What does recent research say about teacher quality and student achievement?
Response:
Thank you for the question you submitted to our REL Reference Desk regarding
teacher quality and student achievement. We have prepared the following memo with research
references to help answer your question. For each reference, we provide an abstract, excerpt, or
summary written by the study’s author or publisher. The references are selected from the most
commonly used research resources and may not be comprehensive. References are listed in
alphabetical order, not necessarily in order of relevance. Other relevant studies may exist. We
have not evaluated the quality of these references, but provide them for your information only.
Research References
Adnot, M., Dee, T., Katz, V., & Wyckoff, J. (2017). Teacher turnover, teacher quality, and
student achievement in DCPS. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 39(1), 54-76. Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1129163 From the abstract: “In practice, teacher turnover appears to have negative effects on
school quality as measured by student performance. However, some simulations suggest
that turnover can instead have large positive effects under a policy regime in which low-performing
teachers can be accurately identified and replaced with more effective
teachers. This study examines this question by evaluating the effects of teacher turnover
on student achievement under IMPACT, the unique performance-assessment and
incentive system in the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS). Employing a quasi-experimental
design based on data from the first years of IMPACT, we find that, on
average, DCPS replaced teachers who left with teachers who increased student
achievement by 0.08 standard deviation (SD) in math. When we isolate the effects of
lower-performing teachers who were induced to leave DCPS for poor performance, we
find that student achievement improves by larger and statistically significant amounts (i.e.,
0.14 SD in reading and 0.21 SD in math). In contrast, the effect of exits by teachers not
sanctioned under IMPACT is typically negative but not statistically significant.”
Akram, M. (2019). Relationship between students’ perceptions of teacher effectiveness
and student achievement at secondary school level. Bulletin of Education and Research,
41(2), 93-108. Retrieved from: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1229453 From the abstract: “Teacher effectiveness is a process of measuring teaching quality
based on quality indicators. High quality teachers are required to demonstrate frequent performance on quality indicators. The purpose of this study was to measure the
relationship between teacher effectiveness score and student achievement at secondary
school level. Using the multistage sampling technique, 40 high schools (20 male and 20
female) were selected as strata. Later, all 2000 students of grade 9 of these 40 schools in
District Okara were sampled. A School Teacher Effectiveness Questionnaire (STEQ)
Developed and validated by Akram (2018) was adopted for this study to measure teacher
effectiveness. The STEQ was found to be highly reliable (a=.88). Student achievement
scores in English and Mathematics of these students were also collected from respective
schools. Pearson correlation was used to measure the relationship between teacher
effectiveness and student achievement. The study found moderate positive significant
relationship between teacher effectiveness score and student achievement. Learning
environment demonstrated highest relationship with student achievement in English and
Mathematics, followed by effective communication. Multiple regression analysis revealed
that 32 percent of variance in student achievement in English and 12 percent of variance in
student achievement in Mathematics was explained by teacher effectiveness scores.
Further, male and female students did not significantly differ on their perceptions of their
teachers' effectiveness. The study provides evidence of validity and reliability of STEQ
leading the idea that secondary school students can validly measure teacher effectiveness
scores. Limitation includes private tuition that can contribute to student achievement. The
study implied that student ratings can be used as a supplement data source of measuring
teacher quality.”
Bitler, M. P., Corcoran, S. P., Domina, T., Penner, E. K. (2014). Teacher effects on
student achievement and height: A cautionary tale. Society for Research on Educational
Effectiveness. Retrieved from: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED562824 From the abstract: “The growing availability of data linking students to classroom
teachers has made it possible to estimate the contribution teachers make to student
achievement. While there is a growing consensus that teacher quality is important and
current evaluation systems are inadequate, many have expressed concerns over the use of
value-added measures (VAMs) in high-stakes personnel decisions. We conduct a new test
of the validity of teacher value-added models. We apply traditionally estimated VAM
models to an outcome that teachers cannot plausibly have a causal effect on: student
height. Any estimated "effect" of teachers on height should raise questions about the
extent to which VAMs cleanly distinguish between effective and ineffective teachers. We
also examine two potential interpretations for effects of teachers on height. The first is that
these effects reflect bias, sorting to teachers on the basis of unobserved factors related to
height (that may or may not be related to achievement). The second is that these effects
reflect measurement error or other forms of random "noise." Both have implications for
the use of VAMs in practice. The findings raise important questions about the extent to which VAMs cleanly distinguish between effective and ineffective teachers. This is
especially important when personnel and compensation decisions are tied to individual
VAM estimates.”
Gershenson, S. (2016). Linking teacher quality, student attendance, and student
achievement. Education Finance and Policy, 11(2), 125-149. Retrieved from: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1096365 Full text available at https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/10.1162/EDFP_a_00180 From the abstract: “Research on the effectiveness of educational inputs, particularly
research on teacher effectiveness, typically overlooks teachers' potential impact on
behavioral outcomes, such as student attendance. Using longitudinal data on teachers and
students in North Carolina I estimate teacher effects on primary school student absences in
a value-added framework. The analysis yields two main findings: First, teachers have
arguably causal, statistically significant effects on student absences that persist over time.
Second, teachers who improve test scores do not necessarily improve student attendance,
suggesting that effective teaching is multidimensional and teachers who are effective in
one domain are not necessarily effective in others.”
Gilmour, A. F. & Henry, G. T. (2018). A comparison of teacher quality in math for late
elementary and middle school students with and without disabilities. Elementary School
Journal, 118(3), 426-451.
Retrieved from: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1171879
Full text available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316450696 From the abstract: “Students with disabilities (SWDs) perform below their peers in math
on national and state assessments. The quality of teachers who provide these students with
math instruction is an unexamined variable that could influence this low achievement. We
used data from more than 1 million students to compare the quality of teachers assigned to
teach math to fourth- through eighth-grade SWDs and students without disabilities, using
multiple indicators of teacher quality. Overall, SWDs had access to teachers of similar
quality as their peers, but grouping all disabilities masked heterogeneity. Students with
learning disabilities were only 2 to 8 percentage points more likely than their peers to have
teachers with special education certification. Based on our findings, the low math
achievement of SWDs is unlikely to be the result of limited access to the same teacher
quality as their peers without disabilities.”
Hochweber, J. & Vieluf, S. (2018). Gender differences in reading achievement and
enjoyment of reading: The role of perceived teaching quality. Journal of Educational
Research, 111(3), 268-283.
Retrieved from: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1173015 Full text available at
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311500732 From the abstract: “The authors examined the extent to which classroom-specific
relationships between students' gender and their reading achievement and enjoyment of
reading are associated with student-perceived teaching quality. Based on a sample of
10,543 ninth-grade students from 427 classrooms, multilevel analyses revealed that
effective classroom management, adequate pacing, and a strong focus on language
competencies were related to a less pronounced increase of girls' advantage in reading
achievement during Grade 9. High levels of teacher support and focus on language
competencies were related to smaller gender differences in enjoyment of reading at the
beginning of Grade 9, though not associated with change of these differences over the
school year. Our findings suggest that high teaching quality is not only related to higher
reading achievement and reading enjoyment in classrooms as a whole, but may also help
to mitigate the increase of gender gaps in reading achievement and motivation commonly
observed in secondary school.”
Holzberger, D., Praetorius, A., Seidel, T., & Kunter, M. (2019). Identifying effective
teachers: The relation between teaching profiles and students’ development in
achievement and enjoyment. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 34(4), 801-
823.
Retrieved from: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1224847 Full text available at
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330252940 From the abstract: “Teaching effectiveness has often been described from a variable-centered
perspective according to instructional, organizational, and emotional teaching
characteristics and their prediction of students' outcomes. Adopting a person-centered
approach, the present study analyzed how multiple variables of teaching quality co-occur
simultaneously within teachers and how these teaching profiles are related to students'
development in achievement and enjoyment. Data from 3483 secondary students and their
155 mathematics teachers were analyzed at two measurement points. A latent profile
analysis identified high-, medium-, and low-quality teaching profiles. Multilevel analyses
revealed that the high-quality profile--as compared to the medium-quality profile--was
positively related to achievement gains, whereas no significant difference was found for
students' development in enjoyment. The findings reveal quantitative instead of qualitative
teaching profiles and challenge the implicit assumption the higher the better. In particular,
effective teachers may not need to display the highest levels in all teaching aspects.
Instead, different thresholds for teaching effectiveness may apply for students'
achievement gains and emotional development, respectively.”
Kraft, M. A., Blazar, D., & Hogan, D. (2018). The effect of teacher coaching on
instruction and achievement: A meta-analysis of the causal evidence. Review of
Educational Research, 88(4), 547-588.
Retrieved from: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1185488 Full text available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323344838 From the abstract: “Teacher coaching has emerged as a promising alternative to
traditional models of professional development. We review the empirical literature on
teacher coaching and conduct meta-analyses to estimate the mean effect of coaching
programs on teachers' instructional practice and students' academic achievement.
Combining results across 60 studies that employ causal research designs, we find pooled
effect sizes of 0.49 standard deviations (SD) on instruction and 0.18 SD on achievement.
Much of this evidence comes from literacy coaching programs for prekindergarten and
elementary school teachers in the United States. Although these findings affirm the
potential of coaching as a development tool, further analyses illustrate the challenges of
taking coaching programs to scale while maintaining effectiveness. Average effects from
effectiveness trials of larger programs are only a fraction of the effects found in efficacy
trials of smaller programs. We conclude by discussing ways to address scale-up
implementation challenges and providing guidance for future causal studies.”
Lee, S. W. (2018). Pulling back the curtain: Revealing the cumulative importance of high-performing,
highly qualified teachers on students’ educational outcomes. Educational
Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 40(3), 359-381. Retrieved from: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1186805 Full text available at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.3102/01623737187693797 From the abstract: “This study examines the relationship between two dominant measures
of teacher quality, teacher qualification and teacher effectiveness (measured by value-added
modeling), in terms of their influence on students' short-term academic growth and
long-term educational success (measured by bachelor's degree attainment). As students are
exposed to teachers of varying quality over the course of their schooling, this study
computes cumulative teacher quality indices that are able to more precisely estimate the
impact of teacher quality. Notably, this study found that students who had been taught by
a succession of high-performing and qualified teachers tend to have a positive relationship
with students' short- and long-term educational success.”
Lekwa, A. J., Reddy, L. A., Dudek, C. M., & Hua, A. N. (2019). Assessment of teaching
to predict gains in student achievement in urban schools. School Psychology, 34(3), 271-
280. Retrieved from: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1216034 Full text available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329200451 From the abstract: “We examined the degree to which assessment of teachers'
instructional and behavior management practices, as measured by the Classroom
Strategies Assessment System (CSAS; Reddy & Dudek, 2014), relates to gains in student
achievement as measured by the Measures of Academic Progress (Northwest Evaluation
Association [NWEA], 2011). Two-level hierarchical linear modeling was applied to achievement scores from 2,771 students in 130 kindergarten through 8th-grade classrooms
in 13 urban schools serving students in communities with high concentrations of poverty.
Results suggest that teachers' use of evidence-based instructional and behavior
management strategies, as measured by the CSAS, were associated with reading and
mathematics gains. In general, students in classrooms with higher quality use of evidence-based
teaching strategies exhibited greater gains, whereas students in classrooms with
lower quality use of effective strategies exhibited lesser gains. Implications of these
findings for research and educational practice are presented.”
Maruli, S. (2014). Quality in teaching: A review of literature. International Journal of
Education and Research, 2(12), 193-200. Retrieved from: https://www.ijern.com/journal/2014/December-2014/18.pdf From the abstract: “Drawing on literature since 2000, this review explores the definition
of quality teaching, the two components of quality teaching, and the characteristics of the
elements of these components. There were no consensus on the definition of quality
teaching. However, leading scholars have similar views on the quality teaching
components, i.e. good teaching and successful teaching. Good teaching related to the
effectiveness of teaching behaviors thus it becomes foundation for development of expert
teacher, while successful teaching was marked by the achievement of students. The third
explores the interface between two components of quality teaching – student engagement
in academic. There appears, however, different of quality teaching standards in every
context. Thus, this literature review suggests directions for future research.”
Ohle, A., Boone, W. J., & Fischer, H. E. (2015). Investigating the impact of teachers’
physics CK on students’ outcomes. International Journal of Science and Mathematics
Education, 13(6), 1211-1233. Retrieved from: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1083210 Full text available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262269417 From the abstract: “Decreasing student interest and achievement during the transition
from elementary to secondary school is an international problem, especially in science
education. The question of what factors influence this decline has been a widely discussed
topic. This study focuses on investigating the relationship of elementary school teachers'
content knowledge (CK) in physics upon the student outcomes of interest and
achievement. Data were collected from K-4 elementary school teachers (N = 58) and their
students (N = 1,326). Besides questionnaire surveys of teachers and students, one science
lesson on the topic "states of matter and phase transitions" of each classroom was
videotaped for assessing teaching quality. Analyses from a triangulation of data could not
identify an impact of teachers' CK upon students' interest. However, the sequencing of
learning processes within a lesson was found to be a positive predictor for students' achievement, although only minimal time was spent on reflective phases during the
lessons.”
Additional Organizations to Consult
Center for Teaching Quality: https://www.teachingquality.org/ From the website: “For 20 years, CTQ has led efforts to improve public education,
drawing from the expertise and insights of experienced educators. We have worked with
thousands of teachers, administrators, and system leaders nationwide, listening to and
learning from their experiences, then collaborating with them to create solutions to make
public schools better. We help teachers grow as leaders. We partner with administrators
and district officials to reimagine how schools work. We bring together teams at all levels
to find solutions to improve public schools.”
Leading Educators: https://www.leadingeducators.org/ From the website: “Leading Educators strives to make that vision a reality by investing in
the single greatest determinant of student success - teachers. We partner with school
districts around the country to strengthen teachers’ content knowledge and pedagogical
skills through exceptional, school-based professional learning, ultimately improving the
quality of teaching and learning in every classroom. Together with leaders at every level
of a school system, we create relevant, school-based professional learning structures and
supports that empower networks of teacher leaders to improve the quality of teaching and
learning in their schools and better equip students to thrive in college, career, and life.
Our approach helps school and district leaders make equity-informed shifts that
counteract systemic bias and ensure affirming, challenging learning experiences for every
child.”
National Council on Teacher Quality: https://www.nctq.org/ From the website: “NCTQ researches, evaluates, and provides information and guidance.
We propose new changes to restore the teaching profession to strong health so we can
provide every child with the education needed to ensure a bright and successful future
and to offer all teachers—from aspiring to veteran—the conditions needed to thrive and
succeed.”
Methods:
Search Strings. Teacher quality and student achievement OR teacher quality OR teacher quality
impact OR teacher quality impact student achievement OR student achievement teacher quality
OR teacher quality influence OR teacher quality influence student achievement OR teaching
quality student achievement OR quality of teachers OR quality of teaching and student
achievement OR quality of teaching student achievement OR teacher effectiveness literature review OR teacher quality literature review OR teacher value added OR teacher value added
student achievement OR teacher VAM literature review OR teacher VAM student achievement
Searched Databases and Resources.
ERIC
Academic Databases (e.g., EBSCO databases, JSTOR database, ProQuest, Google Scholar)
Commercial search engines (e.g., Google)
Institute of Education Sciences Resources
Reference Search and Selection Criteria. The following factors are considered when selecting references:
Date of Publication: Priority is given to references published in the past 10 years.
Search Priorities of Reference Sources: ERIC, other academic databases, Institute of Education Sciences Resources, and other resources including general internet searches
Methodology: Priority is given to the most rigorous study types, such as randomized controlled trials and quasi-experimental designs, as well as to correlational designs, descriptive analyses, mixed methods and literature reviews. Other considerations include the target population and sample, including their relevance to the question, generalizability, and general quality.
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