Saad Chahine Thesis

An Investigation of Educators’ Data Habit of Mind

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Department of Human Development and Applied Psychology, OISE/UT

Saad Chahine

Rationale

External pressures for educators to use data from large- scale assessments

Very little is known about the process by which educators interpret and make judgments based on reports from large-scale testing

Potential compromise in validity when educators interpret and make judgments about students from large-scale assessment reports

2

Literature Review

Validity Proposed Use

Score Report Design

3

Data Habit of Mind

4

5

Conceptual Framework

Research Questions

RQ1: How are educators proficient in statistical literacy?

RQ2: How do educators interpret and propose to use test score reports?

RQ3: What are the relationships between statistical literacy and score report interpretations to model Data Habit of Mind?

RQ4: How may an educator’s educational history and level of comfort with information, mathematics, and statistics contribute to Data Habit of Mind?

6

Methods

Designed instruments to measure Statistical Literacy and Score Report Interpretation (2 mock score reports)

Conducted pilot test with 12 pre-service students and refined instruments and interview procedure

Recruited educators through advertising

Conducted cognitive interviews to examine 20 educators’ data habit of mind

Used protocol analysis procedure to examine cognitive interview data (i.e., educators’ cognitive processing when interacting with score reports)

7

Cognitive Interview Protocol

1. Statistical Literacy Tasks

2. Questions about background & comfort levels with information, statistics & mathematics

3. Cooper’s Score Report

4. Jabberwocky Score Report

Educators were asked to verbalize responses and explain their reasoning.

8

Protocol Analysis Procedure

Stage 1: Recording Verbalizations

Stage 2: Transcribing Interviews

Stage 3: Segmenting Interviews

Stage 4: Encoding Episodes

Stage 5: Analysis of the codes

Stage 6: Categorizing Educators

9

A Snap Shot of the Sample

All elementary (Gr. 1-8) teaching experience with provincial testing

13 Female, 7 male

1-21+ years of experience

17 had undergrad focus in Humanities or Social Science and 3 had undergraduate focus in Sciences

Majority had B.Ed. (13); others had higher degrees (1 Ph.D., 6 M.Ed.)

10

11

RQ1: How are educators proficient in statistical literacy?

12

Statistical Literacy

Results: Statistical Literacy

13

Min Max Mean SD

Statistical Literacy

Describing 3.00 4.00 3.77 0.24

Organizing & Reducing 2.00 4.00 2.89 0.65

Representing 1.67 4.00 3.33 0.65

Analyzing and Interpreting 2.00 4.00 3.38 0.53

14

RQ2: How do educators interpret and propose to use test score reports?

Score Report Interpretation

15

Results: Score Report Interpretation

16

Cooper’s Fitness Test

Min Max Mean SD

Describing 4.00 4.00 4.00 0.00

Summarizing 3.00 4.00 3.75 0.44

Questioning 1.00 4.00 2.10 0.91

Proposed Application 1.00 4.00 2.45 1.10

Jabberwocky Test

Describing 4.00 4.00 4.00 0.00

Summarizing 3.00 4.00 3.75 0.44

Questioning 1.00 4.00 1.95 0.98

Proposed Application 1.00 4.00 2.00 0.97

RQ3: What are the relationships between statistical literacy and score report interpretations to model Data Habit of Mind?

17

Results: Data Habit of Mind

18

Categories Based on Data Habit of Mind Skills

19

Example: Questioning

Questioning Patterns for Cooper’s Fitness Test Score Report

20

Example: Questioning

Questioning Patterns for Jabberwocky Test Score Report

21

RQ4: How may an educator’s educational history and level of comfort with information, mathematics, and statistics contribute to Data Habit of Mind?

22

Results: Educational History & Comfort Levels

Expected that educational history and comfort levels (information, math, and stats) would be meaningfully related to Data Habit of Mind

However, found no meaningful relationships…

Examination of interview transcripts gives us glimpse of insight into what other factors may be meaningfully related to Data Habit of Mind…

23

Participant E18: “Assessment is probably, for me, has always been in my annual learning goals...my life-long learning goals in my formal years of education. It has been a constant pursuit of mine to understand, advance and implement assessment. We are a very data-driven school and I didn’t have to come to a data-driven school to be hungry for data. It already was in anything that I did...You keep yourself alive by having data. It just goes hand in hand. We are a very…we are a school that is constantly pushing for data.”

Educator Beliefs About the Use of Assessment Data

24

Educator with Higher Statistical Literacy and Higher Score Report Interpretation

Participant E13: “I’ve done a few workshops on DRA and reading, in math, like effective instruction. I’ve done a lot of reading myself there and we have had a lot of in-service training. That being said, it is an area that is still a little bit hazy because we are going along in our lessons and I don’t necessarily assess them. We do the evaluation side to see what we can get in marks. That’s why I’m interested in the whole literacy thing because we assess the kids in the reading and see where we need to go from there.”

25


Educator with Higher Statistical Literacy and Lower Score Report Interpretation.

Participant E2: “Ha ha, very high … Well, I think it’s kind of the package, frankly. I have my reading specialist, I have my religion specialist, which is essential for the Catholic school board. I do have a Master’s degree. I also think the fact that I’ve taught all three divisions helps a lot. Um, I am, in fact, I was an adjunct professor, and you have to mentor the young teachers... I’ve gone anywhere from basal readers to whole language to comprehensive literacy. I’ve kind of seen everything. That goes for math education, as well.


26

Educator with Lower Statistical Literacy and Higher Score Report Interpretation.

Participant E11: “Assessment to me ... it’s not always like paper and a test, a hard assessment that way. Sometimes I think you can get enough of an assessment by watching, observing and talking to the students. Some might not be able to articulate on paper and pencil what they do by talking.”


27

Educator with lower Statistical Literacy and Lower Score Report Interpretation.

Discussion

This thesis provided an initial framework to understand how educators are interpreting and proposing to use score reports.

Findings showed that majority of educators have adequate statistical literacy, and can describe and summarize score reports.

However, there was greater variability in educators’ questioning and proposed application of score reports.

Educators’ questioning and proposing an application of a report varied across the two score reports and suggests the importance of score report design.

Educators’ Data Habit of Mind maybe more related to values and beliefs than level of education, or comfort with information.

This framework may potentially be used in building validity arguments.

28

Limitations

Statistical Literacy tasks were designed for children

Score Report Interpretation needs further refining

Empirical literature on graphic design and typography lacking

Reports were presented on paper

No double coding

29

Implications

B.Ed. Programs

Professional Developers

Measurement Specialists

30

Future Research

More research needed to examine categories

Double coding or multiple raters

Make links with medical diagnostic methods

Include more interactive reporting methods

Make links with cognitive human-computer Interface work (e.g., Ware’s work)

Conduct large-scale study of reporting systems and improvements

31

Thank You

32