Eric.ed.gov – Patterns in Teacher Reports of Topic Coverage and Their Effects on Math Achievement: Comparisons Across Years.

The basic rationale for incorporating information about instructional experiences in the design and analysis of assessment data is that student ability, topic exposure, and forms of instructional exposure each contribute to student performance as measured at a given point in time. The purpose of this study is to investigate the degree of consistency of teachers’ content coverage reports with logical expectations about the contents of a course with a given title for two consecutive years and to detect the effects of content coverage by comparing student performance patterns associated with teachers’ reports of content coverage for 1988 and 1989. In this study, analyses were based on teacher and student data from approximately 300 sections of mathematics courses in Pre-Algebra, Math A, Math B, Algebra I, and Geometry. Across the 5 courses and 12 topics in general, the patterns of responses are consistent with what might be the expected curriculum patterns in mathematics courses at each level. Topic coverage is reported for each of the courses. The pattern of performance on items from the Mathematics Diagnostic Testing Program tests are reported according to topic and specific teachers’ reports of content coverage. Twelve references are listed. (YP)