Essays on the Relationships Between School Context and Teachers' Instructional Practices and their Implications for Student Learning

Abstract

In the three essays which compose this dissertation, I use econometric tools to examine the relationships between various measures of school context and teachers' practice. I first study how a literacy curriculum intervention affects elementary teachers’ advice seeking networks and how these advice seeking relationships moderate the impact of being assigned to treatment. I next study high school teachers’ grading practices and how they are influenced by the characteristics of the students they serve and measures of school culture. Finally, I examine whether these grading practices are an aspect of teacher effectiveness and whether being exposed to certain grading practices affects student outcomes. In my first essay, I examine how assignment to implement a literacy curriculum affects teachers' advice seeking patterns and instructional practices. I theorize that in the face of a novel program, teachers may turn to each other or their coaches for advice and this advice seeking may in turn moderate how the treatment influences their instructional practices. I find that assignment treatment is associated with some changes to teachers’ advice seeking networks but has no impacts on their instructional practices. I test whether teacher advice seeking behaviors moderate the impact of the intervention, but find no evidence that they do so. In my second and third essays, I examine variation in teacher grading practices and the effect that they have on student outcomes. I find that not only is there substantial variation in which aspects of student performance teachers emphasize when assigning grades, but that this variation is weakly associated with student performance in that school. I find that while there is substantial variation within schools in teacher grading practices, measures of school organizational culture are unrelated to this variation. Finally, I test whether teacher grading practices have an impact on student outcomes. I find that teacher emphasis on attendance in assigning grades has an impact on test scores and student attendance. I further find that grading practices explain a small amount of variation in overall teacher effectiveness and that the effects of grading practices on student outcomes are heterogeneous across student subgroups, especially those defined by incoming performance.