Collaborative Research: Understanding Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Outcomes in Texas

在 2010 年国家研究委员会的报告《教师准备：为健全政策建立证据》中，强调了与 STEM 教师准备相关但缺乏足够研究基础的领域。 该诺伊斯轨道 4A 研究项目将与德克萨斯州的八所大学合作，对诺伊斯职前教师项目与有效招聘、准备和保留相关的特征进行合作研究。 休斯顿大学、斯蒂芬奥斯汀州立大学、休斯顿大学克利尔湖分校、休斯顿大学市中心分校、德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校、德克萨斯大学阿灵顿分校、德克萨斯州立大学和德克萨斯农工大学金斯维尔分校将合作促进对各自诺伊斯 STEM 职前教育项目的严格评估。合作机构代表了一系列广泛的项目，涵盖了不同的特征，例如环境（农村与城市）、学科重点（例如数学、普通 STEM 教育）以及项目招收的学生（本科生、学士学位后学生、职业转换者）。此外，它们的实施方法和计划组成部分也有所不同。通过这一研究伙伴关系，这些项目将收集和共享数据，并与休斯顿大学教育政策研究与评估研究所 (IEPRE) 和教师教育研究、评估和促进中心 (CREATE) 合作，开展一项大型研究，以提高高需求课堂中有效 STEM 教师的数量。CREATE 是一个由德克萨斯州 56 家教师教育机构组成的多系统联盟。特别是，项目和 CREATE 之间的数据共享提供了对教师流动的管理数据以及将课堂教师与学生成绩联系起来的数据的访问，将促进项目特征与教师有效性、流动和保留率之间的联系。这八个机构的合作伙伴关系将寻求回答以下四个广泛的研究问题：1）在已实施的诺伊斯项目的参与者中，相关大学项目的特点是什么？ 2) 对于进入并留在教师行业的教师候选人，诺伊斯和非诺伊斯参与者在各种个人和接收校园特征方面如何比较？ 3) 相对于未参与的同龄人，教师参与基于诺伊斯的准备对 K-12 学生的学业成绩有多大程度和以什么方式影响？ 4) 国家政策如何影响教师的招聘和保留？这些问题将通过定性和定量方法来解决，包括访谈的描述性分析、地理信息系统（GIS）制图、事件历史分析和倾向评分分析，以创建诺伊斯和非诺伊斯准备的教师的匹配样本，这些样本在基线特征上相似，以便能够比较教师有效性的衡量标准。最后一个问题将通过政策分析来解决。 这一独特的研究合作伙伴关系将单个州的多个诺伊斯项目结合起来，将提供一个模型来评估提供者从保留到入职的实践，以确定促进高需求学校有效招聘、培训和保留 STEM 教师的项目组成部分。 这项多机构研究的结果将有可能为全国的教师教育计划提供信息，特别是与招聘、准备和留住在高需求环境中教授学生的 STEM 学科教师以及加强或抑制这一点的政策有关的信息。

In the 2010 National Research Council's report, Preparing Teachers: Building Evidence for Sound Policy, areas related to STEM teacher preparation that lacked a sufficient research base were highlighted. This Noyce Track 4A research project will engage eight universities in Texas in a collaborative research study of the characteristics of Noyce pre-service teacher programs related to effective recruitment, preparation, and retention. The University of Houston, Stephen F. Austin State University, the University of Houston-Clear Lake, the University of Houston-Downtown, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Texas at Arlington, Texas State University, and Texas A&M University-Kingsville will collaborate to promote rigorous evaluation of components of their respective Noyce STEM pre-service education programs. The institutions in the partnership represent a broad array of programs encompassing differences in characteristics such as setting (rural vs. urban), disciplinary focus (e.g., mathematics, general STEM education), and students recruited into the program (undergraduates, post-baccalaureate students, career changers). In addition, they vary in implementation methodology and program components. Through this research partnership, these programs will collect and share data, collaborating with the University of Houston's Institute for Educational Policy Research and Evaluation (IEPRE) and the Center for Research, Evaluation, and Advancement of Teacher Education (CREATE), a multi-system consortium comprised of fifty-six teacher education institutions across Texas, to enable a large study that will allow for investigation of components leading to increasing the number of effective STEM teachers in high-need classrooms. In particular, data sharing between the programs and CREATE, which provides access to administrative data regarding teacher movement and data connecting classroom teachers to student achievement, will facilitate connection of program characteristics to teacher effectiveness, movement, and retention.This eight institution collaborative partnership will seek to answer the following four broad research questions: 1) Among participants in implemented Noyce programs, what are the characteristics of the associated university-based programs? 2) For teacher candidates who enter and remain in the teaching profession, how do Noyce and non-Noyce participants compare with respect to a variety of individual and receiving campus characteristics? 3) Relative to their non-participating peers, to what extent and in what ways does teacher participation in Noyce-based preparation have subsequent influence on K-12 student academic performance? and 4) How are state policies influencing recruiting and retaining teachers? These questions will be addressed through both qualitative and quantitative methods, including descriptive analysis of interviews, geographic information system (GIS) mapping, event history analysis, and propensity score analysis to create matched samples of Noyce and non-Noyce prepared teachers that are similar on baseline characteristics to enable comparison of measures of teacher effectiveness. The final question will be addressed through policy analysis. This unique research partnership that joins several Noyce programs in a single state will provide a model for evaluating provider practices from retention through induction to identify program components promoting effective recruitment, training, and retention of STEM teachers in high needs schools. The results of this multi-institutional study will have the potential to inform teacher education programs across the country, particularly related to recruiting, preparing, and retaining teachers of STEM disciplines who teach students in high need settings, as well as policies that enhance or inhibit this.