Situating interim assessments within teachers' practice of data use: how upper elementary school teachers attend to, interpret, and understand interim assessment data
Date
2019
Authors
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
My dissertation comprises three studies designed to explore nuances of data use in education that presently confound the relationship between variation in teachers’ practice of data use and student outcomes: (1) the relationships between different data sources within and across instructional practices; (2) the dimensionality of teachers’ practice of interim assessment data use; and (3) the reciprocal relationship between teachers’ existing understandings and interpretive process. In each study, I adapt and develop innovative approaches – ranging from eye tracking and network analysis to convergent and complex mixed methods study design – to not only address critical questions about data use in education, but also push the broader field of research in new theoretical and methodological directions. In so doing, my dissertation advances the field of research on data use in education and informs both education practice and policy. ☐ In my first study, I present a statistical and network analysis of how teachers choose between and combine data sources for instructional purposes. Specifically, I analyzed survey data to map and characterize patterns in teachers’ use of formative assessment, curriculum-based assessment, interim assessment, other school- or district-wide common assessment, course grades, state assessment, and attendance or behavioral data across 36 instructional practices. Findings suggest teachers use an average of two to six data sources to inform each instructional practice. Furthermore, I uncover a complex network of preferential, substitute, and complementary relationships between data sources within teachers’ practice of data use. Implications include a fundamental shift in understanding how teachers make sense of and use data for instructional purposes. ☐ Then, I present a convergent mixed methods study of how patterns in teachers’ practice of interim assessment data use are related to the degree to which they synthesize interim assessment data with other data sources. First, I analyzed quantitative survey data to develop multidimensional teacher data use profiles and qualitative interview data to gather evidence of how teachers make sense of interim assessment data. Then, I integrated these results and recoded interview transcripts to explore patterns in how teachers use interim assessment data based on differences in two conditionally independent dimensions of data use: synthesis and informative value. Integrated findings suggest teachers may be broadly categorized as comprehensive or superficial data users with implications for the authenticity of their interim assessment data use. Implications include methods of identifying and supporting teachers’ capacity to meaningfully synthesize interim assessments with other data sources. ☐ Finally, I present a complex mixed methods study of how teachers’ existing understandings of their students shape, and are in turn shaped by, how they make sense of interim assessment data. First, I synthesized conceptualizations of teachers’ interpretive process with framing theory to develop a model of the recursive relationship between teachers’ existing understandings and interpretive process. Then, I analyzed qualitative interview data and quantitative eye tracking data to explore the interconnectedness of how teachers frame, notice, and interpret interim assessment data. Integrated findings suggest teachers broadly understand students as achievers and learners with implications for how they notice and interpret types and features of interim assessment data. Furthermore, findings suggest teachers elaborate, preserve, and reframe these understandings in response to new information. Implications include methods of modeling and supporting how teachers understand and use interim assessment data.