Publications & Resources

Using Classroom Artifacts to Measure Instructional Practice in Middle School Science: A Two-State Field Test

Jul 2006

Hilda Borko, Brian M. Stecher, Felipe Martinez, Karin L. Kuffner, Dionne Barnes, Suzanne C. Arnold, Joi Spencer, Laura Creighton, and Mary Lou Gilbert

This report presents findings from two investigations of the use of classroom artifacts to measure the presence of reform-oriented teaching practices in middle-school science classes. It complements previous research on the use of artifacts to describe reform-oriented teaching practices in mathematics. In both studies, ratings based on collections of artifacts assembled by teachers following directions in the “Scoop Notebook” are compared to judgments based on other sources of information, including direct classroom observations and transcripts of discourse recorded during classroom observations. For this purpose, we developed descriptions of 11 dimensions of reform-oriented science instruction, and procedures for rating each on a dimension-specific five-point scale. The results of these field studies suggest that the Scoop Notebook is a reasonable tool for describing instructional practice in broad terms.

Borko, H., Stecher, B. M., Martinez, F., Kuffner, K. L., Barnes, D., Arnold, S. C., … Gilbert, M. L. (2006). Using classroom artifacts to measure instructional practice in middle school science: A two-state field test (CSE Report 690). Los Angeles: University of California, Los Angeles, National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST).

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