In-School and Out-of-School Factors That Build Student Achievement

Teacher Instructional Actions and Expectations for Students

Data from the Nashville and Bakersfield studies were used to assess the role of teacher classroom actions on student achievement. In the Nashville study, 19 elementary school teachers of 459 first- through sixth-grade students responded to the following questions:

• On an average day, how many hours or minutes do you think your students are actively engaged in learning in your classes?



• What percent of the poor reader students in your classes have the biological capability to one day attend and complete college?²



• What percent of the poor reader students in your class would you say want to go to college?

The correlation analysis showed that students' reading achievement was significantly correlated with teacher responses to the time-on-task question (.31), and the two questions that compose the teacher-expectations variable (.15). Our multivariate analysis showed that over one-fifth of the variance in students' reading achievement scores (22 percent) was accounted for by teacher responses to these three questions. Higher-achieving students were more likely to have a teacher who provided more exposure to classroom lessons (time-on-task), who believed that the majority of lower-achieving students in her class had the biological capability to one day attend and complete college, and who believed that the majority of her lower-achieving students wanted to go to college one day.

The Bakersfield, California, study offers more evidence of the strong impact of teacher instructional actions in the classroom. The hypothesis tested in this study was this: High-achieving students spend more time than low-achieving students learning academic lessons in the classroom. Students in 13 first- through third-grade classrooms were videotaped in five Bakersfield elementary schools. The racial composition of these classrooms and schools, which were representative of the Bakersfield first- through third-grade student population, was about 40 percent Latino (Mexican American), 40 percent White, 15 percent African American, and 5 percent Asian American (Southeast Asian).

A video camera was set up in a corner in each of the 13 classrooms. The camera taped the activities of the students and teachers throughout one six-hour day of classes. The tapes were later analyzed to determine learning time and class time. Researchers identified one African-American student in each classroom and timed his or her activities using a stopwatch. When the student appeared to be engaged in learning activities (reading, working alone on a lesson, listening to a lecture, solving a problem with classmates, asking questions), the stopwatch was turned on. When the student was off task or involved in behaviors that were not learning activities, the stopwatch was turned off until he or she started another learning activity.

NCE reading scores on the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills (CTBS), a standardized basic skills test, were later gathered for each of the 13 observed students. Nine of the target students had an NCE score below the 20th percentile. These students were labeled poor readers. Four of the target students had an NCE score between the 35th and 45th percentile; they were designated average readers. As Exhibit 3 shows, although both groups of students had almost the same amount of available class time, average readers were involved in classroom learning 1 hour and 47 minutes more each day than poor readers. Average readers spent 3 hours and 41 minutes engaged in daily learning, while poor readers spent only 1 hour and 54 minutes in these same activities.

Exhibit 3 Daily In-School Learning Time, by Reading Achievement Level