Publications & Resources

Using the Instructional Quality Assessment Toolkit to Investigate the Quality of Reading Comprehension Assignments and Student Work

Jan 2006

Lindsay Clare Matsumura, Sharon Cadman Slater, Mikyung Kim Wolf, Amy Crosson, Allison Levison, Maureen Peterson, Lauren Resnick and Brian Junker

This study presents preliminary findings from research developing an instructional quality assessment (IQA) toolkit that could be used to monitor the influence of reform initiatives on students’ learning environments and to guide professional development efforts within a school or district. This report focuses specifically on the portion of the IQA used to evaluate the quality of teachers’ reading comprehension assignments and student work. Results are limited due to a very small sample of participating teachers (N = 13, 52 assignments), and indicate a poor to moderate level of inter-rater agreement and a good degree of consistency for the dimensions measuring academic rigor, but not the clarity of teachers’ expectations. The rigor of the assignments collected from teachers also was associated with the rigor of observed instruction. Additional analyses looking separately at the two different assignment types indicate, however, that focusing on one assignment type would yield a stable estimate of quality. This suggests that the way in which assignments are collected from teachers should be revised. Implications for professional development are also discussed.

Matsumura, L. C., Slater, S. C., Wolf, M. K., Crosson, A., Levison, A., Peterson, M., … Junker, B. (2006). Using the instructional quality assessment toolkit to investigate the quality of reading comprehension assignments and student work (CSE Report 669). Los Angeles: University of California, Los Angeles, National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST).