Designing Multisite Mediation Studies to Track Teacher Development Processes in Mathematics

人们普遍认识到，对可塑性教师属性的研究是改善和推进STEM教育所需的基础知识的关键组成部分。 中介分析是了解教师对学生影响的一种研究方法。 中介分析解码属性是如何以及为什么连接到学生的改进，通过探索中间的发展过程和教师的行为，操作这些关系。 多学校或多地点调解研究可以建立一个多层次的证据，关于是否，如何以及为什么特定属性有助于提高学生的成绩。 它们可以描述干预措施（例如，通过专业发展计划）可以提高教师和学生的成果。 他们可以同时绘制教师发展过程，创造机会发现，解开和了解这些过程中的变化，并适应学校内自然发生的变化。 不幸的是，有很少的文献和工具的方法和策略，有意设计有效和高效的多学校调解研究的教师发展和有效性的背景下。 在这个项目中，这条调查线将通过开发一个多学校调解研究的理论和实证框架得到加强。 拟议的工作旨在获得有用的工具，即广泛适用于STEM领域的多站点设计的新统计估计器，原则和策略。 它还打算为数学教师发展的研究开发基于实践的战略和软件。 这些工具集成了四个关键组件：（a）发展统计估计器，以指导调解的观察和实验性多地点研究的设计，（B）发展经验基础，以在丰富的教师发展过程中实施这些战略，（c）开发免费和可访问的软件，以实施这些结果，以及（d）编制培训材料，以提高该领域的能力。该项目旨在制定一个框架，指导有效和高效地设计数学教师发展的多地点调解研究。 一套工具-统计，实证，软件和培训-将开发前瞻性地设计和实施多站点调解教师发展研究，使他们能够产生有效，高效和全面的证据。这项工作分为三部分。 第一个组成部分的目的是发展统计理论的基础，有效和高效的设计多站点调解研究，并有四个目标：（a）在观察和实验设计中推导出多中心调解的统计功效估计值，（B）扩展这些公式以适应调解过程的调节者（在异质教师发展过程中），（c）扩展这些公式，包括协变量，（d）推导公式，以确定最佳的（最强大的）抽样计划的约束。 第二部分是将统计理论应用于数学教师发展的研究。 该项目旨在通过对数学教育中丰富的教师属性和中介因素进行元分析，对设计教师发展研究所需的参数进行经验估计。 具体而言，该项目计划：（a）为众多教师和学生变量制定必要参数的经验估计值;（B）为提高多地点教师发展研究的效率制定基于实践的指导方针和战略。 最后一个组成部分是开发软件，利用免费和用户友好的软件进行上述公式和计算，并举办讲习班，培训广泛的研究人员。 最终，该项目旨在提高教师发展中介研究产生的证据的范围和质量。 核心平台旨在转移到其他STEM教育领域和STEM学科。 此外，该项目中开发的软件和研讨会旨在用于以可访问的方式将结果分发给STEM教育领域和STEM学科的广泛而多样的研究和从业者团体。 因此，该项目有可能大大扩大通过数学教师发展研究产生的证据的范围和质量，更普遍的是，在整个STEM领域的多地点调解研究。 这种潜力是存在的，因为这项工作提高了研究人员设计有效，高效和全面研究的能力。 该项目是由本科教育部的改善本科STEM教育计划作为一个发展和实施项目的支持。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

There is widespread recognition that research on malleable teacher attributes represents a critical component of the foundational knowledge necessary to improve and advance STEM education. A method of research to understand how teachers affect students is mediation analyses. Mediation analyses decode how and why attributes are connected to student improvement by probing the intermediate developmental processes and behaviors of teachers that operationalize these relationships. Multi-school or multisite mediation studies can build a multilayered body of evidence regarding if, how, and why specific attributes help improve student outcomes. They can delineate how interventions (e.g., through professional development programs) might improve both teacher and student outcomes. They can concurrently map out teacher development processes, create opportunities to discover, unpack and learn about variation in these processes, and accommodate naturally occurring variation within schools. Unfortunately, there are scant literature and tools available on methods and strategies to intentionally design effective and efficient multi-school mediation studies in the context of teacher development and effectiveness. In this project, this line of inquiry will be enhanced by developing a theoretical and empirical framework for multi-school mediation studies. The proposed work aims to derive useful tools, that is new statistical estimators, principles, and strategies for multisite designs that are widely applicable across STEM areas. It also intends to develop empirically-based strategies and software for studies of teacher development in mathematics. These tools integrate four key components: (a) the development of statistical estimators to direct the design of observational and experimental multisite studies of mediation, (b) the development of an empirical basis from which to operationalize these strategies for a rich array of teacher development processes, (c) the development of free and accessible software to implement these results, and (d) the development of training materials to improve the capacity of the field.This project aims to develop a framework to direct the effective and efficient design of multisite mediation studies of teacher development in mathematics. A suite of tools--statistical, empirical, software, and training--will be developed to prospectively design and implement multisite mediation teacher development studies so that they are positioned to produce effective, efficient, and comprehensive evidence. The work partitions into three components. The first component aims to develop the statistical theory underlying the effective and efficient design of multisite mediation studies and has four objectives: (a) derive statistical power estimators for multisite mediation in observational and experimental designs, (b) extend these formulas to accommodate moderators of the mediation processes (under heterogeneous teacher development processes), (c) extend these formulas to include covariates, and (d) derive formulas to identify the optimal (most powerful) sampling plans given constraints. The second component will apply the resulting statistical theory to the study of teacher development in mathematics. The project intends to develop empirical estimates of the parameters needed to design teacher development studies by conducting a meta-analysis on a rich array of teacher attributes and mediators in mathematics education. Specifically, the project plans to develop (a) empirical estimates of the necessary parameters for numerous teacher and student variables and (b) empirically-based guidelines and strategies for improving the efficacy of multisite teacher development studies. The final component is the development of software to carry out the above formulas and calculations using free and user-friendly software and workshops to train a broad range of researchers. Ultimately, this project seeks to improve the scope and quality of evidence produced by mediation studies of teacher development. The core platform is intended to be transferable to other STEM education areas and STEM disciplines. Moreover, the software and workshops developed in this project are intended to be used to distribute the results in an accessible manner to broad and diverse sets of research and practitioner groups across STEM education areas and STEM disciplines. Thus, this project has the potential to substantially expand the scope and quality of evidence generated through mathematics teacher development studies and, more generally, multisite mediation studies throughout STEM areas. This potential exists as this work increases researchers' capacity to design effective, efficient, and comprehensive studies. This project is supported by the Division of Undergraduate Education's Improving Undergraduate STEM Education program as a Development and Implementation project.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.