Relations between teachers’ educational level and fourth grade students’ reading achievement between 2001 and 2011 in Sweden

Author(s):

Eva Myrberg(presenting / submitting)Stefan Johansson(presenting)Monica Rosén

Conference:

ECER 2014

Network:

09. Assessment, Evaluation, Testing and Measurement

Format:

Paper

Session Information

09 SES 14 A, Findings from Large-Scale Assessments: Relating Teaching and Teacher Characteristics to Student Achievement

Paper Session

Time:

2014-09-05

15:30-17:00

Room:

B010 Anfiteatro

Chair:

Andres Sandoval-Hernandez

Contribution

Background

In recent years, a growing body of research, mostly from the US but also from Europe, indicates that it is possible to estimate considerable effects of teacher education on student performance (Baumert et al., 2010; Darling-Hammond, 2000; Nye, Konstantopolous & Hedges, 2004; Wayne & Youngs, 2003). Also in Sweden, substantial effects of teacher education have been estimated (Frank, 2009; Johansson, 2013; Myrberg, 2007).

However, teacher education programs vary greatly between countries with respect to length and foci and when teacher education is reformed within countries, effects can be seen first after a lag of time. Consequently, results are not easily transferable across countries and there is a great need for country-specific analyses. Swedish teacher education has been revised several times during the past five decades and content knowledge as well as pedagogical content knowledge has been less pronounced (Högskoleverket, 2005). From 1988 and with a peak in 2001, the profession has developed into one single, flexible teacher category with less focus on specialized subject knowledge (Stenlås, 2009).

Croninger, King Rice, Rathbun and Nishio (2007) found more refined measures of teachers’ preparation to be better predictors of student achievement than more conventional and broader measures like certification status. Myrberg (2007) estimated substantial effects of adequate teacher education, that is, education directed towards the specific grade and the specific subject. Frank (2009) studied the relationship between teachers from different teacher education programs and student achievement. She went further and investigated the content knowledge for different kinds of certified teachers. She estimated stronger, positive effects of teacher education on student reading achievement for teachers holding an education with more emphasis on didactics for supporting reading literacy skills. The current study will take advantage of the opportunity to combine data on individual teachers from the different teacher education programs with data on individual student reading literacy achievement. We also extends the scope to cover a time period from 2001 to 2011.

The influence of socio-economic background on student achievement has increased markedly in Sweden during latter decades. Performances of students from less favourable backgrounds have decreased substantially (Yang-Hansen & Gustafsson, 2013). In international literature the importance of peer effects for school results has strong support (Hattie, 2009; Hoxby, 2000). The results from Yang Hansen and Gustafsson indicate an increase in the strength of the relation between school SES and reading achievement, most likely depending on peer effects. A Swedish study (Sund, 2007) estimates stronger peer effects for low-achievers. In the current study we have the opportunity to look closer at interaction effects between student background and teacher qualification over time. A hypothesis that will be tested is that students with low SES gain the most from teachers that have received their education within a program with greater emphasis on content and pedagogical content knowledge as we expect them to have more effective didactic approaches.

In summary; as data contains ample of information about teachers’ varying qualifications in addition to various student background factors, the Swedish circumstances are particularly suitable for studying the effects of teacher education and its interaction with student SES on student reading literacy performance. This is also the main purpose of this study.

Method

Data and method The empirical base consists of data from PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) with a student reading test result as outcome variable. The main reason for using data from PIRLS is the possibility to operationalize a common measure of teacher education across the studies. In a Swedish national extension of the PIRLS’ teacher questionnaire, there is an item indicating type of teacher education which is identical across the successive studies (PIRLS 2001, 2006, and 2011). Given the reforms of teacher education in Sweden, teachers are holding different certificates and have experienced more or less of reading didactics during their studies within teacher education programs. In addition to the item overlap across the studies, there is a common definition of the target population in the PIRLS studies. Taking advantage of a trend design, using a pooled dataset, will obtain more stable results and enable analyses of differentiated teacher effects. Besides student achievement and type of teacher education, variables included in the analyses will be student socio-economic status (SES) and time point for PIRLS assessment. The information regarding SES will be collected from questionnaires to parents and students. The SES variable will be used to control selection effects, i.e., teacher’s with more relevant education choose schools with higher performing students. A hypothesis that will be tested is whether relevant teacher qualification has stronger effect for students of less favorable backgrounds. Via an interaction between teacher qualification and student SES this is possible to analyze. Using the time-point variable we can investigate not only the general achievement trend, but also if teacher qualification has become a more powerful predictor over time. The main method of analysis will be multilevel Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with latent variables. These analytical techniques have developed dramatically in the past few years. Educational assessment data often has a nested observational structure, students being clustered in classrooms, classrooms being clustered in schools and so on. Such hierarchically structured data are difficult to analyze, but starting in the 1980s, appropriate analytical methods have been developed through extensions of the basic regression model (e.g., Snijders & Bosker, 1999). The analyses will be conducted using the computer program Mplus (Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2012).

Expected Outcomes

Expected outcomes Promising efforts have been made in the area of effects of teacher competence on achievement. For example, Johansson (2013) found substantial effects of a latent teacher competence model on students’ reading achievement in PIRLS 2001. The items used in this study are recurring in the 2006 and 2011 version of PIRLS, and the opportunities are thus great to formulate a common model that also holds for trend analyses. The proposed study draws on the previous Swedish studies by Myrberg (2007), Frank (2009) and Johansson (2013) where substantial effects of teacher education has been estimated but extends the scope of investigation by including PIRLS assessments at three different points in time. Johansson’s study as well as Frank’s (2009) indicated that teachers educated before the teacher education reform in 1988 held the education that had most effect on student achievement. The extended time period will not only yield more reliable results but also make it possible to draw casual conclusions about the effect of different teacher education programs for students from different SES background over time.

References

References Baumert, J., Kunter, M., Blum, W., Brunner, M., Voss, T., Jordan, A., . . . Tsai, Y.-M. (2010). Teachers’ Mathematical Knowledge, Cognitive Activation in the Classroom, and Pupil Progress. American Educational Research Journal, 47, 133-180. doi: 10.3102/0002831209345157 Croninger, R. G., King Rice, J. K., Rathbun, A. & Nishio, M. (2007). Teacher qualifications and early learning: Effects of certification, degree, and experience on first-grade student achievement. Economics of Education Review, 26, 312-324. Darling-Hammond, L. (2000). Teacher Quality and Student Achievement: A Review of State Policy Evidence. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 8(1), 1-44. Frank, E. (2009). Läsförmågan bland 9-10-åringar. Betydelsen av skolklimat, hem- och skolsamverkan, lärarkompetens och elevers hembakgrund. ACTA: Gothenburg. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/2077/20083. Hattie, J. A. (2009). Visible learning, A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. New York: Routledge. Hoxby, C. (2000) Peer effects in the classroom: Learning from gender and race variation. NBER Working Paper 7867. Högskoleverket (2005) Reformuppföljning och kvalitetsbedömning av den nya lärarutbildningen vid svenska universitet och högskolor. [Follow-up of reforms and assessment of quality of the new teacher education at Swedish universities and colleges] Stockholm: Högskoleverket [The National Agency for Higher Education]. Johansson, S. (2013). On the Validity of Reading Assessments: Relationships Between Teacher Judgements, External tests and Pupil Self-assessment. Gothenburg studies in Education No 328, Göteborg: ACTA. Muthén, L. K., & Muthén, B. O. (1998-2012). Mplus User's Guide. Los Angeles, CA: Muthén & Muthén. Myrberg, E. (2007). The Effect of Formal Teacher Education on Reading Achievement of 3rd-Grade Pupils in Public and Independent Schools in Sweden. Educational Studies, 33, 145-162. Nye, B., Konstantopoulos, S., & Hedges, L. V. (2004). How Large Are Teacher Effects? Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 26, 237-257. Snijders, T.A.B., & Bosker, R.J. (1999). Multilevel analysis: An introduction to basic and advanced multilevel modelling, London: SAGE Publications. Stenlås, N. (2009). En kår i kläm – Läraryrket mellan professionella ideal och statliga reformideologier. ESO rapport 2009:6. Stockholm: Regeringskansliet, Finansdepartementet. Sund, K. (2007). Teachers, families and friends: essays in economics of education. Dissertation (summary). Stockholm: University of Stockholm. Wayne, A. J., & Youngs, P. (2003). Teacher Characteristics and Student Achievement Gains: A Review. Review of Educational Research, 73, 89-122. Yang Hansen, K., & Gustafsson, J-E. (2013). Changes in Educational Inequality in Sweden and Norway: Evidence from IEA PIRLS studies between 2001 and 2011. Paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research (ECER), Istanbul, Turkey, September, 2013.

Author Information

Eva Myrberg (presenting / submitting)

university of gothenburg, Sweden

Stefan Johansson (presenting)

Gothenburg University

Department of Education and Special Education

Göteborg

Monica Rosén