EPAA/AAPE is a peer-reviewed, open-access, international, multilingual, and multidisciplinary journal designed for researchers, practitioners, policy makers, and development analysts concerned with education policies. EPAA/AAPE accepts unpublished original manuscripts in English, Spanish and Portuguese without restriction as to conceptual and methodological perspectives, time or place. EPAA/AAPE publishes issues comprised of empirical articles, commentaries, and special issues at roughly weekly intervals, all of which pertain to educational policy, with direct implications for educational policy.
Dr. Harold Wenglinsky worked for six years with the Policy Information Center at Educational Testing Service as a National Assessment of Educational Progress Visiting Scholar, Research Scientist, and Center Director. His research has tackled a wide range of issues of educational policy, from the impact of educational expenditures on student performance to the educational role of Historically Black Colleges and Universities. His most recent publications have focused on the issue of teacher quality and, more specifically, the link between various teaching practices and student outcomes, as well as identifying methodologies appropriate for using large-scale data to study such effects. He is currently writing a book on the impact of educational technology on teaching and learning.
The Link Between Teacher Classroom Practices and Student Academic Performance
Harold Wenglinsky
Abstract
Quantitative studies of school effects have generally supported the notion that the problems of U.S. education lie outside of the school. Yet such studies neglect the primary venue through which students learn, the classroom. The current study explores the link between classroom practices and student academic performance by applying multilevel modeling to the 1996 National Assessment of Educational Progress in mathematics. The study finds that the effects of classroom practices, when added to those of other teacher characteristics, are comparable in size to those of student background, suggesting that teachers can contribute as much to student learning as the students themselves.