Effects Of Board Certified Teachers On Student Outcomes
By: Steve Patterson
Submitted: 2011-09-26 19:52:09 | Word Count: 737
The question of how the program is related to student outcomes can be considered in two ways. First, passing the certification process may act as a signal of preexisting teaching effectiveness. Second, the process of becoming board certified may cause a teacher's classroom effectiveness to improve. Questions related to student outcomes have generated the largest number of research studies, with most focusing on the question of whether board certification acted as signal of (preexisting) teaching effectiveness. Nearly all of these studies compare the achievement test scores of students taught by board-certified and nonboard-certified teachers; few compare other student outcomes, such as motivation, breadth of achievement, or promotion rates. We reviewed 11 studies that measured student outcomes in terms of their achievement test performance. They focus primarily on North Carolina and Florida, states that have substantial numbers of board-certified teachers and have maintained longitudinal databases of teachers and students.
Findings from these studies show that, in both states, students taught by board-certified teachers had higher achievement test gains than did those taught by nonboard-certified teachers, although the differences were small and varied by state. North Carolina, a state with a long history of encouraging teachers to pursue board certification, showed slightly larger differences between the students of board-certified and nonboard-certified teachers, while group differences in Florida were smaller. We see a relation. ship between board certification and student achievement, although the relationship is not strong and is not consistent across contexts.
We recommend that additional research be conducted in this area, but we do not think that all research resources should be devoted to studies focusing on student performance on achievement tests, in part because such tests measure limited aspects of student learning. To the extent that existing data sets allow, we recommend replication of studies that investigate the effects of board-certified teachers on student achievement in states besides North Carolina and Florida, in content areas beyond mathematics and reading, and in grades beyond the elementary levels (Recommendation 7-1). Researchers pursuing such studies should work with the national board to obtain the information needed to study the effects of teachers who successfully obtained board certification, in comparison with effects for those applicants who were unsuccessful. We also recommend that researchers conduct studies of the effects of board certification on outcomes beyond scores on standardized tests, such as student motivation, breadth of achievement, attendance, and promotion (Recommendation 7-2). The choice of outcome measures should reflect the skills that board-certified teachers are expected to demonstrate.
One potential benefit of the NISPTS program is that the process of becoming familiar with the board's standards and completing the assessment could have a positive effect on a teacher's classroom practice. Considering the time required by the assessment and the depth and complexity of the tasks involved, it seems reasonable to expect some impact on the practices of those who complete the process.
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Two studies directly investigated what teachers learn during the certification process. While the results suggest that the process contributes to their professional growth, the studies were small in scale and need replication. Several other studies compared the effectiveness of teachers in North Carolina and Florida in terms of their students' reading and mathematics achievement before, during, and after their teachers earned board certification. The findings from these studies are mixed.
Thus, in our judgment, the existing research neither proves nor refutes hypotheses about the effects of the certification process on teachers' practice. We think that additional research should explore this issue, and we make recommendations for three kinds of research to pursue. First, we recommend that the NBPTS and other researchers investigate the effects of the process on the candidates using pretest posttest and longitudinal designs; these studies should be designed to permit comparisons of responses for successful and unsuccessful candidates (Recommendation 8-1).
We also recommend research on the effects of board certification on teachers' practices; these studies should utilize both quantitative and qualitative methods to examine a variety of measures of teachers' practices and a variety of student outcomes. Finally, we recommend that researchers work with the NBPTS to obtain the information needed to study the relationships between board certification and student achievement across the various stages of board certification; these studies should examine the impacts of the certification process on teachers' effectiveness in increasing their students' test scores, and specifically should examine effects for the years subsequent to the receipt of board certification.
