Multidimensional Assessment of Value Added by Teachers to Real-World Outcomes

• Activity Number: 482
• Type: Invited
• Date/Time: Wednesday, August 1, 2012 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: JEBS-Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics
• Author(s): Jennifer Ellen Broatch*+ and Sharon Lohr
• Companies: Arizona State University and Arizona State University
• Keywords: binary response ; generalized linear mixed models ; multivariate mixed models ; value added assessment models ; random effects

Abstract

Measuring teacher effectiveness is challenging since no direct estimate exists. Traditional value-added assessment (VAA) models generally attempt to estimate the value that an individual teacher adds to students' knowledge as measured by scores on successive administrations of a standardized test. Such responses, however, do not reflect the long-term contribution of a teacher to real-world student outcomes such as graduation, and cannot be used in most university settings where standardized tests are not given. We develop a multi-response approach to VAA models that allows responses to be either continuous or categorical. This approach leads to multidimensional estimates of value added by teachers, and allows the correlations among those dimensions to be explored. The multivariate model is powerful for studying relationships among teachers and students in a multi-response setting; we discuss the influence of individual students and model assumptions on the predicted teacher effects. We show how to use recently developed features of SAS software to calculate estimates. The models are applied to university data on calculus instruction and graduation in a science or engineering field.