One of the best aspects of working at Fordham is getting to read and review education research for the Gadfly. 2024 proved to be a highlight in that regard, affording the opportunity to look at some really great work. Here are five of the most interesting studies I reviewed this year.
Christoph Ableitinger and Johanna Gruber, “Standardized school-leaving exam in mathematics: manifold effects on teaching, teacher cooperation and satisfaction,” Frontiers of Education.
A seismic shift occurred in student testing when Austria made changes in its longstanding school-leaving exams in mathematics. It took schools nearly ten years to fully make the switch from teacher-created questions—which made every exam given to every class of students every year unique—to a standardized model that was aimed at better understanding what each student knew and allowing for comparisons between students, classes, and schools. This report used survey data to look at teachers’ direct experience of and opinions about the changeover. The bottom line from my review: Most teachers reported numerous positive aspects of the change, including the fact that “teaching to the test” can be a good thing for both students and instructors when the process follows certain guidelines.
Zhihan (Helen) Wang, Jiaxin Pei, and Jun Li, “30 Million Canvas Grading Records Reveal Widespread Sequential Bias and System-Induced Surname Initial Disparity,” Management Science (March 2024).
This report hit the news with some splashy headlines about how certain college students were being shortchanged in grading due to clear evidence of “sequential bias” exhibited by manual graders. Specifically, students whose surnames started with A, B, C, D, or E received a 0.3-point higher grade (out of 100) than did students with surnames later in the alphabet. Likewise, students with surnames W through Z received a 0.3-point lower grade than their earlier-in-the-alphabet peers. Thing is, the same pattern is evident no matter what the order: The later you are in whatever grading sequence is used, the worse off your grade is likely to be, largely because manual grading and electronic submission of data is such a slog. The bottom line from my review: A fascinating study with interesting findings but not a lot of obvious fixes for the problem.
Kevin Werner, Gregory Acs, and Kristin Blagg, “Comparing the Long-Term Impacts of Different Child Well-Being Improvements,” Urban Institute (March 2024).
If we knew the best ways to deploy public resources during childhood, could we effectively boost adult prosperity? A team of researchers from the Urban Institute seem to think so. Using data from the Social Genome Model (SGM), a microsimulation model of the life cycle that tracks the academic, social, and economic experiences of individuals from birth through middle age, they created a model that made minor improvements to several aspects of people’s lives, including health, education, and family supports. They then mathematically played out the differences, focusing on earnings levels at age thirty. It turns out that improving children’s math scores outshined all other factors and increased adult earnings the most—by as much as $1,200 per year for the average adult. The bottom line from my review: Although increasing students’ math achievement is far more easily done in a computer simulation than the real world, there are evidence-based ways to do it, and success could demonstrably improve the lives of future generations. Education matters!
Sarah J. Carrier et al., “Citizen science in elementary classrooms: a tale of two teachers,” Frontiers in Education (October 2024).
Citizen science, which is research in any field conducted using data sourced from the general public, was all the rage during the total solar eclipse in April. Several months later came this timely case study looking at citizen science curriculum implementation in two fifth grade classrooms. Survey and classroom log data showed two very different approaches to implementation. One resulted in students regularly uploading data to augment a national research project, while the other resulted in a lower level of data interaction that stayed within the classroom. The researchers gained valuable insights on how to adapt their curriculum to fit different teacher styles and classroom types. The bottom line from my review: Their insights are likely too specific to have much applicability beyond the walls of those two individual classes, but any detailed look into the black box of classroom teaching is worth paying attention to and learning from.
Sy Doan et al., “Educational Spillover Effects of New English Learners in a New Destination State,” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis (October 2024).
This report also gave a valuable look into classroom practices. Specifically, how an influx of new English Learner (EL) students in a classroom impacts other students’ test performance, using data from the state of Delaware. Overall, researchers found that a 5 percentage-point increase in new EL student share improved the ELA test scores of existing students in that grade level by 0.04 of a standard deviation, which is statistically significant. The strongest boost accrued to existing current ELs and former ELs, although no negative impacts were seen for any group of students or specific classrooms. The bottom line from my review: The lack of negative impacts is important, but the potential mechanisms by which positive impacts are generated (likely investments and supports for new ELs whose benefits “spillover” to other students) seem even more vital to understand and replicate.
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The vast amount of education research published each year can be overwhelming, and findings can sometimes seem contradictory. That’s why we at the Fordham Institute are committed to helping our readers and the public make sense of it all. Dig in with us!
