Statistical Models for Monitoring Educational Progress

该奖项支持研究人员在匹兹堡大学学习研究与发展中心（LRDC）的工作。 将启动的项目包括：（1）分析学区数据档案，着眼于评估教育进展和监测教育创新的成果;（2）探讨教育方面的社会判断，特别是在根据LRDC学习研究所的“学习原则”制定教室和学校的机构组合评级系统方面;以及（3）为一组链接的主题测试奠定技术基础，以实例化一个纯粹的标准参考测试程序。 这三个项目都与LRDC正在进行的研究项目有关。 这些项目旨在促进建立数据收集系统，以建立适当的学校问责制和教育政策评估。 通过学习研究所和其他地方进行的研究表明，通过体制改革最可靠地实现学生成绩的持续提高。 然而，大多数目前实施的问责制度，而不是集中在个别学生的结果，往往是混淆与高风险的决定，为个别学生。 第一个项目将探讨是否可以利用现有的学区数据档案，以限制额外的个别学生测试时，学生成绩数据的要求。 第二个项目将把过去十年发展的学生档案袋评估方法应用于院校档案袋的发展和评级，以显示本地院校（例如，教室、学校和地区）参与专业发展进程，确保学生的长期收益。 在第三个项目中，每个测试都涵盖了相当狭窄的主题，如整数算术，分数等，并且可以用于例如相对于特定的学习标准来评估区域、学校或教室内的学生成绩的分布。 这项研究得到了方法，测量和统计计划以及职业中期方法学机会奖学金公告下的统计和概率计划的支持。

This award supports the investigator's work at the University of Pittsburgh's Learning Research and Development Center (LRDC). Projects to be initiated include: (1) Analyzing school district data archives with an eye toward evaluating educational progress and monitoring the outcomes of educational innovations; (2) Exploring social judgement in education, in particular in the development of an institutional portfolio rating system for classrooms and schools, based on the "Principles for Learning" of LRDC's Institute for Learning; and (3) Laying technical groundwork for a bank of linked topical tests instantiating a purely standards-referenced testing program. All three are connected to ongoing research programs at LRDC. These projects are designed to contribute to the development of data collection systems for adequate school accountability systems and for educational policy evaluation. Research conducted through the Institute for Learning and elsewhere suggests that sustained improvement in student achievement is most reliably attained through institutional change. Yet most currently implemented accountability systems focus instead on individual student outcomes, and often are confounded with high-stakes decisions for individual students. The first project will explore whether existing school district data archives can be exploited to limit additional individual student testing when student achievement data is called for. The second project will apply methodology developed over the past ten years for student portfolio assessment to the development and rating of institutional portfolios intended to show that local institutions (e.g., classrooms, schools and districts) are engaged in a process of professional development that ensures long term gains for students. The banked tests in the third project would each cover fairly narrow topics, such as integer arithmetic, fractions, etc., and could be used for example to assess the distribution of student achievement within a district, school, or classroom relative to specific learning standards. This research is supported by the Methodology, Measurement, and Statistics Program and the Statistics and Probability Program under the Mid-Career Methodological Opportunities Fellowship Announcement.