However, it could be just as likely that a student is not performing well within the social and institutional expectations of the school and classroom
Do you see any legitimate issues or concerns with this study?
The only other major issue I see is they don't specifically state what types of behaviours might be associated with higher grades or which ones might affect student grades.
However, the past research has been limited either to dated or non-U.S. samples, or to small limited and intact samples of less than 200 students.
Do you see any legitimate issues or concerns with this study?
If the research is only done in the USA they would be using the ACT or SAT which are both brutal tests. In Canada we use EQAO which is still brutal, but is nothing compared to the SAT which I took in grade 12. 4 hours with a total of 15 minutes of break. I went home and crashed! If this is the sample of the test the standardized tests across countries are not remotely similar.
or data driven decision making and continuous school improvement, teacher assigned grades should be used moresystematically to identify how to direct the limited resources of a school district towards the students most in need.
What does the article say in terms of providing a clear set of conclusions?
Let what the teachers observe and understand be the marker for resources, not the standardized tests. As a kid who didn't test well it was so frustrating when my scores didn't reflect what I knew I knew. The teacher given grades should matter when it comes to giving kids opportunities and helping struggling students.
rades represent an assessment of how well students play the game of being schooled.
What does the article say in terms of providing a clear set of conclusions?
Some students excel at writing tests because they are academically gifted, others excel because they listen, try and get good grades.
core and non-core subject
Are there issues with generalizability?
Different school districts and education systems have different core and non-core subjects.
GPA
Are there issues with generalizability?
GPA is not used universally as well as the fact that not every GPA scale is the same. My university in the USA was on a weird 4.0 scale that was different from the University of Michigan 4.0 scale even though we were 5 minutes apart.
However, if the current hypothesis from the above literature is correct, then similar affective classroom behaviors, such as participation, attendance, and effort, should help a student do well in both core and non-core subject course
Do the findings make sense?
This absolutely makes sense on so many levels. If student behave well and listen they will know and understand more. This will in turn help them to prepare for tests and understand classroom material. This will help their overall grades.
Thus, this correlation suggests that one dimension of teacher assigned grades for these students is highly related to core academic knowledge, such as the knowledge assessed by the standardized mathematics and reading assessments
Do the findings make sense?
I find it very interesting to see the research behind these scores. They make sense, but are surprising. There was only 32.7% cross over between grades assigned and standardized tests.
Mean
What statistical methods were used?
The measures of central tendency were definitely used as well as the standard deviation of test scores and teacher assigned grades.
the analysis focused only on students who had attended high schools on either a semester or quarter term system and who had valid transcript data for each of the eight semesters.
These are the parameters for who could be considered for the research.
For standardized test scores
What does the article say about the research study protocol?
Two variables were used, which were standardized test scores and teacher assigned grades
For the base-year when students were in grade 10,
What does the article say about the research study protocol?
The base year for these studies was grade 10.
ELS:2002 is a nationally representative longitudinal sample of about 15,400 students who were in grade 10 in 2002 across about 750 different schools in the U.S
What does the article say about the research study protocol?
The original studies were done as a national sample of high school students in the USA. Due to student confidentiality some of the values in the study were rounded to the nearest 10.
This study analyzed the high school transcript component of the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002) using multi-dimensional scaling (MDS)
What kind of study was performed?
A longitudinal study was performed through secondary data analysis of a 2002 and 2004 study.
elationships between core subject grades, non-core subject grades and standardized test scores in mathematics and reading.
Does the abstract provide a good overview of the article?
This abstract does indicate the three major components for analysis along with how he will be studying the values he collects. He has also added in a key jump off point for the study in regards to the correlation of test scores and grades.
Framework of the Study
Is the structure of the article well written, laid out, and organized?
The structure is good, but for me the sub-titles don't stand out. In the article I worked on with Dr.Stewart our sub-titles were bolded which made it much easier to read in my opinion. I'm not sure if this is the authors choice or the publishers choice.
Bowers
Is the author qualified to conduct research in the field? How so?
Alex cites himself in his article with current and relevant information. He shows his knowledge of this type of research area including other studies he has done on grades as well as dropout trajectories.
What’s in a Grade? The Multidimensional Nature of What Teacher Assigned Grades Assess in High School1
How accurately does the title reflect the research study?
This is a vaguely descriptive title. Yes it tells me the study, but it doesn't pinpoint the key idea in a way that would make sense to the reader at first glance. I would suggest a shorter title such as "What's in a Grade? Multidimensional Teacher Assessment of Students"
Names are actually an important part of our identities.
I agree with this statement because names are how we can be identified. Along with other distinguishing factors we often feel pride in what makes us unique. We should have pride in our names as part of our identity.
He said, yeah, well, that's about women and minorities, isn't it? It's not about big people
This is such a problem. People can cover up their bias with combating other biases, but they don't address the main problem. People chose to focus on the major social biases that are problems to society and media rather than the ones affecting their own life.
tell ourselves not to do it
I think this is important to teach ourselves and students because people tend to act before they think. If we don't show bias students will learn that biases are not okay when they are negative.
Instead of thinking that bias is somebody else's problem, which is what we tend to do, it's actually a problem for me
This is so important because people are so quick to turn judgement on others to avoid self reflection. In order for our society to progress people need to realize their biases in order to move on.
But something like 80% of the time, people did not notice it was a different person
I have seen this experiment done many times in different ways. Almost every time the people don't notice. It is interesting that people did notice when gender was the changing factor. This study is always interesting because this shows that we don't notice certain things, but we notice others. The things we notice more tend to be what biases are based off of.