The Effect of Small Group Discussion on Cutoff Scores During Standard Setting

Standard setting methods, like the Bookmark procedure, are used to assist education experts in formulating performance standards. Small group discussion is meant to help these experts in setting more reliable and valid cutoff scores. This study is an analysis of 15 small group discussions during two standards setting trajectories and their effect on the cutoff scores on four performance levels for comprehensive reading and mathematics. Discussion decreased the variability of the cutoff scores among the expert panelists, but the direction of the adaptations varied among groups. Furthermore, also the duration and the content of the audio-taped discussions differed among groups. There was no relationship between the increase in agreement among the panelists and the duration of their discussions or their use of arguments concerning learning content. It was concluded that an increased consensus among panelists alone does not provide enough information on the reliability and validity of cutoff scores. Additional measures aimed at the content of group discussions have appeared to be necessary, since the use of content arguments in these discussions is not guaranteed

Goals, data use, and instruction:the effect of a teacher professional development program on reading achievement

In this paper, we investigated whether student reading comprehension could be improved with help of a teacher Professional Development (PD) program targeting goals, data use, and instruction. The effect of this PD program on 2nd- and 3rd-grade student achievement was examined using a pretest-posttest control group design. Applying propensity score matching, 35 groups in the experimental condition were matched to 35 control groups. Students in the experimental condition (n = 420) scored significantly higher on a standardized assessment than the control condition (n = 399), the effect size being d = .37. No differential effects of the PD program were found in relation to initial reading performance or grade. Different model specifications yielded similar albeit smaller effect sizes (d = .29 and d = .30). At the end of the program, students in the experimental condition were more than half a year ahead of students in the control condition

The relation between teacher-set performance goals and students' mathematical achievement

The relation between teacher-set performance goals for 361 individual students and these students' mathematics achievement was investigated. High performance goals were found to strongly relate to student performance, with an effect size of d= 0.80. The performance goals were set by the teachers at the end of a step-by-step procedure, consisting of initial teacher expectations, the use of data, and team input. This procedure was expected to decrease negative expectancy bias. Higher teacher performance goals than teachers' initial expectations, so-called positive changes, were positively associated with the performance of initially low achievers. Initially high achievers, for whom the teachers made a positive change, performed worse than comparable students for whom initial expectation and final goal were the same. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Classroom Management Strategies and Classroom Management Programs on Students’ Academic, Behavioral, Emotional, and Motivational Outcomes

This meta-analysis examined which classroom management strategies and programs enhanced students’ academic, behavioral, social-emotional, and motivational outcomes in primary education. The analysis included 54 random and nonrandom controlled intervention studies published in the past decade (2003–2013). Results showed small but significant effects (average g = 0.22) on all outcomes, except for motivational outcomes. Programs were coded for the presence/absence of four categories of strategies: focusing on the teacher, on student behavior, on students’ social-emotional development, and on teacher–student relationships. Focusing on the students’ social-emotional development appeared to have the largest contribution to the interventions’ effectiveness, in particular on the social-emotional outcomes. Moreover, we found a tentative result that students’ academic outcomes benefitted from teacher-focused programs