The purpose of this qualitative case study is to discover how teachers view the teacher supervision practices that are in place in two selected charter schools in Southeast urban Pennsylvania by developing an in-depth perspective and understanding of teachers’ perceptions of the efficacy and impact on the current system. Data will be gathered on nine teachers and two teacher supervisors through a series of in-depth interviews, structured observations and document examination at each of the two selected charter schools. There are no experiments being conducted, nor is there any controlling factors in this qualitative study. Instead observations and interviews will be conducted that will allow the voices of the respondents to be heard. The goal is to hear what teachers’ persona perspectives are of the supervision process within their respective schools. This study moves beyond typical supervisory efficacy studies. First because of the setting in charter schools and secondly by examining the teachers’ perspectives of the supervision practices and policies within their schools. In order to gain a better understanding of the context for this study, it is necessary to look at the history of the charter school movement as well as the impact charter schools are having on traditional public schools as a result of the Educational Reform Movement. The current education reform standards found within the No Child Left Behind Act (2001) has brought about a renewed focus on the systems being used to critique teacher efficacy. It is the system that is used to assess teacher quality, through teacher supervision practices and policies that this case study will address. Linda Darling-Hammond (2007) who writes extensively on teacher quality, proposes creating a “high-quality teacher-performance assessment that measures actual teaching skill.” (p. 48). One that can be used for “determining teachers’ competence.” (p. 48). The need for this kind of assessment for teacher efficacy is important since “there does not appear any specific credential or characteristic that is a silver- bullet predicator of quality.” (Goldhaber, 2006, p.1). This qualitative case study will show the reading what systems currently exist within the teacher supervision practices and policies in these two selected charter schools in Southeast urban Pennsylvania. What drives this study will be the revelations of the teachers working in these charter schools who will share their personal point of view of the teacher supervision process based on their own experiences, through document and field observations. The study in itself will not examine any quantitative links with student achievement but is nevertheless based on the idea that good teacher supervision improves teaching that ultimately impacts student achievement levels. “Educational research convincingly shows that teacher quality is the most important schooling factor influencing student achievement.” (Goldhaber, 2006, p.1). Therefore it can be argued that teacher supervision can potentially improve teacher quality that in turn is directly linked to student achievement. While this study will focus on the exploration of teachers’ perspectives of the teacher supervision process that exists within charter schools, the outlying factors such as teacher education, hiring and teacher retention are instrumental in student achievement cannot be ignored, however this study will concentrate only on teacher supervision practices. The significance of this study is that it may provide additional insight on teacher supervision practices, which include a broad range of approaches from instructional, collegial, peer, clinical and self-directed. This study will provide information that will answer the overarching research question, what is the state of teacher supervision in two selected charter schools in Southeastern urban Pennsylvania? Little research has been published specifically on teacher perceptions of teacher supervision practices in urban charter schools. Teacher supervision and teacher evaluation “the process by which teachers are assessed professionally” (Goldrick, 2002, p.2) in urban charter schools have not previously been the subject of rigorous examination. Out of 664 dissertations that addressed the topic of charter schools, teacher supervision practices, teacher perceptions of teacher supervision practices and the impact teacher supervision has on student achievement, only 12 studies (less than 1%) focused on these areas of research. This paucity illustrates the need to increase studies in the area of teacher supervision practices to determine if they are impacting student achievement. The significance of this study comes from learning about a previously unexplored phenomenon in the increasingly influential charter school. Although this study could extend beyond the boundaries of teachers’ perspectives and potentially draw conclusions on the efficacy of teacher supervision practices based on the outcome of student achievement levels, that is not the focus or the reason for this study. The primary focus will remain on teacher's perceptions of the teacher supervisory practices in these two charter schools. / Educational Administration

This study is concerned with the desirability or undesirability of a well-planned training program which will improve the employee's over-all efficiency by improving his skill, knowledge and, attitude. A careful survey has been made of the material already published and available on the subject of training programs, consisting of a historical background of training, consideration of the placing of the responsibility to see that the employee is properly trained, and a detailed discussion on the different types of training programs. Case studies have been made of several selected industries and personal interviews made with management and training officials to determine their attitude toward training. An evaluation has been made as to the justification of training programs, pointing out some of their weaknesses and suggesting possible solutions. / Master of Science

Classical item analysis (CIA) entails summarizing items based on two key attributes: item difficulty and item discrimination, defined as the proportion of examinees answering correctly and the difference in correctness between high and low scorers. Recent insights reveal a direct link between these measures and aspects of signal detection theory (SDT) in item analysis, offering modifications to traditional metrics and introducing new ones to identify problematic items (DeCarlo, 2023). The SDT approach involves extending Luce's choice model (1959) using a mixture framework, with mixing occurring within examinees rather than across them, reflecting varying latent knowledge states (know or don't know) across items. This implies a 'true' split (know/don't know) enabling straightforward discrimination and difficulty measures, lending theoretical support to the conventional item splitting approach. DeCarlo (2023) demonstrated improved measures and item screening using simple median splits, motivating this study to explore enhanced measures via refined splits. This study builds on these findings, refining CIA and SDT measures by integrating additional information like response time and item scores using latent class and cluster models.

This study attempted to understand the school principal’s perception about the characteristics, attitudes and behaviors of teachers who may be operating on the fringes of proficient performance. In addition, this study attempted to understand if the demographics of the school principal and the school could play a role in the type of characteristics that principals valued. Furthermore, this research also focused on the strategies principals used to address underperformance and barriers that may have faced as they attempted to address instances of teacher underperformance inside the schools they led. This study included a large sample of 410 school principals in the state of Pennsylvania from over 200 school districts. Findings indicate that school principals valued a lack of classroom management, and poor teacher pedagogical skills and subject matter knowledge as strong indicators of underperformance. Principals also identified the use of continued formal documentation and formal improvement plans as strategies to address underperformance. In addition, principals often identified that a lack of time to work with underperforming teachers was a significant barrier as well as protections from teacher unions and a perceived lack of support from the school superintendent and school board. In total, this research has implications for both school district leadership and school leaders. The voice of the principal is an important voice to be heard particularly when it relates to teacher quality and addressing teacher underperformance. / Educational Leadership

Thesis (M. Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 191-205).

Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 191-205). Also available in print.

CARVALHO, Wirla Risany Lima. Tessituras da formação em avaliação educacional: os desafios à cultura de avaliação e a busca por uma educação crítico-reflexiva. 2016. 280f. – Tese (Doutorado) – Universidade Federal do Ceará, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Educação Brasileira, Fortaleza (CE), 2016. / Submitted by Gustavo Daher (gdaherufc@hotmail.com) on 2016-09-22T14:30:46Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2016_tese_wrlcarvalho.pdf: 4955667 bytes, checksum: 13ba7c8980903028bbc0b95c61281e21 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Márcia Araújo (marcia_m_bezerra@yahoo.com.br) on 2016-09-22T16:59:20Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 2016_tese_wrlcarvalho.pdf: 4955667 bytes, checksum: 13ba7c8980903028bbc0b95c61281e21 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-09-22T16:59:20Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2016_tese_wrlcarvalho.pdf: 4955667 bytes, checksum: 13ba7c8980903028bbc0b95c61281e21 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016 / Before the context of complexity, presented at the XXI century, and was called the Knowledge Society, Education, greatly, is impacted the most structural concepts of their training. The educational evaluation suffers the effects of a scenario that requires strong knowledge and applicability for the development of effective educational practices. This research aimed to diagnose how the relationship between scientific and spontaneous knowledge is presented as an important factor for internalizing the concept of educational evaluation by the teacher and for a reconstruction proposal in teacher training in evaluation culture. Specifically, purposed: i) investigate whether the reproduction of evaluation as test culture is a recurring practice in teacher evaluation practice, when there is no scientific knowledge to promote the teacher a process of internalization of the concept of evaluation of teaching and learning based on a culture evaluation; ii) establish whether scientific knowledge is of fundamental importance for the teacher in the process of formation of the concept of assessment of teaching and learning in search of a practical evaluation culture and critical-reflexive education; iii) seek theoretical support that could support the implementation of a mandatory training in educational evaluation during training in pedagogy and other degrees in HEIs, as a fundamental fact for the exercise of a teaching practice in evaluation culture. The backbone of the study was the formation of theory concepts of Vygotsky, complemented by expertise in the area of teacher training and educational evaluation. The research approach was qualitative-quantitative, applied nature, using the qualitative aspects of hermeneutic phenomenology of Heidegger and Gadamer; and the quantitative factor analysis and the chi-square test. Data from the quantitative sample was collected with 500 teachers working in public schools in the city of Fortaleza, Ceará, through Likert scales, then with intentionally small number of participants of the expanded sample, be the application of semi-structured interviews for membership spontaneous. the SPSS 20.0 and Atlas t.i7 for analysis of qualiquantitativos data were used. The applied research answered the study questions and diagnosed that the relationship between scientific and spontaneous knowledge is presented as an important factor in the internalization of the concept of assessment by the teacher and for a reconstruction proposal in teacher training in evaluation culture because, it was on the realization of this intrinsic relationship that teachers have proved in their formative and conceptual weaknesses in the evaluation field. It has been found that the reproduction of evaluation as test culture is a recurring practice in teacher evaluation practice, when there is no scientific knowledge to promote the teacher a process of internalization of the concept of evaluation of teaching and learning based on an evaluation culture. It was also found that scientific knowledge is of fundamental importance for the teacher in the process of formation of the concept of assessment of teaching and learning in search of a practical evaluation culture and critical-reflexive education. Finally, presented are many theoretical support - in the form of search results - that support the implementation of a mandatory training in educational evaluation during training in pedagogy and other degrees in HEIs, as a fundamental fact for the exercise of teaching practice in evaluation culture. It can be assumed that even in other courses of IES, particularly those who require the evaluation of teaching and learning as a fundamental fact for the exercise of a teaching practice in evaluation culture. It has been argued in this study the thesis that if there are serious deficiencies in teacher training in educational evaluation - for a teaching practice in evaluation of teaching and learning to run under the aegis of the evaluation culture and a critical-reflexive education - there is a pressing need for mandatory scientific training in educational evaluation during initial training in pedagogy courses and degrees of higher education institutions (HEIs). It is expected that the impact on higher education is promoting the generation of a class of teaching teachers-scientists produce knowledge, not only teachers-teachers who reproduce and pass a knowledge produced elsewhere in relation to educational evaluation. These professors-researchers can make the classroom a research space where promote social change, from her students, awakening these to their own identity and quest for autonomy as a citizen, as a person who was educated critical and reflexively for thinking and act within a libertarian view. / Diante do contexto de complexidade, apresentado no século XXI, e da era denominada de Sociedade do Conhecimento, a Educação, sobremaneira, é impactada nas concepções mais estruturais de sua formação. A avaliação educacional sofre os efeitos de um cenário que exige forte conhecimento e aplicabilidade para desenvolvimento de práticas educativas eficientes. Esta pesquisa teve como objetivo geral diagnosticar de que forma a relação entre conhecimento científico e espontâneo apresenta-se como fator importante para a internalização do conceito de avaliação educacional pelo professor e para uma proposta de reconstrução na formação docente em cultura de avaliação. Especificamente, intencionou: i) investigar se a reprodução da avaliação como cultura de exame é uma prática recorrente na prática avaliativa docente, quando não há conhecimento científico que promova no professor um processo de internalização do conceito de avaliação do ensino-aprendizagem baseado em uma cultura de avaliação; ii) constatar se o conhecimento científico tem importância fundamental para o docente no processo de formação do conceito de avaliação do ensino-aprendizagem em busca de uma prática de cultura de avaliação e educação crítico-reflexiva; iii) buscar subsídios teóricos que embasem a implementação de uma formação obrigatória em avaliação educacional, durante a formação em pedagogia e outras licenciaturas nas IES, como fato fundamental para o exercício de uma prática docente em cultura de avaliação. A espinha dorsal do estudo foi a teoria de formação de conceitos de Vygotsky, complementada por conhecimentos na área de formação docente e da avaliação educacional. A abordagem da pesquisa foi qualiquantitativa, de natureza aplicada, utilizando-se nos aspectos qualitativos da hermenêutica-fenomenológica de Heidegger e Gadamer; e nos quantitativos a análise fatorial e o teste do quiquadrado. Os dados da amostra quantitativa foram coletados com 500 professores em exercício na rede pública de ensino do município de Fortaleza, Ceará, através de escalas de Likert, para depois com número intencionalmente reduzido de participantes da amostra ampliada, haver a aplicação de entrevistas semiestruturadas por adesão espontânea. Foram utilizados os softwares SPSS 20.0 e Atlas t.i7 para análise dos dados qualiquantitativos. A pesquisa aplicada respondeu às questões norteadoras do estudo e diagnosticou que a relação entre conhecimento científico e espontâneo apresenta-se como fator importantíssimo para a internalização do conceito de avaliação pelo professor e para uma proposta de reconstrução na formação docente em cultura de avaliação, porquanto, foi diante da constatação dessa relação intrínseca que os professores se revelaram em suas deficiências formativas e conceituais no campo avaliativo. Foi constatado que a reprodução da avaliação como cultura de exame é uma prática recorrente na prática avaliativa docente, quando não há conhecimento científico que promova no professor um processo de internalização do conceito de avaliação do ensino-aprendizagem baseado em uma cultura de avaliação. Constatou-se também, que o conhecimento científico tem importância fundamental para o professor no processo de formação do conceito de avaliação do ensino-aprendizagem em busca de uma prática de cultura de avaliação e educação crítico-reflexiva. Por fim, apresentaram-se muitos subsídios teóricos – em forma de resultados da pesquisa – que embasam a implementação de uma formação obrigatória em avaliação educacional, durante a formação em pedagogia e outras licenciaturas nas IES, como fato fundamental para o exercício de uma prática docente em cultura de avaliação. Pode-se supor que até em outros cursos das IES, principalmente, os que necessitem da avaliação do ensino-aprendizagem, como fato fundamental para o exercício de uma prática docente em cultura de avaliação. Defendeu-se nesse estudo a tese de que, se há uma deficiência notória na formação docente em avaliação educacional – para que uma prática docente em avaliação do ensino-aprendizagem seja executada sob a égide da cultura de avaliação e de uma educação crítico-reflexiva – há uma necessidade premente de formação científica obrigatória em avaliação educacional, durante a formação inicial nos cursos de pedagogia e licenciaturas das Instituições de Ensino Superior (IES). Espera-se que o impacto no ensino superior seja fomento à geração de uma classe do magistério de professores-cientistas que produzem o saber, não apenas de professores-docentes, que reproduzem e transmitem um saber produzido em outro lugar em relação à avaliação educacional. Que estes professores-pesquisadores possam fazer da sala de aula um espaço de pesquisa onde promovam transformações sociais, a partir de seus alunos, despertando nestes a sua própria identidade e busca de autonomia como cidadão, como sujeito que foi educado crítica e reflexivamente para um pensar e um agir dentro de uma visão libertária.

M.Ed. (Educational Psychology) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

A research report submitted to the Wits School of Education, University of Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Master of Education Submission 17 October 2016 / As access to formal schooling has expanded all over the world, there is acknowledgement that the quality of learning in many schooling systems, including South Africa, is extremely weak. Nationally representative samples of South African children participated in the PIRLS 2006 and pre-PIRLS 2011 studies, along with 48 other countries as a benchmarking exercise to measure the literacy levels of primary schools according to international standards. The PIRLS 2006 study indicated that more than 80% of South African children had not yet learned to read with meaning by grade 5. The pre-PIRLS results provided a new baseline of reading literacy levels for Grade 4 learners in South Africa, 29% of Grade 4 learners that participated did not have the rudimentary reading skills required at a Grade 2 level. Learners tested in African languages, particularly Sepedi and Tshivenda, achieved the lowest performance overall and were considered to be educationally at risk (University of Pretoria, 2012). The context in which schooling takes place is key in understanding learner performance in South Africa. After decades of differential provision of education on the basis of race, the education system has been overhauled since the early 1990s. The South African government has introduced several initiatives and policies to address these systemic imbalances. All things considered, South Africa’s learner performance has remained poor, even relative to several poorer countries in the region. There is a wealth of research describing weaknesses in the education system. However, going a step further and identifying resources and practices that actually improve learner performance is central to improving education planning, policy and ultimately classroom practice. Rigorous evidence on classroom-based practice and resources that will have a measurable effect on learner performance in a developing country like South Africa is limited. The most significant shortfall of non-experimental evaluation methods (including qualitative and many quantitative approaches) is the absence of a valid estimate of the counterfactual – what outcomes would have been obtained amongst programme beneficiaries had they not received the programme. This often leads to the reporting of large positive effects of programmes being evaluated. By using a lottery to allocate participants to an intervention and a control group, the Randomised Control Trial (RCT) methodology constructs a credible ‘counterfactual’ scenario – what might have happened to those who received an intervention had they not received it. This study provides a systematic literature-based argument on why RCTs should be part of the methodological options education researchers and policy makers consider in developing countries such as South Africa. Both the strengths and limitations of RCTs are discussed in light of the debate on RCTs and evaluation methods in education, as well as the technical critique of the methodology. The main critique of external validity is also elaborated on with efforts that may be taken to diminish the limitations discussed. In addition, the study illustrates the value of RCTs using data from two South Africa RCTs on early grade reading interventions through a secondary analysis of the RCT data. The first case study in Chapter 4, is the Reading Catch-Up Programme (RCUP) conducted in Pinetown, KwaZulu-Natal. The main findings of the RCUP evaluation were that although learners in intervention schools improved their test scores between the baseline and the endline assessment, the learners in comparison schools improved by a similar margin. The results should contribute to a sobering realisation that the effects of the various interventions introduced by education stakeholders including NGOs and government are not obviously positive or more importantly, different from normal schooling. This points to the need to evaluate programmes before they are rolled out provincially or nationally, using RCTs and other rigorous methods. The new analysis of data in this study explores the so-called “Matthew Effect” - the notion that initially better-performing children typically gain more from additional interventions and from schooling itself. The data from the RCUP RCT indicates that children with higher baseline test scores benefited from the intervention, whereas children with very low English proficiency at the outset did not benefit from the programme. Although females significantly outperform males in the reading tests used, there was no clear evidence of a differential effect of the intervention by gender. The Matthew Effect therefore seems to be driven by prior knowledge and not gender or any other characteristic that was measured in the data. The second case study in Chapter 5, is the Early Grade Reading Study (EGRS) conducted in the North West province. The EGRS may be seen as a more extensive follow-up to the RCUP to answer some of the unanswered questions. For example, will an early grade reading intervention that is implemented over a longer duration (two years) have an impact? Can intervening right at the start of school be a strategic point to intervene? Can a Home Language literacy intervention have lasting educational benefits? In conclusion, although the policy formulation and evaluation process should draw on research using a variety of methods, the policy process will certainly be impoverished if there is a lack of research meeting two core criteria: interventions and findings that are relevant to the larger schooling population; and the precise measurement of the causal impact of interventions and/or policies. This study makes a clear literature-based argument on the contribution of internally valid methods, specifically RCTs in fulfilling these criteria and illustrates this with two case studies of RCTS. The study also provides a demonstration of the insights that are possible through secondary analysis founded on the richness of RCT data. / MT2017

In this thesis a prediction model using graduation rate as the performance indicator is obtained for community colleges for three cohort years, 2003, 2004, and 2005 in the states of California, Florida, and Michigan. Multiple Regression analysis, using an aggregate of seven predictor variables, was employed in determining this prediction model. From this prediction model, a predicted graduation rate was obtained for each of the 142 institutions in this study. Using this predicted graduation rate, an Institutional Performance Ratio (IPR), was then calculated for each institution, by dividing the actual graduation rate for each institution by its predicted graduation rate. These IPR values were then used to classify the performance of each institution as meeting expectation, exceeding expectation or falling below expectation. Inter institutional comparisons were also made using these IPR values. / by Susan Moosai. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2010. / Includes bibliography.