Author: Michael S. Garet

Publisher:

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13:

Student achievement in mathematics has been a focal concern in the United States for many years. The National Research Council's 2001 report and the recent report of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel (2008) both called attention to student achievement in mathematics, and both called for all students to learn algebra by the end of eighth grade. Reports have argued, further, that achieving this goal requires that students first successfully learn several topics in rational numbers--fractions, decimals, ratio, rate, proportion, and percent. These topics are typically covered in grades 4 through 7, yet many students continue to struggle with them beyond the seventh grade. The National Mathematics Advisory Panel wrote that--difficulty with fractions (including decimals and percent) is pervasive and is a major obstacle to further progress in mathematics, including algebra. The panel also specified that by the end of seventh grade, students should be able to solve problems involving percent, ratio, and rate, and extend this work to proportionality. The U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Educational Evaluation and Regional Assistance (NCEE)--within the Institute of Education Sciences--initiated the Middle School Mathematics Professional Development Impact Study to test the impact of a professional development (PD) program for teachers that was designed to address the problem of low student achievement in topics in rational numbers. The study focuses on seventh grade, the culminating year for teaching those topics and has three central research questions: (1) What impact did the PD program provided in this study have on teacher knowledge of rational number topics? (2) What impact did the PD program provided in this study have on teacher instructional practices? and (3) What impact did the PD program provided in this study have on student achievement in rational number topics? The study produced the following results: (1) The study's PD program was implemented as intended; (2) The PD program did not produce a statistically significant impact on teacher knowledge of rational numbers (effect size = 0.19, p-value = 0.15); (3) The PD program had a statistically significant impact on the frequency with which teachers engaged in activities that elicited student thinking, one of the three measures of instructional practice used in the study (effect size = 0.48); and (4) The PD program did not produce a statistically significant impact on student achievement (effect size = 0.04, p-value = 0.37). This report presents the study's findings after 1 year of implementing the PD in the treatment schools. A subsequent report will present findings after 2 years of implementing the PD. Chapter 1 presents an overview of the study. Chapter 2 describes the study design and its realization, including a description of the sample and tests of baseline equivalence of the treatment and control groups on observed characteristics. Chapter 3 describes the design and implementation of the PD program and the extent of service contrast between the treatment and control groups. Chapter 4 addresses the impact of the PD program on teacher knowledge, instructional practice, and student mathematics achievement. Chapter 5 provides several nonexperimental analyses that explore additional questions related to the impact findings. Appended are: (1) Data Collection; (2) Details of the Study Samples and Analytic Approaches; (3) Supplemental Information on the Design and Implementation of the PD Program; (4) Supporting Tables and Figures for Impact Analyses; and (5) Exploratory Analyses: Approaches and Additional Results. (Contains 9 exhibits, 9 figures, and 90 tables.).