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Teacher factors that improve student achievement in middle school can bedifficult to pinpoint. Districts need to be able to identify any teacher factor that improvesstudent achievement. The purpose of this non-experimental quantitative study was todetermine to what extent there is a difference in middle school student achievement basedon teacher factors. Specifically, the study was designed to determine the extent that thereis a difference in middle school student achievement among teachers who have differentlevels of education (bachelor’s, master’s, or doctorate) and whether that difference isaffected by teachers’ gender and years of teaching experience. Additionally, the studywas designed to determine the extent that there is a difference in middle school studentachievement among teachers who have different types of advanced degrees (content areaor other) and whether that difference is affected by gender and years of teachingexperience.The target population for this research study was all middle school mathematicsand English language arts teachers in District A who administer either the KansasMathematics Assessment or the Kansas Reading Assessment to students in grades 6, 7,and 8. The sample for this study consisted of 44 fully certified mathematics teachers and45 fully certified English language arts teachers of middle school students, whoadministered the Kansas Mathematics Assessment or the Kansas Reading Assessment inDistrict A, during the 2010-2011, 2011-2012, and 2012-2013 school years.The results of the study indicated that the average Kansas MathematicsAssessment score for the students of teachers with bachelor’s degrees was higher than theaverage Kansas Mathematics Assessment score for the students of teachers with graduate degrees. The results also indicated that the average Kansas Reading Assessment scorefor the students of teachers with an advanced degree in English was higher than theKansas Reading Assessment score for the students of teachers with an advanced degreein something other than English. Lastly, the results of additional analyses indicated thatthe mean Kansas Reading Assessment score was higher for the students of Englishlanguage arts teachers with an advanced degree in something other than English and withone to ten years of experience, than the mean scores for students of English language artsteachers with an advanced degree in something other than English and with more than tenyears of experience. |
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