Inside the Black Box: Examining Mediators and Moderators of a Middle School Science Intervention

Autor/inn/en	Desimone, Laura M.; Hill, Kirsten Lee
Titel	Inside the Black Box: Examining Mediators and Moderators of a Middle School Science Intervention
Quelle	In: Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 39 (2017) 3, S.511-536 (26 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext (1); PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei (2) Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	Weitere Informationen
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0162-3737
Schlagwörter	Randomized Controlled Trials; Middle School Students; Secondary School Science; Science Instruction; Intervention; Science Achievement; Program Effectiveness; Achievement Gains; Classroom Techniques; Group Discussion; Pedagogical Content Knowledge; Teaching Methods; Faculty Development; Cognitive Processes; Middle School Teachers; Teacher Surveys; Interviews; Science Tests; Teaching Experience; Student Characteristics; Structural Equation Models; Comparative Analysis + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Middle school; Middle schools; Student; Students; Mittelschule; Mittelstufenschule; Schüler; Schülerin; Teaching of science; Science education; Natural sciences Lessons; Naturwissenschaftlicher Unterricht; Achievement gain; Leistungssteigerung; Klassenführung; Gruppendiskussion; Pädagogische Kompetenz; Teaching method; Lehrmethode; Unterrichtsmethode; Cognitive process; Kognitiver Prozess; Teacher; Teachers; Lehrer; Lehrerin; Lehrende; Interviewing; Interviewtechnik
Abstract	We use data from a randomized controlled trial of a middle school science intervention to explore the causal mechanisms by which the intervention produced previously documented gains in student achievement. Our study finds that implementation fidelity, operationalized as a measure of the frequency of implementation of the cognitive science principles taught in intervention teachers' professional development, helped to explain student achievement effects. Integrating findings from a structural equation model using data from 10,281 students and 124 teachers with a small subsample of teacher interviews, we also found that the intervention may work partly through fostering better classroom management and collaborative discussions that elevated practice. Furthermore, our results have implications for informing decisions about how to balance a focus on increasing teacher content knowledge, on one hand, and providing explicit pedagogical strategies linked to the curriculum, on the other. We additionally found that lower achieving classrooms had lower implementation scores, likely due to factors that hindered teachers' ability to use the cognitive science principles, such as less science class time or needing to adapt content to meet the needs of struggling students. Our study highlights the importance of anticipating--and calibrating interventions to--the contextual complexities of real-life classrooms, and it identifies several factors with the potential to contribute to improved design and evaluation of such interventions. (As Provided).
Anmerkungen	SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: journals@sagepub.com; Web site: http://sagepub.com
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2020/1/01