Instructional Validity, Opportunity To Learn and Equity: New Standards Examinations for the California Mathematics Renaissance.

The study used data from the Spring 1996 administration of the New Standards Mathematics Reference Examination for Middle Grades to examine the instructional validity of the Reference Examination, opportunity to learn and equity in the context of the California Mathematics Renaissance program. Student and teacher responses to the opportunity to learn questionnaires and student performance were compared between the Renaissance and the non-Renaissance groups (called the multi-state group). Our results showed that Renaissance teachers had more opportunities to participate in reform-oriented professional development activities than teachers in a multi-state comparison group and that Renaissance classroom practice reflected these teacher learning opportunities. Renaissance students also showed significantly higher levels of performance on Skills and Problem Solving clusters of the New Standards examination compared to students in the multi-state group, after adjusting for student background characteristics. Furthermore, the achievement results on Skills showed a smaller performance gap between white and minority students in the Renaissance group than the multi-state group regardless of levels of SES (i.e., parent education). The results also showed a positive effect of reform-oriented instructional strategies on the outcomes in all three clusters. These results suggest the instructional validity of the New Standards Reference Examinations and a generally positive effect on equity of educational opportunity in the Renaissance program.

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