This exploratory study by researchers at WestEd is examining ways that teacher-level factors (including teacher background variables and instructional practices) and student-level factors (such as self-rated mathematics interest and proficiency), and interactions among these factors, are associated with American Indian/Alaska native (AI/AN) student academic achievement in middle grades mathematics. The ultimate goal is to identify malleable factors that, if changed, could improve teachers' practices and AI/AN student achievement in mathematics.
The study has two main phases. Phase I is exploring data from the 2007 National Indian Education Study (NIES), which compiled information on student performance on NAEP assessments and collected information from a large sample of AI/AN students and their teachers through individual questionnaires. The NIES information links NAEP performance data and NIES survey data in ways that will assist understanding of how particular teacher-level factors and student-level factors (and the interactions between these two factors) relate to student learning. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) is being used to study the relationship between student/teacher-level factors and student performance. Phase II of the study involves qualitative analysis of data from several hundred interviews and classroom observations in selected schools at three sites in Alaska, Arizona, and New Mexico to enable deeper understanding of AI/AN contexts of teaching and learning and why particular teacher-level and student-level factors are/are not associated with student performance on the NAEP mathematics assessment as analyzed in Phase I.
Study data sources and application of multi-level modeling techniques will shed light on how teachers in particular cultural settings apply standards, adapt and implement curriculum, and assess their students in ways that promote student learning and achievement. The long-term payoff from this work will be enhanced understanding of ways to provide culturally responsive STEM education and increased performance and participation of AI/AN students in STEM careers and STEM-affected social and personal decision-making.
Summary of Findings This study examines how teachers in American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) cultural settings apply standards, adapt and implement curriculum, and assess their students in ways that promote student learning and achievement. It also documents AI/AN students’ perspectives on how mathematics instruction can reach them, connecting with their own experiences. Findings contribute to understandings about ways that STEM knowledge can be embedded in diverse knowledge systems. Identifying ways to improve such understandings can enhance the educational advancement of all students in STEM areas. Phase I In Phase I of the project, linked data from the National Indian Education Survey (NIES) and the NAEP 2007 mathematics assessment were analyzed to identify possible associations between student, teacher, and school factors and American Indian or Alaska Native mathematics achievement. Findings Teachers’ use of students’ responses to oral questions during classroom discussions for purposes of evaluation and planning instruction was negatively related to AI/AN student performance on the NAEP mathematics test. Teachers’ provision of cultural resources in mathematics instruction was negatively related to students’ performance on the NAEP mathematics test. Students’ awareness of their tribal/cultural identity was positively related to their performance on the NAEP mathematics test. Students’ self-rated mathematics knowledge (self-efficacy) was positively related to their performance on the NAEP mathematics test. Phase II In Phase II of the project, researchers conducted extensive qualitative research in Arizona, New Mexico, and Alaska to explore possible malleable factors that could, at least in part, explain the findings of Phase I. Researchers also probed for background information to help understand schools’ and teachers’ approaches to integrating culture into mathematics, their approaches to assessment in general, and how students experienced teachers’ efforts. Findings Administrators in participating schools took one of three approaches to the inclusion of culture: (1) allowing teachers to explore culture as they felt necessary; (2) relegating responsibility for integrating culture to a cultural specialist (often a bilingual teacher); (3) supporting a thorough integration of students’ cultural knowledge and ways of knowing in curriculum and instruction. Only one school of the ten participating schools fully used the third approach. Teachers of AI/AN students tended to recognize that direct questioning of students in a classroom discussion was not the best way to evaluate their learning; instead, they fostered "conversations" or posed less direct questions to students individually or in small groups. Teachers reported a wide variety of formative assessment practices, many of which are harmonious with Native approaches to demonstrating knowledge. Native teachers were more prepared and confident by virtue of their personal experience. Only about a third of teachers reported effective professional development or training for integrating AI/AN cultural knowledge into mathematics instruction; about the same number expressed confidence in doing so. Teachers in high-density AI/AN schools reported more integration of ethnomathematics into instruction than those in low-density schools, but in only one of these schools was ethnomathematics regularly integrated. Teachers enumerated a great many constraints to integrating ethnomathematics, among them pressures to teach a standard curriculum, lack of knowledge about ethnomathematics or which topics were not taboo, and lack of resources and support. Although all did not routinely integrate ethnomathematics into instruction, teachers did make efforts to use classroom strategies that reflected students’ preferences in ways of learning and demonstrating what they had learned. Virtually all AI/AN students knew their tribal identity; most had a high sense of self-efficacy in mathematics (80%), with the sole exception of those in one high-density school, which had a music teacher teaching mathematics (that school bringing down the average). Few AI/AN students reported frequent (daily or weekly) ethnomathematics inclusion, except for those in the single school reporting thorough integration of students’ cultural knowledge and ways of knowing in curriculum and instruction. Teachers reported many kinds of efforts to link approaches to instruction and assessment to students’ home ways of learning and communicating; and many students reported a preference for these approaches (small-group learning, peer support, collaboration).
