National large-scale assessments have demonstrated a decrease in Dutch primary school students' performance on multidigit multiplication and division problems (e.g., 56x23 and 544:34) in the... Show moreNational large-scale assessments have demonstrated a decrease in Dutch primary school students' performance on multidigit multiplication and division problems (e.g., 56x23 and 544:34) in the past two decades. This performance decrease appears to be related to changes in students' use of mathematical strategies: the use of relatively accurate strategies for which calculations are written down has decreased, while the use of inaccurate mental strategies has increased. To gain more insight into these developments and how to possibly turn them around, factors that affect students' mathematical strategy use and performance were investigated. New applications of latent variable models to national large-scale assessment data were used to relate teachers' reports of their mathematics teaching to students' problem solving. Follow-up experiments were conducted at primary schools for a more controlled investigation of students' strategy choices and of how to influence those choices (and thereby, performance) favorably. It was found that teachers mainly influence students' choices between strategies with written work, and that they have less influence on choices for the inaccurate mental strategies (made more frequently by boys and weaker students). Extra instruction targeted at the latter was found to increase weaker students' choices for writing down calculations, and this improved students' performance. Show less
A first application of multilevel latent class analysis (MLCA) to educational large-scale assessment data is demonstrated. This statistical technique addresses several of the challenges that... Show moreA first application of multilevel latent class analysis (MLCA) to educational large-scale assessment data is demonstrated. This statistical technique addresses several of the challenges that assessment data offers. Importantly, MLCA allows modeling of the often ignored teacher effects and of the joint influence of teacher and student variables. Using data from the 2011 assessment of Dutch primary schools’ mathematics, this study explores the relation between the curriculum as reported by 107 teachers and the strategy choices of their 1,619 students, while controlling for student characteristics. Considerable teacher effects are demonstrated, as well as significant relations between the intended as well as enacted curriculum and students’ strategy use. Implications of these results for both more theoretical and practical educational research are discussed, as are several issues in applying MLCA and possibilities for applying MLCA to different types of educational data. Show less
Fagginger Auer, M.F.; Hickendorff, M.; Putten, C.M. van 2016
