Ability, motivation, and performance: A quantitative study of teacher effects on student mathematics achievement using NELS:88 data.

Abstract

Over the past thirty years, the study of teaching effectiveness has grown in volume and importance; however, research on teaching effectiveness remains fragmented, both conceptually and empirically. In this thesis, a very basic conceptual model drawn from industrial and organizational psychology (i.e., performance is a function of ability and motivation) is used to reduce this fragmentation. Teachers' job performance is defined as teaching effectiveness, which is subsequently conceptualized as their students' achievement test scores. Teacher ability is conceptualized in three ways: content knowledge, educational training, and emphasis on higher order thinking instruction. Teacher motivation is conceptualized in two ways: motivational force and educational expectation for students. Since the measure of teaching effectiveness is students' test scores, relevant student and school variables have also been controlled. The sample for the empirical study is drawn from the base year and first follow-up surveys of the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, and certain data filters have been applied. As a result, the study sample includes 5,381 students taught by 2,077 math teachers, who worked in 410 schools. Since the current analyses fell within the tradition of school effects research, I used a two-level hierarchical linear model to analyze the data. The main theoretical idea--that student achievement is affected by various dimensions of teacher abilities and motivation--received support in the empirical analysis. The study also suggested that different dimensions of teacher ability and motivation can have different effects on student achievement and that some dimensions of ability and motivation were more closely related to student achievement than others. Teachers' content knowledge and educational training each had a significant, positive effect on student achievement. There was a positive correlation between higher order thinking instruction and student achievement, but once students' course-taking in mathematics was controlled, this positive effect was absent. Teachers' expectations about the performance of specific students had strong effects on student achievement, even after controlling for students' ability and prior achievement. The analysis did not find significant effects of teachers' more generalized motivational force on student achievement.