Collaborative Research: Understanding Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Outcomes in Texas

在2010年国家研究委员会的报告《教师培训：为健全的政策建立证据》中，强调了与STEM教师培训相关的领域，这些领域缺乏足够的研究基础。Noyce Track 4A研究项目将邀请德克萨斯州的八所大学参与一项关于Noyce职前教师计划与有效招聘、准备和保留相关的特点的合作研究。休斯顿大学、史蒂芬·F·奥斯汀州立大学、休斯顿-克利尔湖大学、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推动对各自Noyce STEM职前教育项目组成部分的严格评估。合作伙伴关系中的机构代表了一系列广泛的项目，包括不同的特点，如设置(农村和城市)、学科重点(例如数学、普通STEM教育)以及被该项目录取的学生(本科生、研究生、转行者)。此外，它们在实施方法和方案组成部分方面也各不相同。通过这一研究伙伴关系，这些项目将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，收集和共享数据，CREATE是一个由德克萨斯州56所教师教育机构组成的多系统联盟，以实现一项大型研究，从而能够调查导致高需求教室中有效STEM教师数量增加的因素。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Noyce项目的参与者中，相关的基于大学的项目的特征是什么？2)对于进入和继续从事教师职业的教师候选人，Noyce和非Noyce参与者相对于各种个人和接受校园的特征而言如何比较？3)相对于他们的非参与同龄人，教师参与诺伊斯备课在多大程度上和以何种方式对K-12学生的学习成绩产生影响？4)国家政策对招聘和留住教师有何影响？这些问题将通过定性和定量方法解决，包括访谈描述性分析、地理信息系统(GIS)绘图、事件历史分析和倾向得分分析，以创建在基线特征上相似的诺伊斯和非诺伊斯教师的配对样本，以便能够比较教师效率的衡量标准。最后一个问题将通过政策分析来解决。这一独特的研究伙伴关系在一个州加入了多个Noyce项目，将为评估提供者从保留到入职的实践提供一个模型，以确定促进高需求学校STEM教师有效招聘、培训和保留的计划组成部分。这项多机构研究的结果将有可能为全国各地的教师教育项目提供参考，特别是与招聘、准备和留住在高需求环境中教授学生的STEM学科教师有关的项目，以及加强或抑制这一点的政策。

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.