Project Activities
The project will unfold in three stages. First, researchers will develop additional items for an item pool that can be used to construct alternate forms of the instrument, and to investigate particular areas in greater depth. Second, researchers will develop an online version of the assessment. Finally, researchers will gather data from a sample of high school teachers, each of whom will take one or more sets of items. In addition, researchers will gather data from a smaller convenience sample of teachers, in whose classrooms researchers will administer items from the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) high school mathematics examination.
Structured Abstract
Setting
This project will draw their sample from across the county and from the Phoenix and the San Francisco Bay areas.
Sample
Study participants will include 500 high school teachers from around the country recruited via an established website that is visited by hundreds of thousands of math teachers each year (i.e., the Math Forum) and targeted mailing lists. In addition, study participants will include a convenience sample of 100 teachers in in the Phoenix and San Francisco Bay areas. All teachers in the sample will teach at least one calculus-track mathematics class.
Assessment
In the original MMTsm instrument, researchers designed rubrics to reflect levels of productive meaning, where "productive" is judged according to how useful this meaning would be for students' future mathematical learning were the teacher to convey it to them. The current version of the MMTsm includes items in areas that are closely connected to the Common Core State Standards for secondary mathematics: covariation, functions, proportionality, rate of change, structure, and frames of reference. Researchers intend to expand this assessment to include sufficient items to investigate each of these standards in depth, and develop an online assessment.
Research design and methods
The project will proceed in three stages. First, researchers will develop additional items for an item pool that can be used to construct alternate forms of the original instrument, and to investigate particular areas in greater depth. Second, researchers will develop an online version of the instrument, utilizing computerized item development to allow additional simplification of administration and scoring. Finally, researchers will gather data from a sample of high school teachers, each of whom will take one or more sets of items. The purpose of this portion of the study is to calibrate item difficulties and compare relative difficulties of different types of items. In addition, researchers will gather data from a smaller convenience sample of teachers. This sample of teachers will take both versions of the new MMTsm. The students in one class for each participating teacher will take selected items from the PARCC high school mathematics assessment at both the beginning and the end of the school year (i.e. as a pretest and posttest). Teachers in this second study will participate in cognitive interviews around some of the MMTsm items they take, and in addition will fill out a questionnaire about their classroom teaching practices.
Control condition
There is no control condition in this study.
Key measures
Researchers will use items from the PARCC high school mathematics examination to measure student math knowledge. Teacher measures will include type of degree received, length of time teaching, demographic variables and measures of teacher quality.
Data analytic strategy
Researchers will use the Random Coefficients Multinomial Logit model to analyze the data and to identify levels of item difficulty, coverage of person distribution, item and person fit, and Differential Item Functioning (DIF). In addition, they will use techniques such as correlation, latent regression analysis and hierarchical modeling to determine the relationships between teacher meanings and student change from beginning to end of year.
People and institutions involved
IES program contact(s)
Products and publications
Products: Researchers will produce a fully developed and validated assessment for mathematical meanings of high school math for teachers, and findings regarding the relation between teacher meanings and student learning. The researchers will publish in peer-reviewed journals.
ERIC Citations: Find available citations in ERIC for this award here.
Journal article, monograph, or newsletter
Thompson, P.W., Hatfield, N.J., Yoon, H., Joshua, S., and Byerley, C. (2017). Covariational Reasoning Among US And South Korean Secondary Mathematics Teachers. The Journal of Mathematical Behavior, 48, 95-111.
Supplemental information
Co-Principal Investigators: Wilson, Mark; Thompson, Patrick
Questions about this project?
To answer additional questions about this project or provide feedback, please contact the program officer.
