Educational Researcher

Includes bibliographical references.

Does Cooperating Teachers' Instructional Effectiveness Improve Preservice Teachers' Future Performance? -- Does Attendance in Private Schools Predict Student Outcomes at Age 15? Evidence From a Longitudinal Study -- EASEing Students Into College: The Impact of Multidimensional Support for Underprepared Students -- Automatically Measuring Question Authenticity in Real-World Classrooms -- Changing the Default to Support Open Access to Education Research.

[Article Title : Does Cooperating Teachers' Instructional Effectiveness Improve Preservice Teachers' Future Performance? / Matthew Ronfeldt, Stacey L. Brockman, and Shanyce L. Campbell, p. 405-418] Abstract : Increasingly, states and teacher education programs are establishing minimum requirements for cooperating teachers' (CTs') years of experience or tenure. Undergirding these policies is an assumption that to effectively mentor preservice teachers (PSTs), CTs must themselves be instructionally effective. We test this assumption using statewide administrative data on nearly 2,900 PSTs mentored by over 3,200 CTs. We find the first evidence, of which we are aware, that PSTs are more instructionally effective when they learn to teach with CTs who are more instructionally effective. Specifically, when their CTs received higher observational ratings and value-added to students' achievement measures (VAMs), PSTs also received higher observational ratings and VAM during their first years of teaching; CTs' years of teaching experience, though, were mostly unrelated to these outcomes. These findings have implications for teacher education program leaders and policymakers who seek to recruit and set requirements for CTs who are more likely to support PSTs' future instructional effectiveness.;[Article Title : Does Attendance in Private Schools Predict Student Outcomes at Age 15? Evidence From a Longitudinal Study / Robert C. Pianta and Arya Ansari, p. 419-434] Abstract : By tracking longitudinally a sample of American children (n = 1,097), this study examined the extent to which enrollment in private schools between kindergarten and ninth grade was related to students' academic, social, psychological, and attainment outcomes at age 15. Results from this investigation revealed that in unadjusted models, children with a history of enrollment in private schools performed better on nearly all outcomes assessed in adolescence. However, by simply controlling for the sociodemographic characteristics that selected children and families into these schools, all of the advantages of private school education were eliminated. There was also no evidence to suggest that low-income children or children enrolled in urban schools benefited more from private school enrollment.;[Article Title : EASEing Students Into College: The Impact of Multidimensional Support for Underprepared Students / Di Xu, Sabrina Solanki, Peter McPartlan, and Brian Sato, p. 435-450] Abstract : Extensive theoretical literature and qualitative evidence nominate learning communities as a promising strategy to improve persistence and success among at-risk populations, such as students who are academically underprepared for college-level coursework. Yet rigorous quantitative evidence on the impacts of these programs is limited. This paper estimates the causal effects of a first-year STEM learning communities program on both cognitive and noncognitive outcomes at a large public 4-year institution. We use a regression discontinuity design based on the fact that students are assigned to the program if their math SAT score is below a threshold. Our results indicate that program participation increased the academic performance and sense of belonging for students around the cutoff. These results provide compelling evidence that learning communities can support at-risk populations when implemented with a high level of fidelity.;[Article Title : Automatically Measuring Question Authenticity in Real-World Classrooms / Sean Kelly, Andrew M. Olney, Patrick Donnelly, Martin Nystrand, and Sidney K. D'Mello, p. 451-464] Abstract : Analyzing the quality of classroom talk is central to educational research and improvement efforts. In particular, the presence of authentic teacher questions, where answers are not predetermined by the teacher, helps constitute and serves as a marker of productive classroom discourse. Further, authentic questions can be cultivated to improve teaching effectiveness and consequently student achievement. Unfortunately, current methods to measure question authenticity do not scale because they rely on human observations or coding of teacher discourse. To address this challenge, we set out to use automatic speech recognition, natural language processing, and machine learning to train computers to detect authentic questions in real-world classrooms automatically. Our methods were iteratively refined using classroom audio and human-coded observational data from two sources: (a) a large archival database of text transcripts of 451 observations from 112 classrooms; and (b) a newly collected sample of 132 high-quality audio recordings from 27 classrooms, obtained under technical constraints that anticipate large-scale automated data collection and analysis. Correlations between human-coded and computer-coded authenticity at the classroom level were sufficiently high (r = .602 for archival transcripts and .687 for audio recordings) to provide a valuable complement to human coding in research efforts.;[Article Title : Changing the Default to Support Open Access to Education Research / Alysia D. Roehrig, Devin Soper, Bradley E. Cox, and Gloria P. Colvin, p. 465-473] Abstract : This essay explores factors underlying the underutilization of Open Access (OA) to make education research literature freely available online, where it can benefit a global audience of researchers, students, teachers, and policymakers. Situating this autobiographical self-study in the context of the broader global and scholarly context, we use Bullough and Pinnegar's (2001) setting-convocation-resolution approach to present our stories as points of departure for reflection, conversation, research, and action. We do so to raise awareness and enhance understanding of the complex and rapidly evolving legal, ethical, and practical issues surrounding public accessibility to scholarship. We also issue a call to action by outlining concrete, stakeholder-specific steps that would help OA become the new default for publication of education research.