1,320
3
Article, 3 pages (800 words)

Article summary

Sur Supervisor Article Summary: Does Quality Matter? Evidence from Random Assignment to It is a common perception that better education outcomes are achieved through higher-quality teachers. Teacher evaluation measures in education are different at secondary and post secondary levels. Authors argue that these measures can be influenced impacting actual student learning. At secondary and elementary level, teachers usually teach with the focus on ‘ test’ and in postsecondary level, professors can reduce academic curriculum to enhance student evaluation or in some circumstances can even directly inflate the grades. The moot question then remains how the teacher evaluation measures can impact the desired outcomes of student learning. Various studies have been conducted time to time to find the relationship between student achievements at the secondary and elementary levels vis. a vis. teacher contribution and the evidences available in this respect are somewhat mixed in nature. The clarity is much lesser when the question comes of measuring student outcomes at the postsecondary level with respect to the quality of instruction provided by the teachers. The reason is that standardized tests are not used at the postsecondary level and moreover, students select their own professors and their own course work so they are not assessed at the common platform to judge the real outcome. Thus, measuring teacher quality has been an issue at the postsecondary level. To address the issue, researchers resort to a unique panel data set from the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA). The relevant data are gathered through the random assignment of students to professors across a wide variety of standardized courses. Researchers select USAFA for their evaluation study because it is a fully accredited undergraduate institute and offers a large number of courses including basic science, humanities, engineering and social sciences. Selection is done on the basis of academic and sporting potential. Students get 100 percent scholarship and a decent sum to cover their other expenses. After passing out they need to serve a 5-year term in the US Air Force. Students who study at USAFA are good at math and rank high at national level on aptitude test. They enter USAFA through a competitive process and the selected students testify a fair geographic and ethnic representation. Students are supposed to take 30 courses in all that include math, science and engineering disciplines. The study involved collecting relevant data of 421 faculty members who taught 10, 534 students across 2, 820 course-sections for the 10-year periods. For the study, introductory calculus course was selected and then those follow-on courses were selected where the introductory calculus was a prerequisite. Researchers employed an empirical model called the professor value-added model to study the effects. The primary focus of the study was to find how introductory professors impact student achievement but the data did allow to find how follow-on course teachers impacted student achievement in the calculus I and II course. The results so found indicate that there are noticeable differences in student achievement. The key findings indicate that the professors who achieved good score on contemporaneous student achievement are left behind in achieving similar performance in the advanced classes. Surprisingly, students who are tutored with less qualified teachers perform better in the contemporaneous course but not so good or rather worse in the follow-on course. The finding certainly raises several questions on how the teacher quality should be measured. The study concludes that introductory calculus professors do create impact on student achievement whether they are measured at contemporaneous course or on their follow-on curriculum. This simply means that the very basis of student evaluation as a teaching quality in many US colleges and universities is erroneous. The results also explain that the more experienced teacher tend to broaden the curriculum to enhance the understanding of students in the subject but unfortunately, less experienced teacher prefer to stick to the set curriculum being test in the introductory course. However, the fact remains that the deeper understanding leads to better achievements in the follow-on courses. Moreover, when the introductory teacher limits the teaching effort just to cover up the test then students also tend to put fewer efforts on follow-on curriculum. As such, this restricts students in exploiting their full potential because they are molded in a certain way; further, they also expect that they will be provided with the same teaching pattern in the follow-on curriculum too. The pertinent question that arises according to the researchers is that how far the practice of rewarding professors based on student achievement in contemporaneous course is encouraging and worthy of credit. This is important because many US colleges and institutions measure teaching quality to promote and ascertain the tenure of their teachers purely on the basis of student evaluation. Work-Cited Carrell, Scott. E. & West, James E. “ Does Professor Quality Matter? Evidence from Random Assignment of Students to Professor.” The Journal of Political Economy, Vol 118, No. 3, 2010, The University of Chicago. 409-432. Print.

Thank's for Your Vote!
Article summary. Page 1
Article summary. Page 2
Article summary. Page 3
Article summary. Page 4

This work, titled "Article summary" was written and willingly shared by a fellow student. This sample can be utilized as a research and reference resource to aid in the writing of your own work. Any use of the work that does not include an appropriate citation is banned.

If you are the owner of this work and don’t want it to be published on AssignBuster, request its removal.

Request Removal
Cite this Article

References

AssignBuster. (2022) 'Article summary'. 11 January.

Reference

AssignBuster. (2022, January 11). Article summary. Retrieved from https://assignbuster.com/article-summary-article-samples-6/

References

AssignBuster. 2022. "Article summary." January 11, 2022. https://assignbuster.com/article-summary-article-samples-6/.

1. AssignBuster. "Article summary." January 11, 2022. https://assignbuster.com/article-summary-article-samples-6/.


Bibliography


AssignBuster. "Article summary." January 11, 2022. https://assignbuster.com/article-summary-article-samples-6/.

Work Cited

"Article summary." AssignBuster, 11 Jan. 2022, assignbuster.com/article-summary-article-samples-6/.

Get in Touch

Please, let us know if you have any ideas on improving Article summary, or our service. We will be happy to hear what you think: [email protected]