Papers by Elizabeth Minor
education policy analysis archives, 2019
Researchers and policymakers in the US and beyond increasingly seek to identify teaching qualitie... more Researchers and policymakers in the US and beyond increasingly seek to identify teaching qualities that are associated with academic achievement gains for K-12 students through effectiveness studies. Yet teaching quality varies with academic content and social contexts, involves multiple participants, and requires a range of skills, knowledge, and dispositions. In this essay, we address the inescapable tension between complexity and scale in research on teaching effectiveness. We provide five recommendations to study designers and analysts to manage this tension to enhance effectiveness research, drawing on our recent experiences as the first external analysts of the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) study. Our recommendations address conceptual framing, the measurement of teaching (e.g., observation protocols, student surveys), sampling, classroom videoing, and the use and interpretation of value-added models.
Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability, 2016
education policy analysis archives, 2016
In the US, many federal, state and local school improvement policies rely on teacher professional... more In the US, many federal, state and local school improvement policies rely on teacher professional development (PD) to foster classroom change. Past research suggests PD that has a content focus is the most effective, but that even content-focused PD varies in its effectiveness. Through in-depth interviews of teachers participating in a middle school science PD randomized control trial in the US, we find that what teachers learn in PD varies significantly based on their prior knowledge and experience. This paper explores several hypotheses about how content knowledge and teacher learning interact. We conclude that the next step toward improving teacher PD is to calibrate learning opportunities to teachers’ prior knowledge.
Thesis (M.A.)--University of Notre Dame, 2006. Thesis directed by William Carbonaro for the Depar... more Thesis (M.A.)--University of Notre Dame, 2006. Thesis directed by William Carbonaro for the Department of Sociology. "April 2006." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 34-35).
Sociology of Education, 2010
Prior research has not examined how much of the socioeconomic status (SES) advantage on schooling... more Prior research has not examined how much of the socioeconomic status (SES) advantage on schooling outcomes is related to participation in extracurricular activities. The authors explore the SES advantage and extracurricular participation in elementary school–aged children, with a focus on noncognitive skills. The authors argue that noncognitive skills mediate the influence of SES and extracurricular activities on academic skills. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Kindergarten Class of 1998–99, theauthors find that extracurricular participation explains a modest portion of the SES advantage in noncognitive and cognitive skills. In addition, the influence of extracurricular participation on both noncognitive and cognitive skills varies by children’s SES.
Sociology of Education, 2010
The authors examine whether standards based accountability reforms of the past two decades have c... more The authors examine whether standards based accountability reforms of the past two decades have closed the achievement gap among public and private high school students. They analyzed data from the Education Longitudinal Study (ELS) to examine sector differences in high school achievement in the era of standards based reforms. The authors found that students in Catholic and private secular schools enjoy greater math gains from 10th to 12th grade than comparable public school students. However, they found that these advantages are largely concentrated among more advanced math skills. Moreover, private school students took more academic math courses than public school students, even after controlling for family background and prior achievement. These differences in course taking accounted for most of the public-private difference in achievement gains.
Social Science Research, 2011
Social Forces, 2013
or decades, researchers have studied the black-white achievement gap. This research shows that th... more or decades, researchers have studied the black-white achievement gap. This research shows that the gap exists at all points along the achievement distribution and is especially prominent among high-achieving students (Hedges and Nowell 1999; Riegle-Crumb and Grodsky 2010). While the gap has narrowed since the 1970s, currently little progress is being made in closing the gap further (Magnuson and Waldfogel 2008). We need to know more about why the achievement gap exists in order to work to narrow the gap. Researchers have posited many explanations as to why black students consistently score lower than white students on achievement tests, ranging from micro explanations, such as innate differences, to marco explanations, such as differences in opportunity structures. One particularly entrenched explanation in conventional wisdom and among educators is rooted in culture, despite academic research that challenges and disputes these theories (e.g., Cook and Ludwig 1998; Ainsworth-Darnell and Downey 1998). The oppositional cultural theory argues that black students have lower test scores than white students because black students recognize that their opportunities in the labor market are limited as a result of their social status and thus devalue education (Ogbu 1978). In other words, black students purposefully resist doing well in school. Two recent books by sociologists challenge this cultural argument as an explanation for the black-white achievement gap. In Kids Don't Want to Fail, Angel Harris argues that the oppositional culture theory's resistance model is flawed. He examines each component of the resistance model and shows that black parents and students do not devalue education nor purposely resist schooling. While Harris systematically takes apart the resistance model, Karolyn Tyson's Book Review Essay 407
Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability, 2014
Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability, 2014
We would like to clarify that the sixth author's name is spelled Elliott, not Elloitt.
The High School Journal, 2016
Research on achievement gaps has found that achievement gaps are larger for students who take adv... more Research on achievement gaps has found that achievement gaps are larger for students who take advanced mathematics courses compared to students who do not. Focusing on the advanced mathematics student achievement gap, this study found that African American advanced mathematics students have significantly lower test scores and are less likely to be proficient at all mathematics skill subdomains compared to White advanced mathematics students. Interestingly, African American students who take calculus as their highest level of mathematics in high school have similar achievement levels as White advanced mathematics students who have trigonometry/ pre-calculus as their highest level of mathematics in high school.
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Papers by Elizabeth Minor