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Eric.ed.gov – Giving a Little Help to Girls? Evidence on Grade Discrimination and Its Effect on Students’ Achievement. CEP Discussion Paper No. 1341

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This paper tests if gender-discrimination in grading affects pupils’ achievements and course choices. I use a unique dataset containing grades given by teachers, scores obtained anonymously by pupils at different ages, and their course choice during high school. Based on double-differences, the identification of the gender bias in grades suggests that girls benefit from a substantive positive discrimination in math but not in French. This bias is not explained by girls’ better behavior and only marginally by their lower initial achievement. I then use the heterogeneity in teachers’ discriminatory behavior to show that classes in which teachers present a high degree of discrimination in favor of girls are also classes in which girls tend to progress significantly more than boys, during the school year but also during… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Using Standards-Based Grading to Reduce Mathematics Anxiety: A Review of Literature

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Mathematics anxiety is a prevalent problem in many K-12 classrooms, and if not appropriately addressed can cause lasting educational harm to students as they enter adulthood. Researchers suggest that the finality of traditional grades has increased mathematics anxiety in today’s classrooms. The extreme weight of grades, such as determining participation in school events, scholarship awards, and further education opportunities is a significant contributing factor to the increased heightened stress. The purpose of this literature review is to address one factor that can decrease mathematics anxiety, the use of standards-based grading, which shows mastery or progress towards mastery on individual standards. The beginning of this review will provide an overview of factors that lead to mathematics anxiety, then move into a discussion about the differences between traditional grading… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Great Expectations: The Impact of Rigorous Grading Practices on Student Achievement

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: We know from previous survey research that teachers who hold high expectations for all of their students significantly increase the odds that those young people will go on to complete high school and college. One indicator of teachers’ expectations is their approach to grading–specifically, whether they subject students to more or less rigorous grading practices. Unfortunately, “grade inflation” is pervasive in U.S. high schools, as evidenced by rising GPAs even as SAT scores and other measures of academic performance have held stable or fallen. The result is that a “good” grade is no longer a clear marker of knowledge and skills. Authored by American University’s Seth Gershenson, “Great Expectations: The Impact of Rigorous Grading Practices on Student Achievement” examines to what extent teachers’ grading standards affect student… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – An Exploratory Study of Effective Online Learning: Assessing Satisfaction Levels of Graduate Students of Mathematics Education Associated with Human and Design Factors of an Online Course

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This exploratory research project investigated graduate students’ satisfaction levels with online learning associated with human (professor/instructor and instructional associate) and design factors (course structure and technical aspects) using a survey study. A total of 81 graduate students (master’s students who majored in math and science education) enrolled in an online math methods course (Conceptual Geometry) participated in this study. According to the results of this study, student satisfaction level is closely associated with clear guidelines on assignment, rubrics, and constructive feedback. In addition, student satisfaction level is related to professor’s (or course instructor’s) knowledge of materials. Link til kilde

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Eric.ed.gov – Does Evaluation Distort Teacher Effort and Decisions? Quasi-Experimental Evidence from a Policy of Retesting Students. CEP Discussion Paper No. 1612

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Performance evaluation may change employee effort and decisions in unintended ways, for example, in multitask jobs where the evaluation measure captures only a subset of (differentially weights) the job tasks. We show evidence of this multitask distortion in schools, with teachers allocating effort across students (tasks). Teachers are evaluated based on student test scores; students who fail the test are retested 2-3 weeks later; and only the higher of the two scores is used in the teachers’ evaluations. This retesting feature creates a sharp difference in the returns to teacher effort directed at failing versus passing students, even though both barely failing and barely passing students have arguably equal educational claim on (returns to) teacher effort. Using RD methods, we show that students who barely fail the… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – The Use of Fuzzy Theory in Grading of Students in Math

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The development of computer science, statistics and other technological fields, give us more opportunities to improve the process of evaluation of degree of knowledge and achievements in a learning process of our students. More and more we are relying on the computer software to guide us in the grading process. An improved way of grading can help overcome some limitations of the educational process, that have caused problems, and had as a consequence a lower degree of success. With the combination of old, traditional way of evaluation of students knowledge and success, and the application of “fuzzy logic” and “the theory of fuzzy sets”, “the method of ponderous areas”, and other new computer and scientific technologies, we are getting a complex formula , that is also, friendly… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Science and Math Teachers as Instructional Designers: Linking ID to the Ethic of Caring

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: In this exploratory inquiry into the nature of the relationship between systematic instructional design models and teachers’ planning practices and needs, the researchers conducted open-­ended interviews with six teachers of science and math in order to discover how they conceptualized and practiced instructional design. The most important finding to emerge from this research was that, from the teachers’ perspective, caring must be a central component of any instructional design activity. Regardless of gender and grades taught, the teachers indicated that they need to be able to make instructional decisions based upon their caring relationships with individual learners. Link til kilde

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Eric.ed.gov – Investigating the Relationship of Standards-Based Grades vs. Traditional-Based Grades to Results of the Scholastic Math Inventory at the Middle School Level

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Grading is one of teachers’ greatest challenges and most important professional responsibilities. Educators are unclear on whether standards-based grades or traditional-based grades do a better job of accurately reflecting what students have learned, so the purpose of this study was to understand the relationship between classroom grades and scores on the Scholastic Math Inventory (SMI) assessment. The individuals were sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade mathematics students from five different middle schools in the same district as they took the SMI assessment. There were about 500 students in the standards-based grading system and about 1,900 students in the traditional grading system. Link til kilde