Impact of attitudes and opportunities to learn on student academic achievement

Enhancing students’ attitudes and opportunities to learn (OTL) in school are expected to have positive impacts on student learning. However, the current research literature presents complex and inconsistent patterns of the effects of these variables on student achievement as the magnitude of this association may change in specific contexts, such as, year level and learning areas. Moreover, the data reported in the literature is collected in different contexts. This presents a number of limitations to making generalisations about the impact of attitudes and OTL on achievement. Studies differ in the scales (constructs) they use, how the instruments are administered, the curriculum areas investigated, and the purpose of the investigation. Therefore, the biggest challenge in answering the question of how attitudes and OTL are related to academic achievement depends on how validly these constructs are assessed. Besides, the extent to which these variables affect student achievement when considered together is still unknown.The National Monitoring Study of Student Achievement (NMSSA) assesses students’ achievement, attitudes and OTL in similar ways each year for different learning areas of the New Zealand Curriculum (NZC). This unique feature of NMSSA allows us to get comparable results for the attitude–OTL–achievement relationship for different learning areas.The purpose of this study was to investigate and better understand the effects of student attitudes and OTL on Year 4 and Year 8 students’ achievement in two learning areas of the NZC (e.g. mathematics, science, or English: reading). The study used nationally representative data from the NMSSA project with a total sample size of approximately 5,000 students from 200 schools for each learning area. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with Mplus 7.0 was employed to test the hypothesized relationships amongst the variables of achievement, attitudes and OTL. The paper will present the significance of the predictors (attitudes and OTL) and the size of their direct and indirect effects on students’ achievement. This paper will also describe the amount of variance explained by these predictors. In this way we will be able to determine not only the impact of these predictors on achievement, but also the relationship between them for different year levels and different learning areas. The findings of the study are expected to have implications for teachers, educators and policy makers.<br/

A School-Based Measure of Culturally Responsive Practices

Acknowledgements: The author wish to acknowledge the support and contributions of Alison Gilmore, Denise Quinlan, and NMSSA project team and thank all principals, teachers, and students who participated in the 2014 NMSSA study. Funding: The National Monitoring Study of Student Achievement (NMSSA) project is funded by the Ministry of Education, New Zealand. Copyright: © 2017 Asil. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Construct validity and measurement invariance of MMIs: Do they allow meaningful group comparison?

Introduction Multiple mini interviews (MMI) measure multiple non-cognitive attributes and are widely used for selection to healthcare programmes. When instruments aim to assess subjective attributes, challenges for the validity and comparability of scores emerge. Thus, it is important to provide evidence that constructs have the same meaning across groups and group differences are not contaminated by group-specific characteristics (aka measurement invariance (MI)). Otherwise, interpretation of scores for members of different groups is not meaningful.The present study investigates whether: a.there is evidence to support factorial validity of MMI.b.MMI measure the same underlying construct for students with different characteristics? c.there are differences in MMI performance according to gender, age, disability status, interview time and gender of selector.Methods635 candidates were interviewed on a 7-station MMI in 2019/2020. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) assessed the factorial structure of 28-item MMI. We examined and compared the goodness-of-fit of different models. MI analyses were performed by Multi Group Confirmatory Factor Analysis (MG-CFA). Changes in CFI ≤.01 were used to determine invariance. Mean differences between groups were tested with independent samples t-tests.Results/DiscussionAmong measurement models tested, both seven-factor first order model and higher order model provided good fit to data. Reliability estimates (Cronbach’s alpha) for all factors ranged from 0.85 to 0.90. MI analyses showed MMI measures the same construct for candidates from different groups. Women and mature candidates scored significantly higher than men and younger students. Morning MMI candidates performed better than afternoon candidates. ConclusionThis study provides psychometric evidence supporting the factorial validity and measurement equivalence (invariance) of MMIs. It is encouraging that there was no difference between MMI performances of students with and without disabilities. Equally heartening, we found no difference on MMI scores between students marked by male and female selectors. <br/

Is inequality inevitable? The impact of student &amp; school SES on achievement for different ethnic groups

The influential role of school-level and student-level socioeconomic status (SES) on learning outcomes is well established in the literature. We know that individual SES and socioeconomic composition of the school are strongly correlated with academic performance. However, literature remains still unclear about how this relationship varies for different ethnic groups when both student and school SES considered simultaneously. In this study, we examine the relationship between student SES, school SES, ethnicity and students’ literacy skills in reading. The study uses a nationally representative data from 2014 National Monitoring Study of Student Achievement (NMSSA) with a total sample size of approximately 5000 students from 200 schools. NMSSA is designed to assess and understand student achievement across the New Zealand Curriculum (NZC). New Zealand, as indicated by latest large-scale international assessment results, is one the countries with the widest spread of achievement between students within a school. The variability in scores across schools is relatively low. Moreover, compared to the general population of students, Māori and Pasifika students, and students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are overrepresented in groups with lower achievement outcomes. These features make New Zealand an interesting case study to explore for both a New Zealand and an international audience. This study applies Hierarchical Linear Modelling (HLM) methods to examine the extent to which aforementioned SES measures may be differentially associated with achievement for different ethnic groups when compared to the general population of students. We discuss the implications of findings and question how equitable New Zealand schools are for different ethnic groups.Keywords: HLM, NMSSA, Socio-economic Status<br/

What national monitoring can tell us about student and school characteristics associated with mathematics achievement

Introduction and purpose of the study:New Zealand, as indicated by latest international assessment results, is one the countries with the widest spread of achievement in mathematical literacy. In other words, the variability of student mathematics scores within a school is high while the variability in scores across schools is relatively low. Moreover, Māori and Pasifika students, and students from lower socio-economic backgrounds are overrepresented in groups with lower achievement outcomes.The purpose of the study described in this paper was to investigate and better understand the effects of student and school characteristics on students’ mathematics and statistics achievement across New Zealand. The study used data from the 2013 National Monitoring Study of Student Achievement (NMSSA). In this study, we tried to answer the following questions: a. To what extent do schools vary from one another in terms of mathematics and statistics scores?b. Which student-level factors can explain the differences in students’ scores within a particular school? c. Which school-level factors can explain the mathematics and statistics score differences between schools?The NMSSA study and sample:The 2013 NMSSA programme for the mathematics and statistics learning area of the New Zealand Curriculum was designed to assess and understand student achievement and progress at Year 4 and Year 8. The analysed sample was comprised of 2087 Year 4 and 2088 Year 8 students from 199 schools (100 Year 4, 99 Year 8). Contextual and background information data was gathered by means of student, teacher and principal questionnaires.Student achievement in mathematics was assessed using a combination of group-administered and individual tasks. Among the student characteristics captured were gender, ethnicity, The NZDep2013 Index (proxy for socio-economic status), special education needs status, attitude to mathematics, amount of English spoken at home, and number of schools attended. Among the school characteristics captured were school type, school size, and school decile. Methodology:This study is the first to apply Hierarchical Linear Modelling (HLM) methods to examine the extent to which student-level and school-level factors may be differentially associated with NMSSA mathematics and statistics achievement for Year4 and Year 8 students. HLMs (also called multilevel models) were purposefully selected due to their accommodation of the nested structure of the data (i.e., students within schools). Following a typical approach to an HLM analysis; One-way ANOVA with Random Effects Model (empty model), Random Coefficients Model (student model), Means as Outcomes Model (school model) and Random Intercepts and Slopes Model (final model) were run for each year level. Findings and Discussion:The paper will describe the amount of explained variance within/between schools and report the significance of student and school-level predictors and the size of their related effects. Results will also be compared with New Zealand Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012 results where Mathematics was the major domain of assessment.The findings of this study are expected to be of interest to researcher and policy makers. Moreover, the techniques used in the study will inform similar analyses done in the future using NMSSA data for other learning areas. The study might also inform the design of the NMSSA study going forward into future cycles of data collection.Keywords: HLM, NMSSA, Mathematics Achievement<br/

Measurement invariance of the student personal perception of classroom climate scale (SPPCC) in the Turkish context

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The impact of mathematics teaching efficacy on teachers’ pedagogical practices

This study explores the pedagogical practices of 167 Year 4 and 160 Year 8 New Zealand mathematics teachers who have different levels of mathematics teaching efficacy. Using data from the National Monitoring Study of Student Achievement 2013, the teacher questionnaire items believed to be the indicators of mathematics teaching efficacy were selected, represented by six items such as “I feel confident about teaching maths”. Then, low, mid, and high efficacious teachers were identified and compared to see how they differed with respect to their teaching profile and the frequency they used effective pedagogies when teaching mathematics (italicised below) (Anthony &amp; Walshaw, 2007). Twenty eight percent of Year 4 and 41% of Year 8 teachers had high mathematics teaching efficacy. Compared with the other teachers, teachers with high mathematics teaching efficacy were better able to provide an ethic of care in their classroom, they more frequently arranged their classrooms for learning to enable students to collaborate, and more frequently expected their students to communicate their thinking and debate ideas with others. They more frequently provided students with worthwhile mathematical tasks, they more frequently provided opportunities for their students to build on their own thinking, and to explore how new learning linked to or changed what they already knew. They more frequently expected their students to make mathematical connections by reflecting on their learning, to use multiple representations, and use ideas and skills from different curriculum areas

Psychometric properties of the TACT framework—Determining rigor in qualitative research

Introduction: The credibility of qualitative research has long been debated, with critics emphasizing the lack of rigor and the challenges of demonstrating it. In qualitative research, rigor encompasses explicit, detailed descriptions of various research stages, including problem framing, study design, data collection, analysis, and reporting. The diversity inherent in qualitative research, originating from various beliefs and paradigms, challenges establishing universal guidelines for determining its rigor. Additionally, researchers' often unrecorded thought processes in qualitative studies further complicate the assessment of research quality.Methods:To address these concerns, this article builds on the TACT framework, which was developed to teach postgraduate students and those new to qualitative research to identify and apply rigorous principles and indicators in qualitative research. The research reported in this article focuses on creating a scale designed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the TACT framework. This involves analyzing the stability of its dimensions and understanding its effectiveness as a tool for teaching and research.Results: The study's findings indicate that the TACT framework, when assessed through the newly developed scale, exhibits stable dimensions consistent with rigorous qualitative research principles. The framework effectively guides postgraduate students and new researchers in assessing the rigor of qualitative research processes and outcomes.Discussion:The application of the TACT framework and its evaluation scale reveals several insights. Firstly, it demonstrates the framework's utility in bridging the gap in pedagogical tools for teaching rigor in qualitative research methods. Secondly, it highlights the framework's potential in providing a structured approach to undertaking qualitative research, which is essential given this field's diverse methodologies and paradigms. However, the TACT framework remains a guide to enhancing rigor in qualitative research throughout all the various phases but by no means a measure of rigor.Conclusion:In conclusion, the TACT framework and its accompanying evaluative scale represent significant steps toward standardizing and enhancing the rigor of qualitative research, particularly for postgraduate students and early career researchers. While it does not solve all challenges associated with obtaining and demonstrating rigor in qualitative research, it provides a valuable tool for assessing and ensuring research quality, thereby addressing some of the longstanding criticisms of the quality of research obtained through qualitative methods

Ethnic differences in students´attitudes to the arts : providing validity evidence to make comparisons

Acknowledgements National Monitoring Study of Student Achievement (NMSSA) project is funded by the Ministry of Education, New Zealand.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Understanding students' sense of feeling safe at school

A large body of research indicates that wellbeing is vital for students’ success at school and in life. Students’ sense of feeling safe at school, is considered to be important for improving students’ mental and emotional wellbeing. Fostering of sense of safety is positively associated with student achievement affecting their resilience in turn. The purpose of the present study is to investigate the following questions: a. How positive are New Zealand students in their sense of feeling safe at school?b. Are there any differences in students’ sense of feeling safe at school by year level, gender, and school decile (a proxy for SES)?c. To what extent are students’ sense of belonging at school related to their attitude and confidence to learn in Mathematics? The National Monitoring Study of Student Achievement (NMSSA) is a sample based national project designed to assess and understand student achievement across the New Zealand Curriculum at Year 4 and Year 8 in English-medium state and state-integrated schools. In 2018, the focus areas were Mathematics and Social Studies. In order to to understand factors that influence achievement, NMSSA collects data from students about their attitude and confidence to learn in each curriculum area. To explore student wellbeing, NMSSA collected data in 2018 about students’ sense of feeling safe at school.Item Response Theory (Rasch) was employed to construct measurement scales. Multilevel Modelling (MLM) was conducted to investigate students’ sense of feeling safe at school in relation to attitude and confidence scale scores in mathematics and some other background variables including year level, gender, and school decile. Most students reported feeling safe at school. Most of the discrepancies in students’ sense of feeling safe lied within schools (among students) rather than between schools. Association between feeling safe at school and school decile was not statistically significant. Year 4 students and girls demonstrated significantly higher levels of feeling safe at school than did Year 8s and boys. Relationships between feeling safe at school and attitude &amp; confidence scale scores were positive and statistically significant. Keywords: attitude, confidence, sense of feeling safe at school<br/