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STUDENT
EVALUATION
PROJECTS


Most of our research projects involve the measurement of student performance. These student evaluation procedures were developed from learning theory and from instruments employed in previous studies by ourselves and other researchers. Currently the Centre is committed to the development and use of authentic assessment instruments. For example, we have devised outcome understanding interviews to measure students' ability to identify, explain, and use key concepts. We are also testing students' motivation, attitudes to the assessment practices they encountered in their classes, ability to work together, and self-confidence.

Our major evaluation focus is on teaching students how to evaluate their work. This set of projects is being conducted in partnership with Carol Rolheiser of OISE/UT and staff from several districts. A joint school-university team produced an extensive manual describing methods that teachers can use in four stages of the self-evaluation process: involving students in setting criteria, teaching students how to apply the criteria, giving students feedback on their self-evaluations, and helping students develop action plans from self-evaluation data. All the activities were generated in a series of action research projects involving teachers from Grade 2 to OAC. Workshops have been developed to assist teachers in using the materials developed by the CLEAR group.

Our research on the effects of self-evaluation has involved a series of classroom experiments and in-service projects. Our classroom studies indicate that teaching students how to improve their work has a significant impact on their attitudes toward student assessment. This is an important finding because students tend to over-estimate their performance. These over-estimations can inhibit students from seeking help from teachers and peers. We also found that training in self-evaluation improves the quality of narrative writing of grade 4-6 students, especially less able writers. However, in our research, teaching self-evaluation has not had the same impact on achievement in mathematics (grades 5-6 and 11).

In our in-service studies we found that an action research approach had a greater effect on student performance than a skills development approach. When teachers decided what they wanted to learn, devise an action plan to improve the quality of their teaching, and implemented the plan using an inquiry framework, students learned more.

The research has been funded by Transfer Grants from the Ontario Ministry of Education and Training, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Durham District School Board, and Durham Catholic District School Board. For more information on these self-evaluation projects see Recent Publications, student evaluation section.

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In 1995 the secondary schools of the southern portion of Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board, formerly the Northumberland-Clarington Board of Education, began a multi-year project to reform school organizations. The Board gave each school the freedom to design its own structure, using resources allocated for positions of responsibility (departmental headships), in any way they saw fit. The Centre, in collaboration with Lynne Hannay and her staff from the OISE/UT Midwestern Centre in Kitchener, is providing in-service and research support. Funding for the project was provided by a Ministry of Education and Training Transfer Grant.

The Centre has taken primary responsibility for the quantitative portion of the research. Our main role has been to design and administer an annual survey to all teachers. The survey provides an indication of the impact of restructuring on school climate variables. The main findings to date are, first, that significant change occurred from 1995-1997 as indicated in the graph. After two full years of implementation teachers reported that there was greater consensus about school goals, increased teacher participation in decision making, a more positive image of the school as a changing organization, a more collaborative culture in the school, and better relationships with the community. The largest portion of these positive changes occurred in the second year of implementation. There was also a significant reduction in teachers' belief that there were adequate resources for change. The largest portion of this negative change took place in the first year of the project and was attributed to funding changes at the provincial level.

The second major finding from the annual surveys is that schools differed considerably in how much change they experienced. The differences among schools has been one of the main areas of inquiry in the qualitative portion of the study conducted by Lynne Hannay's team from the Midwestern Centre. Lynne and her team have been interviewing the facilitators (teachers appointed to non-traditional positions of added responsibility), co-chairs of school planning teams, principals, and district leaders.

The qualitative and quantitative data being collected by OISE/UT complement information being collected in individual schools. Each year Centre staff meet with representatives of school planning teams to assist in the interpretation of data collected by the outside researchers and to integrate the findings with information collected by the school teams.

For copies of reports on the secondary school reform project, see Secondary School Change.

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Schools have made a major investment in the purchase of computers and related software. The Centre, in cooperation with Lynne Hannay's team from the Midwestern Centre, is engaged in an evaluation of the effects of computers on the development of primary students' literacy skills. This project, known as TIPP2, is funded by the Ontario Ministry of Education and Training and school Kawartha Pine Ridge DSB, Hastings-Prince Edward DSB, and Huron-Perth Catholic DSB.

In the first year of the study we found that the infusion of Information Technology resources had positive effects on K-3 students and teachers. After 8 months of TIPP2 there were significant increases in teachers' personal computer use, confidence in their ability to use computers to accomplish personal goals, and confidence in teachers' ability to use computers in the classroom. These improvements were consistent for male and female teachers. TIPP2 also had positive effects on teachers who did not have a home computer as well as those teachers who did. We also found evidence (less consistently) of changes in teachers' classroom use of computers. Teachers spent more time directly teaching computer skills and assigning students to self-directed exploration.

Students' computer skills improved, computer use increased, confidence in using computers grew, and, to a lesser extent, student enjoyment of computers rose (especially for using a computer for literacy tasks). The benefits of TIPP2 were shared equally by boys and girls-if anything gender differences declined. There was also evidence that special needs students benefited from the project. We also found that students' literacy skills increased.

In addition to the quantitative investigation (surveys and performance tasks) we also conducted implementation studies in six classrooms. We found that when implementing computers teachers combined direct instruction of computer skills with self-directed student exploration of software components. They also all used authentic assessment procedures to evaluate student progress. The six teachers differed considerably on several issues. The key differences focused on: (i) the complexity and clarity of the routines for assigning students to computers, (ii) use of students as designated trainers of other students, (iii) whether students worked individually on computer tasks or were assigned in pairs, (iv) the degree of integration of computer activities with the rest of the curriculum, (v) how extensively teachers worked together to plan computer-based instruction, and (vi) whether teachers used the management and student customization features of key programs like WiggleWorks.

The Centre is continuing to examine the long term effects of TIPP2 on students and teachers. For reports and articles on this project, see Recent Publications section on Computers in the Classroom publications.

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