allocated time are still important because they provide the constraints within which the results for engagement time must be interpreted. Mathematics achievement, measured as standardized and as chapter specific tests, was not consistently related to the time measures. This paper examines the extent to which the choice of the same model linking time and learning for all students was implicated in these inconsistent results.

Effects on Second Language Learning of Variations in Written Feedback on Homework Assignments

Abstract: This study assessed the effects on second language learning of variations in homework written feedback that either suppressed student errors or made them salient. Eighty students from two college Spanish courses were randomly assigned to treatment groups for a six-week period. Performance data were collected before and after treatment, as well as from homework during treatment. Analysis of variance blocking on pretest revealed significant achievement increases for treated students independent of course membership. Planned comparisons pooled across courses showed achievement was consistently superior under salient error conditions and in particular with constructively critical feedback. Results support the notion that the written performance of students learning a second language can benefit most by focusing on homework errors in a motivationally favorable manner. Relevance of the findings for instructional theory and second language teaching are discussed.

Community Colleges and Tracking in Higher Education.

Abstract: The concept of tracking has provided an important toolfor understanding stratification within educational systems and has been applied to higher education by distinguishing between two-year and four-year colleges. In this paper, we make use of a natural experiment from the open-admissions program at the City University of New York to determine whether two-year colleges function as a separate track within higher education. We compare students who applied and were accepted to four-year colleges with others who applied but were placed in two-year colleges. Controlling for differences in academic background, we find that community colleges generally deter students from attaining their educational ambitions, but the effect is modest overall and varies notably from one community college to another. From the year-by-year academic progress of students in the two different contexts, it does not appear that there are special academic hurdles in the community colleges. Rather, students placed in them appear to become discouraged over time. Thus, the community colleges at CUNY do appear to function as a separate track, but their diversity persuades us that little is known about the specific mechanisms producing a community-college effect.

Self-esteem and educational achievement: Independent constructs with a common cause?

Abstract: Causal modeling techniques were used to examine the relationships among social class, ability, educational achievement, and self-esteem for four samples of children (total N = 715) born in the years 1961-1964. Measures were collected when children were between the ages of 4 and 15. Social class and ability were found to be strongly interrelated and to "cause" both achievement and self-esteem, achievement was highly stable across the age range 9-15, and achievement and self-esteem were not "causally" related to each other.

A Meta-Analysis of Outcome Studies of Visual-Based Instruction.

Abstract: This article describes a statistical integration of findings from 74 studies of visualbased college teaching. In the typical study, students learned slightly more from visual-based instruction than from conventional teaching. In the typical study, visual-based instruction had no special effect on course completion, student attitudes, or the correlation between aptitude and achievement. Students were equally likely to complete visual-based and conventional classes; their attitudes toward the two kinds of classes were very similar; and aptitude played a strong role in determining student achievement in each kind of class.

Multiattributional Causality: A Five Cross-National Samples Study

Abstract: This study elaborated upon the internal-external locus of control dimension in cross-national achievement research by including a measure of a stable-unstable dimension, four individual causal attributions (ability, effort, context, and luck), and success and failure conditions. Subjects were 684 university students from India, Japan, South Africa, the United States, and Yugoslavia, majoring in education, social science, and physical science. Results supported the usefulness of this expanded perspective in understanding beliefs of responsibility for achievement outcomes. Subjects across all countries attributed their achievement more to their own effort (internal, unstable) than to ability, luck, or context. Differences among countries were significant for attributions to ability, context, and luck and for the stability composite. Differences among the countries for effort attributions and overall internality were not statistically significant. Across countries individuals made differential attributions d...