NSF Award
1544208
The Promoting Research and Innovation in Methodologies for Evaluation (PRIME) program seeks to support research on evaluation with special emphasis on: (1) exploring innovative approaches for determining the impacts and usefulness of STEM education projects and programs; (2) building on and expanding the theoretical foundations for evaluating STEM education and workforce development initiatives, including translating and adapting approaches from other fields; and (3) growing the capacity and infrastructure of the evaluation field.<br/><br/>The results of this study have the potential to contribute to our understanding of the nature and organization of effective teaching, and the mechanisms through which valued instructional practices are organized inside the mathematics and science classroom to impact learning for different students or groups of students. <br/><br/>Using data from the Measures of Effective Teaching project, this study uses an innovative mixed-methods design to examine whether within-classroom variation in student responses to Tripod Student Perception Survey may be used to identify instructional microclimates, and whether these microclimates moderate the relationship between aggregate measures of instructional practice and student achievement in mathematics and science classrooms. To this effect, investigators will combine evidence from quantitative analysis of student survey data, with in-depth qualitative analysis of lesson videos of the same classrooms.
