'I Just Kind of Guessed': Student Constructions of Knowledge in AP Microeconomics
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| Title: | 'I Just Kind of Guessed': Student Constructions of Knowledge in AP Microeconomics |
|---|---|
| Language: | English |
| Authors: | Michael Gurlea, Colleen Fitzpatrick, Stephanie van Hover, Ariel Cornett |
| Source: | High School Journal. 2023 107(1):41-68. |
| Availability: | University of North Carolina Press. 116 South Boundary Street, P.O. Box 2288, Chapel Hill, NC 27515-2288. Tel: 800-848-6224; Tel: 919-966-7449; Fax: 919-962-2704; e-mail: uncpress@unc.edu; Web site: https://ed.unc.edu/high-school-journal/ |
| Peer Reviewed: | Y |
| Page Count: | 28 |
| Publication Date: | 2023 |
| Document Type: | Journal Articles Reports - Research |
| Education Level: | High Schools Secondary Education |
| Descriptors: | High School Students, Economics Education, Microeconomics, Multiple Choice Tests, Student Evaluation, Student Experience, Advanced Placement Programs, Student Centered Learning, Instructional Effectiveness |
| Assessment and Survey Identifiers: | Advanced Placement Examinations (CEEB) |
| DOI: | 10.1353/hsj.2023.a947205 |
| ISSN: | 0018-1498 1534-5157 |
| Abstract: | This case study explored how a teacher, Ms. Walter, and her students experienced a unit of study on market structures in an Advanced Placement (AP) Microeconomics course. We employed qualitative research methods, drawing on the work of Nuthall and Alton-Lee, to connect students' experiences of classroom instruction to their reasoning on an end-of-unit multiple-choice test modeled after the AP Exam. Findings indicate a key misalignment between opportunities to learn the content during the unit and student performance on the unit test. Despite engaging in student-centered, interactive methods of instruction, students were unable to engage in the tasks required by the assessment. |
| Abstractor: | As Provided |
| Entry Date: | 2025 |
| Accession Number: | EJ1463659 |
| Database: | ERIC |
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| FullText | Links: – Type: pdflink Url: https://content.ebscohost.com/cds/retrieve?content=AQICAHj0k_4E0hTGH8RJwT4gCJyBsGNe_WN95AvKlDbXJGqwxwFRmIAI9geBGNT7iyDMhJGnAAAA4zCB4AYJKoZIhvcNAQcGoIHSMIHPAgEAMIHJBgkqhkiG9w0BBwEwHgYJYIZIAWUDBAEuMBEEDCc3bEItdiPPfDYA4AIBEICBm_OeyOBtAsdvKtY-1yTTDtdPHoOcOe0E2vdicc65L9TfvbtPDvP-jW2a6jw8l62szgIyr1hFQFcbCHIYLRy0PfueSFSGLKnAwiW5-s5gw8r2xjyUkOwRivd3HE6_QsTDNs4pZW8ArY31oFjFcqcHzYa8lJbyGD4Ssenym5T6ocXCJadxf-70fuRYitHMGEXZcw6M1ylKCRgcl8p_ Text: Availability: 1 Value: <anid>AN0181430729;hij01oct.23;2024Dec16.09:57;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0181430729-1">"I Just Kind of Guessed": Student Constructions of Knowledge in AP Microeconomics </title> <p>This case study explored how a teacher, Ms. Walter, and her students experienced a unit of study on market structures in an Advanced Placement (AP) Microeconomics course. We employed qualitative research methods, drawing on the work of Nuthall and Alton-Lee, to connect students' experiences of classroom instruction to their reasoning on an end-of-unit multiple-choice test modeled after the AP Exam. Findings indicate a key misalignment between opportunities to learn the content during the unit and student performance on the unit test.Despite engaging in student-centered, interactive methods of instruction, students were unable to engage in the tasks required by the assessment.</p> <p>Keywords: Student Learning; Assessment; Social Studies; Advanced Placement; Economics</p> <p>Tests constructed of discrete multiple-choice items have long been the dominant means of summative assessment in secondary social studies courses ([<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref1">16</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref2">25</reflink>]). Their use and impact on instruction and student learning, however, remains contested. While multiple-choice tests are effective in their ability to efficiently measure students' learning of clearly defined content and skills standards ([<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref3">20</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref4">21</reflink>]), critiques highlight that the goals of the multiple-choice test do not align with the goals of the field of social studies education: disciplinary thinking, inquiry, and source analysis ([<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref5">6</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref6">14</reflink>]). Further, studies on student thinking on multiple-choice tests provide evidence that these exams often measure factors irrelevant to content knowledge and disciplinary skills such as literacy and test-wiseness ([<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref7">42</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref8">43</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref9">46</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref10">47</reflink>]). And, in settings with end-of-course multiple-choice tests, teachers face a dilemma in the sheer breadth of the content they must cover in a year, often at the expense of depth of knowledge and understanding ([<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref11">2</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref12">3</reflink>]). However, a number of case studies suggest that when students are exposed to a student-centered and projector problem-based curriculum presented by a teacher with strong content expertise, students can be successful on both traditional multiple-choice assessments and performance-based tasks ([<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref13">8</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref14">40</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref15">39</reflink>]).</p> <p>Most studies of high-stakes testing contexts focus on instructional decision-making (see [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref16">1</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref17">18</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref18">1</reflink>]) or student think-alouds ([<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref19">42</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref20">43</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref21">46</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref22">47</reflink>]). But what happens when a teacher known for student-centered instruction teaches a class with a high-stakes end-of-course Advanced Placement (AP) test? How do students respond to and sense-make this instruction when their knowledge is measured by a traditional multiple-choice assessment? Our study aims to investigate how a teacher, Ms. Walter, planned and implemented a unit on market structures in an AP Economics classroom with the twin goals of both fostering student-centered learning experiences and student success on the end-of-course AP exam. Further, we analyzed what students learned through their classroom experiences as assessed by an end-of-unit test that was constructed of released items from the AP test.</p> <p>Connecting student learning to instructional decision-making is important in empirical studies because, as [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref23">5</reflink>] suggest, research to understand student learning should push beyond focusing on just one component of the classroom (i.e. just teachers or just students) and try to capture the instructional dynamic that connects them within classroom contexts. As social studies teachers continue to face mixed messages between the pressures of didactic external assessment and student-centered instruction, it is useful and important to investigate how teachers navigate, and how students experience, these contexts. The focus of this study, an AP Economics classroom, is of particular interest as teachers face a "breadth vs depth" dilemma in deciding how to cover the sheer amount of content to prepare students for an end-of-course assessment ([<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref24">11</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref25">23</reflink>]).</p> <p>This manuscript, part of a larger study on student learning context, explores the connections between instructional practices and learning outcomes in a high school AP Microeconomics classroom. Building on the work of [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref26">42</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref27">43</reflink>]) and [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref28">47</reflink>], this project focuses on students' thinking about their own learning on a teacher-constructed assessment of released AP test items. Through observing classroom instruction, collecting classroom artifacts, and interviewing the teacher and focal students, this study addresses the following research questions:</p> <p></p> <ulist> <item> 1. To what extent were students able to learn the content defined by the teacher's instructional aims and measured by their reasoning and performance on a teacher-constructed assessment?</item> <p></p> <item> 2. How does the teacher-constructed assessment align with the ways in which students experienced instruction?</item> </ulist> <p>In answering these questions, we begin with a review of the literature situating this study in the broader context of research on the secondary economics classroom and the AP classroom. We then present key empirical evidence from the classroom-based assessment literature to situate our findings about instructional decision-making and student thinking on an end-of-unit test. Next, we present the methods section, which includes our adaptation of [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref29">37</reflink>] framework for understanding student learning in context. The findings section is then divided into four parts: 1) An analysis of two test items that students performed well on; 2) An investigation of their classroom experiences surrounding this content; 3) An analysis of two test items that students performed poorly on; and 4) An investigation of their classroom experiences surrounding this content. We conclude with the discussion and implications for practicing teachers, teacher education, and future research.</p> <hd id="AN0181430729-2">Literature Review</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0181430729-3">Context: Economics and Advanced Placement</hd> <p>A small set of empirical studies has worked to understand what best practice social studies instruction looks like in the context of an economics classroom (e.g. [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref30">4</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref31">52</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib56" id="ref32">56</reflink>]). Standards documents and practitioner articles provide insight into visions of what best practice in economics should look like and are congruent with notions of best practice outlined in the larger field of social studies education. The C3 Framework ([<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref33">32</reflink>]), for example, calls for social studies education to teach using the inquiry arc, focusing on students "developing questions and planning inquiries," "applying disciplinary tools and concepts," "evaluating sources and using evidence," and "communicating conclusions and taking informed action" (p. 12). In economics, the inquiry arc promotes student understanding of big ideas in economic education such as "economic decision making, exchange and markets, the national economy, and global economy" ([<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref34">32</reflink>]). Despite the aforementioned vision of best practice in economics, the research base is thin and focuses more on specific teaching moves ([<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref35">26</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref36">27</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref37">28</reflink>]), teacher knowledge and instructional decision-making ([<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref38">4</reflink>]), and quantitative measures of student knowledge ([<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref39">10</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref40">30</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref41">48</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref42">54</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref43">55</reflink>]). Few studies explore how students experience economics instruction.</p> <p>Very little research has explored how teachers teach disciplinary economic reasoning and how students learn from this approach. [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref44">4</reflink>] qualitative case study is an exception and explored what pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) looked like with three award-winning secondary economics teachers. She found that the teachers "used economics reasoning in ways geared toward helping students unpack often difficult economic content and apply economic reasoning tools to their personal lives" ([<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref45">4</reflink>]). These teachers engaged in multidisciplinary instruction, focused on real-world application of economic concepts with an emphasis on economic ways of thinking, and worked to make interdisciplinary connections between economics and other content areas. Ayers's study provides insight into what high-quality economics instruction and PCK looks like in three classrooms; however, her work focused exclusively on how teachers approached instruction in economics and not how students experienced the content or what they ultimately did or did not learn. The high-stakes AP context amplifies the complex interactions between instruction and assessment, and while research is silent on what happens in AP Economics classrooms specifically, there is a body of work that explores ambitious instruction in other social studies disciplines across AP.</p> <p>While researchers question the efficacy and equity of the AP program (e.g. [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref46">19</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref47">24</reflink>]), the number of students served by AP remains high ([<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref48">12</reflink>]). In the field of social studies, some research has explored the unique context of AP. For example, [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref49">11</reflink>] and [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref50">23</reflink>] found that AP U.S. History teachers' concerns about their students' performance on the AP examination led to increased test preparation (e.g. focusing on formulaic responses and acquisition of factual knowledge). A few key studies have explored ambitious instruction in this setting and have provided evidence that high-quality instruction can occur even with the pressures of the end-of-course AP examination. For example, in a case study that explored ambitious teaching in an AP European History course, [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref51">8</reflink>] reported that an experienced teacher was able to foster historical understanding while continuing to prepare her students for the end-of-course test. [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref52">8</reflink>] observed that this teacher was able to achieve her instructional aim of promoting historical understanding in this context through her "expertise in the field of history, well-developed beliefs about the purpose history can serve students, and familiarity with the AP European History exam" (p. 73). Furthermore, [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref53">40</reflink>] and [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref54">39</reflink>] conducted design-based studies in AP U.S. Government and Politics courses in two high schools. The research team worked with teachers at one school to develop five projects to capture the content knowledge of the government course, but, more importantly, to emphasize active learning. During each of these studies, the researchers compared student outcomes on the AP examination between a course that used a project-based instructional approach and one that took a more traditional, lecture-based, instructional approach. They found that students in the course focused on project-based learning performed at least as well as the students in the traditional AP setting, providing evidence that project-based learning and inquiry may provide an equally beneficial alternative to more traditional instructional approaches.</p> <p>In sum, research on teaching and learning in AP courses in social studies has found that the responsibility to cover large amounts of material can lead to a 'breadth versus depth' dilemma as teachers rely on traditional instructional approaches (e.g. lecture) to cover content at a rapid pace ([<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref55">11</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref56">23</reflink>]). Teachers with clear instructional aims ([<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref57">8</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref58">38</reflink>]) or utilizing project-based learning ([<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref59">40</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref60">39</reflink>]) can generate different learning experiences (and outcomes) for students. These conceptions of best practice and navigating the 'breadth versus depth' divide present unique challenges for the AP economics classroom. The pressure of the AP exam, like any high-stakes end-of-course test, has an impact on the teacher decision-making surrounding classroom-based assessment and, as such, much of what we know about classroom-based assessment in social studies is impacted by the high-stakes accountability era.</p> <hd id="AN0181430729-4">Classroom-Based Assessment in Social Studies</hd> <p>Research on assessment in social studies has explored the impact of high-stakes end-of-course multiple-choice tests and has prescribed a vision of what better assessment could be ([<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref61">18</reflink>]: [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref62">44</reflink>]). Research that explores external accountability systems and their impact on the social studies classroom ([<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref63">17</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref64">22</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref65">45</reflink>]), however, is distinct from, but clearly related to, research that explores social studies classroom-based assessment. As [<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref66">51</reflink>] outline "the extant literature is replete with studies on assessment, testing, and evaluation, yet there is a paucity of empirical research focusing specifically on assessment in the social studies classroom" (p. 462).</p> <p>Studies on classrooms under high-stakes external accountability systems have found that in states and grade-levels where social studies is tested, assessment drives instruction ([<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref67">2</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref68">3</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib53" id="ref69">53</reflink>]). Much like the AP setting described above, the presence or absence of a high-stakes test can lead teachers to focus on coverage (i.e. rapidly moving through fact after fact) and control (i.e. narrowly focusing on information in the standards) of tested content ([<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref70">2</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref71">7</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref72">18</reflink>]). In short, assessment policy acts as a lever for instruction and a teacher's classroom-based assessment reflects the larger accountability system they inhabit. This tension can lead to a misalignment between the goals of the field of social studies education, the nature of high-stakes and classroom-based assessment, and a teacher's own instructional aims.</p> <p>Teachers' own decision-making around their use of classroom-based assessments is influenced greatly by the expectations of their context, as [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref73">29</reflink>] found in his exploration of two teachers' assessment practices across two courses: a flexible elective and a more traditionally structured and tested course. Both teachers in this study had sound aims for their assessment: tests should serve as a feedback loop in the process of student learning.</p> <p>However, when faced when the high-stakes context of a state-tested Government course and an AP Government course, both teachers had to make concessions to their philosophy and navigate a tension between their vision of assessment and their context with students. For these two teachers, navigating this tension was characterized by transparency with students, reluctant compliance with state and local policy, and pragmatic divergence from the pressures of the high-stakes assessment context. [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref74">29</reflink>] study is key as an exploration of how teachers can use adaptive assessment practices to gatekeep ([<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref75">49</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib50" id="ref76">50</reflink>]) their students' experience of high-stakes accountability measures in their day-to-day classroom experiences.</p> <p>While there are several studies on how social studies instruction and classroom- based assessment are impacted by high-stakes testing, the body of work on the impact of this context on student thinking and student learning is much smaller. [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref77">42</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref78">43</reflink>]) conducted think-aloud interviews about questions on the 10<sups>th</sups> grade New York State Global History and Geography Regents exam with 13 students. Using selected test-items, Reich explored student reasoning, thinking, and learning along with examining the validity of the multiple-choice test questions. The findings of this study indicated a clear misalignment between the broader goals of social studies education (i.e. promoting disciplinary thinking) and the nature of questions on a multiple-choice test, which measured not only content knowledge, but also a student's literacy and test-wiseness. Reich's study remains relevant as teachers, especially in the AP setting, feel pressure to prepare their students for the end-of-course examination.</p> <p>[<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref79">42</reflink>] work contributed to an ongoing conversation concerning the validity and value of multiple-choice tests as a measure of student achievement. There is some evidence that well-constructed multiple-choice tests can be used as a valid measure of students' academic achievement toward a given set of content standards ([<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref80">20</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref81">21</reflink>]). However, studies of test-taker reasoning, much like [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref82">42</reflink>], show that there is a much more ambiguous relationship between what test creators believe a test measures and what students actually do when processing information on a test ([<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref83">37</reflink>]). Because traditional multiple-choice tests measure much more than just content knowledge, such as a student's ability to read and interpret a question ([<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref84">15</reflink>]) or skills of test-wiseness that are independent of the intended knowledge and skills being measured ([<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref85">31</reflink>]), they should not be used as a 1:1 proxy of student achievement in a given content area. As multiple-choice test items are still used widely both in large-scale and classroom-based assessment contexts, the research that explores student opportunities to learn content and their thinking on summative assessments is of continued importance.</p> <hd id="AN0181430729-5">Theoretical Framework</hd> <p>Our study adapts a research protocol developed by [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref86">37</reflink>] to understand the interactional relationship between teaching moves, student experiences, student performance on an end-of-unit assessment, and ultimately, student learning. This research protocol also informs the theoretical framework we used to approach data collection and data analysis: by capturing every aspect of classroom experience and working closely with focal students, we aimed to capture how student assessment responses were related, or not related, to student background knowledge, classroom experiences, instructional processes, and test taking strategies.</p> <p>[<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref87">34</reflink>] found that student learning "results from the connections students make between newly evolving knowledge constructs and their background knowledge" (p. 335).</p> <p>Learning was not always based on what was explicitly taught by the teacher, but instead based on the "participation in those classroom activities in which students are required to recall and use their previous knowledge and experiences" ([<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref88">35</reflink>]). Nuthall remained skeptical of social constructivist teaching promoting "tighter structuring and scaffolding of students' activities" ([<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref89">9</reflink>]). Despite this skepticism, [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref90">33</reflink>] recognized that "every aspect of classroom life is complex, multilayered, and context dependent" (p. 209). Ultimately, [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref91">33</reflink>] argued that student learning of substantive knowledge is a "dynamic interactive system" (p. 210) where "students' access to and participation in the learning activities of the classroom are structured by their negotiation of social status" (p. 211).</p> <p>This interactive system, represented below (Figure 1), serves as a theoretical framework for understanding how student assessment responses are mediated by background knowledge, classroom experiences, knowledge construction, and context. [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref92">37</reflink>] highlight how learning is constructed between teachers and students as well as amongst students ([<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref93">9</reflink>]). Unlike many other studies on student learning, Nuthall and Alton-Lee examined student learning within a classroom context and explored granular elements of classroom instruction. They investigated the interactional relationship between teaching and learning by working with classroom teachers to create assessments that aligned with the teachers' goals for the unit. Students were given a pre-test, observed during the unit, and given a post-test, and then they participated in a think-aloud interview. Focal students participated in a second think aloud of the post-test one year after the unit was completed to see what substantive knowledge students had retained. Nuthall then created "concept files" for each student and the concept they were supposed to learn. Based on the individual concept file, Nuthall could predict with relative accuracy (80-85%) whether students would answer test questions correctly ([<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref94">9</reflink>]).</p> <p>Graph: Figure 1. Adapted framework: factors involved in understanding how achievement test performance relates to classroom experience (Nuthall, 1995)</p> <p>In order to understand Ms. Walter's instruction and student learning, we adapted a research protocol developed by Graham Nuthall and his colleagues (see [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref95">35</reflink>]). Nuthall explored the processes (and outcomes) of how learning occurs and is shaped within and through social contexts; he focused on elementary and middle school students' learning in science and social studies. The methodological protocol employed by Nuthall and his colleagues involved 1) development and implementation of a pretest aligned with a teacher's articulated learning outcomes for a unit of study; 2) daily observations of instruction; 3) identification of 4-6 focal students to be continuously observed and recorded; and 4) post-tests and interviews of students. We adapted his protocol in order to capture, qualitatively, the interactional complexity of how students describe and experience classroom instruction ([<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref96">34</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0181430729-6">Methods</hd> <p>We used case study methodology to examine how students' classroom experiences in economics related to learning as measured by an AP-style, teacher-constructed summative assessment. We were interested in what the students experienced during the unit on market structures, what the teacher's instructional aims for the unit were, and how students performed on the assessment; thus, the bound for the case study was the unit of study on market structures ([<reflink idref="bib57" id="ref97">57</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0181430729-7">Context and Participants</hd> <p>The study took place in an AP Economics course at Valley High School (pseudonym), a large public school in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The school enrolls a diverse student population of approximately 1,900, ninth- through twelfth-grade students. While Valley titles the course AP Economics, the course covered content from the AP Microeconomics standards. Due to a law in Virginia that requires students to take either an economics or a personal finance course prior to graduation, the AP Economics course is an increasingly popular course for students (Code of Virginia §22.1–200.03). Valley offers two courses for students to fulfill this requirement, personal finance (i.e. a semester-long course offered for seniors) or AP Economics. AP Economics is open to any student enrolled at Valley and is popular across grade levels, attracting sophomores, juniors, and seniors. Students are not required to take the AP test at the end of the course, but those who do so receive additional points on their grade point average (GPA) and if they score high enough on the exam, they have the potential to transfer credit to the college or university of their choice. If students elect to take the end-of-course AP Microeconomics exam they must complete 60 multiple-choice questions and 3 free response questions measuring economics content knowledge, economic understandings, and numerical and visual analysis of problems in economics.</p> <p>At the time of the study, Ms. Walter, the AP Economics teacher at Valley, had been teaching the course for three years. She was the only person in the 22-person social studies department who "had any type of major/minor [...] in econ" (Interview). When the previous AP Economics teacher retired, Ms. Walter was the natural choice to take over AP Economics as she had purposefully taken several economics classes as "job security" for her future career as a social studies teacher. When asked to describe her approach to teaching this course, Ms. Walter stated that she tried to "limit [her] amount of lecture time" and instead used more "simulations and case studies." She started each unit of instruction with content that students knew and worked toward "what they're less familiar with...so they can build on what they know" (Interview). This classroom was of interest to the research team as Ms. Walter was recommended as a teacher who engaged in student-centered instruction (i.e. experiential projects and activities, discussion, sparse lecture) in the social studies classroom context.</p> <p>For this study, we also purposefully followed a small group of students, referred to as 'focal students,' to closely trace the classroom experiences and interactions with the teacher and classmates they had ([<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref98">37</reflink>]). From a class of 18 students, 4 students were selected as focal students, identified by the following pseudonyms: Allison, Patrick, Michelle, and Sean (See Table 1). These students were selected because they represented the class both in terms of gender (i.e. eight females and ten males) and grade level (i.e. eleven seniors, three juniors, and four sophomores). These focal students also accurately represent the various reasons why students may choose to enroll in AP economics, which is not explicitly required by the school or state of Virginia. It should be noted that while there were three juniors enrolled in the course, none of them consented to be in the study. Each of the four focal students were consented through the institutional review board (IRB).</p> <hd id="AN0181430729-8">Data Collection</hd> <p>Data collection included the following: two semi-structured interviews with the teacher, 11 ninety-minute video-taped classroom observations (two cameras throughout the classroom as well as detailed field notes), a semi-structured interview with each individual focal student (pre- and post- assessment data), and collection of all classroom artifacts (i.e. student notes, PowerPoint slides, lesson materials, etc.). The first interview with Ms. Walter occurred approximately one week before the unit began and focused on Ms. Walter's instructional aims for the unit. Ms. Walter also shared her post-assessment with the researchers and discussed her assessment</p> <p>Graph: Table 1. Student Participants</p> <p>approach. All interviews and observations were transcribed and stored in Dedoose, a password-protected qualitative software program.</p> <p>Ms. Walter planned to assess the students through a teacher-constructed, AP-style test that included multiple-choice and free response questions as well as questions that required the analysis of graphs. The majority of her assessment questions came from released AP tests. It should be noted that the post-assessment had more items than the pre-assessment (aligning with Ms. Walter's instructional aims); for the purposes of analysis, we only compared the items that appeared on both (i.e. seven multiple choice questions). It was an important part of data collection to use an assessment selected or created by Ms. Walter in order to capture how the use of this assessment did or did not align with the teacher's instructional aims. In addition to the test, Ms. Walter had the students write an analytical essay based on the documentary that they watched in class (Schooled: The Price of College Sports). Students also engaged in four quizzes early in the unit: the first two quizzes mimicked the multiple-choice style of the AP-style while the second two were short answer questions regarding oligopolies and game theory. The quizzes were graded and returned to students, but not reviewed over the course of the unit. Ms. Walter's unit plan engaged students in a number of instructional approaches to support students in learning the characteristics of market structures (See Table 2).</p> <p>Semi-structured interviews with the focal students occurred approximately two weeks after the unit's conclusion and focused on the students' backgrounds as well as a think aloud of why and how they answered questions from the post-assessment. Students were given a blank copy of the assessment and asked to reflect on what they thought the correct answer to a question was and when, or if, they remember the concept from the unit.</p> <p>Specifically, students were asked in interviews to cite their learning experiences inside and outside of class in relation to why and how they answered for each test item. Follow-up questions were used to probe any student misconceptions about the concept, further explain memories from the classroom, or to clarify answers.</p> <p>The second interview with Ms. Walter took place about three weeks after the unit's completion and after the student interviews to allow her to reflect on the preliminary analysis of student interviews. During this interview, Ms. Walter engaged in a think aloud of the post- assessment where she was asked to talk through each test item. She anticipated students' responses and specified where and when she thought the students interacted with the information necessary to answer the test items correctly (i.e. textbook, lecture, group project, etc.).</p> <hd id="AN0181430729-9">Data Analysis</hd> <p>Data analysis occurred through multiple, iterative rounds. The first round of data analysis consisted of a holistic read of all data sources to capture emergent themes. We then analyzed the post-assessment based on the AP Microeconomics topic outline (See Table 3). Each question was labeled with a concept descriptor that represented the knowledge students would need to know in order to correctly answer the test item.</p> <p>During the next round of analysis, we analyzed the student performance on the preand post-assessments as well as the interview think aloud of the post-assessment based on codes developed by [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref99">36</reflink>]. Each student assessment (pre, post, interview) was coded as to whether the students knew the information prior to the unit, learned it during the unit, never learned the information, or learned and forgot the information. We then created "item files" that consisted of the assessment and the instructional interactions students had with the content during the unit (See Table 4). This involved line-by-line coding of all data by content topic in Dedoose.</p> <p>Graph: Table 2. Unit Overview</p> <p>Graph: Table 3. Assessment questions</p> <p>Graph: Table 4. Item Files</p> <p>Our next round of coding focused on the student interviews and Ms. Walter's post-unit interview for how they described their experiences in the classroom. Based on the instructional approaches in the item files, we coded the interviews for what instructional approaches (e.g. lecture, group project) students identified as contributing to what they learned as compared to what Ms. Walter stated in her interview. In our final round of coding, we used the AP economics standards (i.e. as defined by College Board) to understand when and how content was covered throughout the unit. Not only did this process ensure that all assessment items were covered at some</p> <p>Graph: Table 5. Student Performance on Assessment Questions (Correct Answers/Total Questions)</p> <p>point during the unit, but it also illuminated the facets of the framework appropriated by the teacher to explain certain economics concepts and necessitated by the post-assessment to show mastery of the content.</p> <hd id="AN0181430729-10">Findings</hd> <p>Analyses of student answers on the multiple-choice assessment paints a complex and varied portrait of what students learned and did not learn during the unit (See Table 5). The class average for the assessment was a 'C,' which Ms. Walter stated was "good for an Econ class," but this assessment "was a higher average with a C range...but only slightly higher so probably within the realm of normal statistics" (Interview). Ms. Walter was pleased with how the unit went and felt that "in general the class seemed to get it...they got most of their objectives" (Interview). Students were able to answer questions correctly about the market structures they learned early in the unit (i.e. perfectly competitive markets and monopolies), but struggled to answer questions about content they learned later in the unit (i.e. oligopolies and monopolistically competitive firms).</p> <p>For the four focal students, their scores on three assessments (i.e. pre-assessment, post- assessment, and think-aloud interview) varied. Three of the four focal students scored higher on the post-assessment by one question, but by the time of the think-aloud interview, they scored the same or lower than they had on the pre-assessment. One student, Allison, had her score decline with each successive assessment.</p> <p>The student assessment data presents a mixed picture as to whether, or what, students learned during the unit. Analysis of these questions demonstrates that the nature of the question (i.e. fact-based, application of knowledge) appeared to matter. Students performed better on factual questions but struggled on more complex questions that asked them to use procedural knowledge (i.e. knowledge required to 'do economics' such as math computations, data visualization, and graphing; [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref100">4</reflink>]) or on two-step multiple choice questions. The student interviews highlighted the individuality of student learning. Each of the students described their experiences of the classroom instruction and how that translated to their reasoning on a multiple-choice question in different ways. To further explore what economic content knowledge, understandings, and skills students learned and how they learned it during the unit, we highlight four assessment questions: two questions that all students answered correctly and two questions that captured a variety of student responses. After exploring student thinking on each of these questions, we then look back to the unit to interrogate whether students had an opportunity to learn the tested economic content knowledge and understandings.</p> <p>Graph: Table 6. Assessment Questions</p> <hd id="AN0181430729-11">Questions 5 &amp; 33: Recalling Information</hd> <p>All four students answered two assessment questions correctly, questions 5 and 33 (See Table 6). Both of these questions could be described as fact-recall; students had to retrieve a specific piece of economic content knowledge in order to answer the question correctly. In question 5, students could answer correctly if they remembered that price equals marginal revenue (P=MR) for a perfectly competitive firm. In question 33, students had to remember the definition of price discrimination to select the correct answer. Both questions were straightforward examples of economic content knowledge, as students did not have to use procedural knowledge, combine different economic concepts, or employ economic reasoning to correctly answer the question.</p> <p>For example, on question five, Allison stated that she knew the answer to the question because "marginal revenue equals margin, like price" (Interview). When asked if she remembered the answer coming up during class, Allison responded "we actually wrote it on like everything that we did...in my notes, I definitely wrote it and boxed it in because [Ms. Walter] said it was important" (Interview). Similarly, Michelle noted, "Because we learned that, like, MR=MC and I feel like for perfectly competitive firm would be equal and not, like, greater or less than." Sean recalled seeing this information in "a graph" that Ms. Walter drew, and Patrick recalled "taking notes in class and things like that and the graphs." When reflecting on the unit, Ms. Walter stated that she expected the students to learn this on the first day of the unit when "we talked about perfect market structure...and we created the graph" (Interview). She felt that the students would have interacted with P=MR "multiple times throughout [the unit], whenever we reviewed the market structures" (Interview).</p> <p>On question 33, each of the students provided a definition of price discrimination before describing when they remembered the term coming up during their class. Sean said, "I remember price discrimination is like charging different prices" (Interview), while Michelle defined price discrimination as occurring when companies "change the price based on different things and they're kind of unfair" (Interview). Allison and Sean remembered Ms. Walter providing examples of companies that used price discrimination. Sean knew that "airlines...give different ticket prices" (Interview), but did not remember exactly how an airline company used price discrimination. Patrick stated that "price discrimination isn't something difficult to figure out," but that they had discussed this topic in his government class, and in AP Economics, it was discussed in King of the Hill "for like twenty minutes" (Interview). Michelle remembered the topic coming up, but was unable to pinpoint when or where she had heard about it, stating "we were talking about monopolies or oligopolies or something, one of those, I remember price discrimination was one of the slides" (Interview). In her reflection on the unit, Ms. Walter believed the students should have learned about price discrimination "when we talked about the different strategies that monopolists could use in order to increase their profits, I think that was day two" (Interview). Ms. Walter also mentioned that students could have engaged in price discrimination when they did their market analysis project; however, none of the focal students used price discrimination in their analysis.</p> <hd id="AN0181430729-12">Questions 5 &amp; 33: Opportunities to Learn</hd> <p>Classroom observations, in this case, largely aligned with Ms. Walter's and the students' description of where they learned material in class. For question 5, students were introduced to P=MR during the first days of the unit as Ms. Walter covered perfect competition; the rule also appeared continually throughout the unit. For example, students reviewed this economic concept when they created posters summarizing the main characteristics of each market structure on the seventh day of the unit. The group that reviewed a perfectly competitive market wrote this equation prominently on their graph (See Figure 2).</p> <p>For question 33, the primary time when students interacted with price discrimination was on the second day of the unit when Ms. Walter introduced the concept of monopolies and spent 10 minutes of a 40-minute lecture on price discrimination, providing examples and non- examples of how price discrimination works. During their poster review of the unit, the group describing the features of a monopoly wrote that they "can price discriminate," but did not provide an example or a definition as to what price discrimination is. It is also important to highlight that the example Sean was able to give of price discrimination (airlines giving different ticket prices) was a not an example explicitly covered by Ms. Walter during her classroom instruction, but rather from the course text.</p> <p>Across both assessment questions, the four focal students had a foundational understanding of the economic concept or term and were able to correctly recall the content knowledge. In most cases, the four students pointed to similar moments in the class when they remembered the content knowledge being discussed. The students most frequently referenced Ms. Walter's lecture and teacher-centered instruction as the source of information they drew upon to answer these assessment questions. There also seemed to be alignment between when and where Ms. Walter thought the students would learn the information and when and where the students said that they learned the information. Ms. Walter had clear memories of lecturing on the information and providing the definition to students.</p> <hd id="AN0181430729-13">Questions 17 &amp; 37: Mixed Results &amp; Multiple Steps</hd> <p>For two of the questions on the assessment, questions 17 and 37, students had difficulty answering correctly and interviews revealed greater variability in student</p> <p>Graph: Figure 2. Student Review Poster on Perfect Competition</p> <p>descriptions of where and how they learned information. Questions 17 and 37 asked students to engage in conceptual thinking and had the students connect various economic concepts and employ procedural knowledge (See Table 7). To answer question 17 correctly, students had to know that in a pure monopoly, firms face a dilemma: to maximize revenue, they must either lower prices to sell more units or increase prices and face less marginal revenue. While this question may be conceptually complex, a visualization of the graph of a pure monopoly would greatly simplify the process of answering this question; however, one was not provided. That is, if a student could recall the graph of a monopolist's demand curve, they could clearly visualize that the demand curve physically "lies above" the marginal revenue curve. In question 37, students had to understand the definition and characteristics of an oligopoly and apply it to a list of statements. Question 37 was a two-step multiple-choice question in which students had to determine which of three statements were correct.</p> <p>Sean was the only student who has able to correctly answer question 17. Sean stated that he knew the answer because "the demand curve clearly is above marginal</p> <p>Graph: Table 7. Assessment questions</p> <p>revenue" implying his ability to visualize the graph in order to answer the question (Interview). Sean remembered seeing the graph that Ms. Walter presented during class, but also from the textbook. On the pure monopoly quiz, Sean scored a 1/5 and outlined the textbook chapter as a way to raise his quiz score. When studying for the assessment Sean said that he always made sure to review all the graphs "because I think they appear a lot on the test, they're important" (Interview). The other three students appeared to have some misconceptions about the definitions of terms and seemed unsure about how to answer the question. Patrick oscillated between choices A (inelastic) and B (elastic) stating "it's just the process of me remembering if inelastic is the one where you need it or is elastic the one where you need it." Ultimately, Patrick chose A "because that would make me think, you know, there's people willing to bargain for it...it's not like they could go without it. They need whatever the product is" (Interview). In this response, Patrick demonstrates a misunderstanding of the key vocabulary terms in the question and attempts to erroneously apply his concept of perfectly inelastic demand to a monopolist's demand curve.</p> <p>Allison and Michelle faced similar difficulties as Patrick and could not define the vocabulary terms in the question. The three students also struggled to remember when or if they discussed the concept in class. Allison knew that they discussed monopolies in class and that a monopoly occurred when "there's no other options, so it's just the one [company] that controls everything else," but could not remember when they discussed the demand curve. Patrick said he relied on his knowledge of elasticity that was from a previous unit where they learned "how much a company wants to make...or how much people want a product with supply and demand affecting that" to answer this question and had no memory of the content of the question coming up in class for this particular unit. When Ms. Walter reflected on this question, she immediately responded "graphs, it's all about the graphs" that the class had looked at while she lectured on monopolies. However, without a deep understanding of what the curves or graphs represent, students were unable to transfer their meaning to other questions outside of the specific example provided by Ms. Walter.</p> <p>All four students incorrectly answered question 37. Michelle answered B—that oligopolistic firms are interdependent. She had a misunderstanding of oligopolies and what "interdependent" means. She selected this answer "because there are few firms and they're focused on themselves" (Interview). Michelle did not remember oligopolies coming up in class or any instances of discussing the concept and said, "I just kind of guessed." The other three students all selected D, which did not include III (independent price decision making leads to lower returns). Patrick talked through each Roman numeral, selecting I (collusion can increase oligopolists' profits) because of the episode of King of the Hill they watched in class. He rationalized why II (oligopolistic firms are interdependent) had to be correct because he knew that "if one firm lowers their prices because they're so few, the rest...have to lower their prices as well" (Interview). Roman numeral III "threw" Patrick "off a bit because if you lower prices and the others don't, it could get you more returns in the short term just because more are going to leave the other firms and come to you" (Interview). In his answer, Patrick understood the "lower returns" to apply to one particular company rather than to all firms within an oligopoly. Sean and Allison had similar answers to Patrick and were confused by what III meant. Even though option III is an extension of interdependence, which all students related to oligopoly by selecting II, they were unable to understand that oligopolists, through game theory, must work together to set prices. If a firm sets its price independent of the other firms in an oligopoly, a net loss will occur, thus lowering revenue in the long run.</p> <p>Ms. Walter stated that the question asked students to "distinguish very specific things about oligopoly" (Interview). She remembered covering the content frequently throughout the unit and presenting the information through a variety of methods, including her lecture on the basic characteristics and the episode of King of the Hill. She also mentioned the documentary, Schooled: The Price of College Sports as how students might have learned this information, but the students took the assessment prior to watching the film. For questions 17 and 37, students had difficulty connecting the content asked by the test question with specific moments of classroom instruction, data analysis further exposed why this connection may have been tenuous.</p> <hd id="AN0181430729-14">Questions 17 &amp; 37: Opportunities to Learn</hd> <p>Regarding question 17, concerning a pure monopolist's demand curve, on the second day of the unit, Ms. Walter had lectured about monopolies and showed the students a series of graphs of when a monopolist makes a profit, when a monopolist breaks even, and when a monopolist loses money. This five-minute excerpt of the lecture, when the graphs were first introduced, was the only time Ms. Walter directly related the two curves. She told the class "Marginal revenue is below what could be considered the price. The marginal revenue line is usually set by the natural market price, but it doesn't equal the demand. It makes more sense graphically" (Observation). During this lecture, she never explicitly stated that the demand curve is above the marginal revenue curve. Students were at least exposed to this graph a second time on their review day before the unit test because the group that created the poster on the characteristics of monopoly did include this visualization (See Figure 3).</p> <p>Graph: Figure 3. Student Review Poster on Monopoly</p> <p>When analyzing this assessment question and student interview data, it was clear that students understood the definition of a monopoly and how it interacts with a market but missed the question because it specifically related to graphing and visualization of the concept. That is, students lacked some procedural knowledge to make use of what they knew about monopoly. As mentioned earlier, Sean, the only student to answer this question correctly, went beyond the expectations of regular class participation in order to outline a textbook chapter to boost a quiz grade and was exposed to this content in a different format.</p> <p>A large amount of class time was dedicated to the content covered by test item 37, concepts related to the characteristics of oligopolies. Analysis of classroom observations indicated that the class spent more time on oligopolies than the other three market structures with Ms. Walter devoting almost four full class periods to the subject. During these four days, the students interacted with the material in a variety of ways. Ms. Walter lectured on the foundational characteristics of oligopoly and game theory. The students also played Monopoly, watched video clips (King of the Hill, A Beautiful Mind), created a skit about game theory, and examined different scenarios and matrices about game theory. Most of this instruction was based in real world application of the knowledge, such as the skit about game theory and the problem-solving scenario with the prisoners' dilemma. Students were asked to think about these concepts in a novel way and, during class, were able to demonstrate their understanding of the concepts. However, when thinking aloud on the test, none of the students made the connection between game theory or Nash equilibrium and the interdependent nature of oligopolies. Interestingly, this was the quiz on which three students (Sean, Michelle, Allison) scored a 4/4, but they did not associate their learning on that day or the quiz with this assessment question. It is important to note that the format of this quiz did not match the format of the end- of-unit assessment.</p> <p>The disconnect between student responses to question 37 and their memory of classroom experiences may also point to the structure of the AP-style test item as a source of misalignment and tension. Classroom observations and post-unit interviews provide evidence that students experienced activities related to the characteristics of oligopolies and, subsequently, had an acute understanding of their characteristics. Multiple students referenced the King of the Hill episode and the concurrent backchannel chat in their post-unit interviews as they accurately defined the concept of collusion and the characteristics of an oligopoly. When presented with a multi-step question however, students faltered and were not given an avenue to provide evidence they had learned this content. One student, Sean, engaged in construct irrelevant reasoning when engaging with question 37, eliminating III from contention because it "doesn't look right" (Interview).</p> <hd id="AN0181430729-15">Discussion</hd> <p>Ms. Walter represented a teacher who engaged in student-centered instruction and modeled the components of pedagogical content knowledge for economics ([<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref101">4</reflink>]). She engaged students with instruction that was intended to push them beyond the foundational knowledge of AP Microeconomics and invited them to experience content through a multi- and inter- disciplinary approach; she worked to make content relevant to students' lives, asked students to participate in discussion about economics topics, and designed classroom experiences (e.g. projects) that were active and student-centered. However, student scores on an AP-style end-of-unit assessment in conjunction with students' responses to this assessment in post-test interviews indicate a misalignment between instruction, assessment, and student learning.</p> <p>Students did not perform well on the end-of-unit assessment on market structures. However, our findings indicate the nature of this poor performance points to a more complex story than instructional failure. While students did perform poorly on of the end-of-unit assessment selected by Ms. Walter, indicating that they did not meet the objectives of the unit, it is also clear there was a key misalignment between the nature of the end-of-unit assessment selected by Ms. Walter and the instructional experiences she designed to increase their economic knowledge and skills. There is no doubt, from our post-test interviews, that students learned content associated with AP Microeconomics. The test was able to capture some of this knowledge, but it was not able to capture all of it. The test also revealed weaknesses in students' knowledge of AP Microeconomics, which were exacerbated by the style and structure of the AP-style test questions. These questions sometimes pushed students to engage in "construct irrelevant" reasoning ([<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref102">47</reflink>]), and asked students to practice disciplinary skills (i.e. procedural economic knowledge; [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref103">4</reflink>]) which were not explicitly emphasized during instruction.</p> <p>During the unit of study, based on our analysis of classroom observation data and interview data, there were moments of instruction where students should have learned content, but did not. Further, there was content simply not covered during class that could have helped students be successful on the end-of-unit assessment. Below (Figure 4) our adapted theoretical framework from [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref104">37</reflink>] is reproduced. We can chart the story of success and failure of the focal students on the selected multiple-choice questions using the components of this framework.</p> <p>Graph: Figure 4. Adapted framework: factors involved in understanding how achievement test performance relates to classroom experience (Nuthall, 1995)</p> <p>For example, student success on Question 5 (Table 6, above) can be attributed to alignment between classroom experiences, instructional processes, and review/reconstruction processes that promoted student understanding of the rule of economics that in a perfectly competitive firm P=MR. Students, during direct instruction, took notes and observed examples to acquire this knowledge. Then, before the test, students were able to reproduce this knowledge through a review activity (i.e. the review poster). When students then took the test, the nature of the item content and structure reflected exactly what they had learned in class.</p> <p>On the other hand, student failure on Question 17 (Table 7) can be ascribed to a lack of relevant classroom experiences and knowledge acquisition processes that were aligned with the test item content and structure. Students, while having exposure to concepts featured in the question (e.g. elasticity, inelasticity, monopoly, a demand curve) the structure of the question and its use of visual language that referenced a graph, did not align with student classroom experiences or knowledge acquisition processes in class. The one student, Sean, who was able to answer this question correctly engaged in a unique knowledge acquisition process, quiz corrections.</p> <p>Understanding instructional decision-making, assessment construction, and student experiences through this lens emphasizes the importance of alignment throughout a unit of instruction. Ms. Walter's goals, even as she defined them in the pre-unit interview, were never explicitly about student learning. When Ms. Walter talked about her hopes for students during the unit, she spoke in terms of what experiences she wanted students to have (e.g. limited time with lecture, simulations) rather than what she wanted students to know, understand, and be able to do (i.e. learning objectives). The end-of-unit assessment that Ms. Walter constructed using AP released test items communicated a different goal, success on the end-of-course examination. This goal, while clearly important to the students and Ms. Walter based on their interviews, was rarely discussed during class. Students were measured on outcomes that were not fully represented through instruction in this AP Microeconomics classroom (i.e. performance on a multiple-choice test) and were, therefore, unable to practice or receive feedback on their work towards these outcomes. While Ms. Walter may have expected the students to develop deep conceptual knowledge from the learning experiences, there was a gap between her expectations and the reality of student learning. Students did engage in two practice quizzes that mimicked their end-of-unit test, but they did not receive feedback outside of their score on these five question quizzes. These findings indicate the important distinction between students' classroom experiences and learning outcomes and between a teachers' instructional goals for their students and their learning goals.</p> <p>The more experiential and student-centered activities that Ms. Walter planned did have the potential to help students improve their economics knowledge, but the effectiveness of these activities was stymied by the lack of a basis for conceptual understandings of economics for students. Learning, as [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref105">34</reflink>] defines it, is possible when instruction builds on students' background knowledge and draws connections with new constructs. A discussion on an episode of King of the Hill or a game of Monopoly are only powerful tools for learning when scaffolds are in place to connect what students already know, or think they know, to new constructs.</p> <p>Otherwise, these activities have the potential to become purely ornamental. Our findings illuminate a key absence in Ms. Walter's classroom of instructional scaffolds, deep meaningful feedback, and formative assessment: All of which are important for student-centered instruction to be effective. Further, Ms. Walter's level of content expertise may have limited her ability to effectively teach complex economic concepts using student-centered methods of instruction. As [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref106">8</reflink>] found in an AP European History classroom, the instructor needed experience and a deep level of content knowledge to both prepare students for the end-of-course assessment and foster understanding of course content.</p> <p>Ms. Walter's decision-making was impacted by several factors including her understanding of best-practice social studies instructional methods, her own philosophy of teaching, the AP curriculum defined by College Board, and the pressures of the end-of-unit test. The pressures Ms. Walter faced and how she interpreted and adapted the course in response to them corroborate [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref107">29</reflink>] findings that place teachers at the center of assessment and curriculum sensemaking. Teachers distill innumerable pressures to create a particular classroom experience for their students. These findings further emphasize the importance of teacher's role as gatekeeper for student experiences ([<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref108">49</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib50" id="ref109">50</reflink>]) but suggest an expansion of this role to include how students face the pressures of both classroom-based and large-scale assessment.</p> <p>Our findings build on the body of literature on students thinking about their learning on multiple-choice tests. Students were successfully able to answer questions that required fact-recall of foundational economic concepts. Further, students and their teacher all pointed to similar moments in class when this content was learned. Corroborating the work of [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref110">42</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref111">43</reflink>]) and [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref112">47</reflink>], we also found that students engaged in 'construct irrelevant' reasoning unrelated to economic concepts and skills to answer test questions. Student success or failure on the multiple-choice test items revealed more complexity than a disconnect between what they had learned about economics and how they were able to perform on the test. Student think-alouds revealed a lack of experiences in class that aligned with the skills required to successfully answer questions on the end-of-unit assessment that helped develop a deep conceptual understanding of microeconomics. In particular, students were not exposed to economic ways of thinking that were necessary to success. These findings extend the argument of [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref113">4</reflink>] that successful PCK in economics focuses not just on knowledge of economics content and concepts or interdisciplinary knowledge, but also procedural knowledge that draws on math, graphs, and data visualization.</p> <hd id="AN0181430729-16">Implications and Conclusions</hd> <p>The student experience of this unit of study and their sensemaking of the end-of-unit assessment have important implications for teaching, teacher education, and future research on the connections between instruction and student learning in the secondary social studies classroom. This case study indicates there may be a need for support for teachers in the field in aligning planning, instruction, and assessment. Professional development for in-service teachers should focus on the connections between best practice instruction and assessment, rather than instructional moves alone. Further, the reality of the broader policy context cannot be ignored as teachers continue face pressures to assess their students in certain ways from multiple sources: school-, district-, and state- level assessment initiatives, continued end-of-course high-stakes multiple choice tests, new initiatives focusing and project- and problem- based assessment, often competing with, rather than working in concert with, a teachers' own vision of assessment. In-service teachers need support in evaluating test items, designing their own test items, aligning test items to their instruction and their goals, and in teaching students to think about testing as a part of their learning process. Ms. Walter, for example, could have been empowered in knowing that her short traditional lectures seemed to help students greatly on multiple-choice questions that focused on fact-recall of economic content knowledge. More assessment-based research like the work of [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref114">42</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref115">43</reflink>]) and [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref116">47</reflink>] is necessary to unpack the complex questions of alignment raised in this manuscript.</p> <p>In teacher education, this case study pushes us to think deeply about how we expose pre-service teachers to the concept of assessment and how this relates to their understanding of instructional planning and enactment. Assessment in teacher education programs is often treated as content neutral; that is, courses are often offered for assessment across the secondary content areas (social studies, science, mathematics, and English language arts). This model of instruction ignores that high quality assessment, much like high quality instruction, is disciplinary in nature. When assessment is woven into our understanding of instruction, pre-service teachers can be taught disciplinary instructional moves alongside disciplinary methods of assessment to document student progress toward success in discipline-specific content knowledge, understandings, and skills. As pre-service teachers leverage social studies best practices such as discussion, inquiry, and source analysis, they should also learn disciplinary ways to measure student growth and success in these realms. In addition, teacher educators and researchers should explore how these disciplinary ways of knowing and assessing may vary across disciplines within social studies (e.g. economics, history, geography, civics, etc.). While much high-quality work has been done to understand what it means to "know" and "do" history or civics, much less is known about disciplinary knowledge in economics.</p> <p>Ms. Walter's classroom raises important questions about how teachers make sense of student learning and alter their instruction based on formative assessment while still navigating an externally imposed assessment context. Research should continue to explore more than the actions of just teachers or just students in the secondary social studies classroom, but the instructional dynamic that connects them ([<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref117">5</reflink>]). Teachers and schools now have more flexibility with regards to the types of classroom assessments they employ due to shifting federal and state policy that endorses the use of portfolios and performance assessments ([<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref118">13</reflink>]). Future research should explore how teachers and students navigate this new policy context and how this impacts a classroom-level understanding of learning.</p> <p>Corresponding author: Michael Gurlea, michael.gurlea@bsu.edu</p> <hd id="AN0181430729-17">Appendix A. Interview Protocols</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0181430729-18">Teacher Interview #1 (Pre-Unit) Topics:</hd> <p>Background:</p> <p></p> <ulist> <item> • How long have you been teaching? How long have you been teaching this particular content area?</item> <p></p> <item> • What is your educational background?</item> <p></p> <item> • Describe the class—what are the students like?</item> </ulist> <p>Learning Targets &amp; Assessment of Student Learning</p> <p></p> <ulist> <item> • What do you hope to accomplish during this unit of study?</item> <p></p> <item> • How do you approach planning for this unit?</item> <p></p> <item> • In this unit, what are your objectives or learning targets?</item> <p></p> <item> • What is your approach to assessment?</item> <p></p> <item> • How would you describe your teaching style?</item> <p></p> <item> • At the end of the unit, what do you want students to know, understand and be able to do?</item> </ulist> <hd id="AN0181430729-19">Teacher Interview #2 (Post-Unit) Topics:</hd> <p>Reflection</p> <p></p> <ulist> <item> • How did the unit go?</item> <p></p> <item> • Did you meet your learning targets? How do you know?</item> <p></p> <item> • Let's talk through the assessment data. What jumps out at you? How do you think students learned [identify topics]?</item> </ulist> <hd id="AN0181430729-20">Individual Student Interview</hd> <p>Adapted from Nuthall "Project on Learning: Classroom Recording &amp; Data Analysis" <ulink href="http://www.nuthalltrust.org.nz/index.shtml">http://www.nuthalltrust.org.nz/index.shtml</ulink></p> <hd id="AN0181430729-21">General Questions:</hd> <p></p> <ulist> <item> • Name &amp; Age &amp; Grade</item> <p></p> <item> • MESA/not MESA/play sports/extracurricular</item> <p></p> <item> • Overall experiences with school.</item> <p></p> <item> • What do you do for fun? What next in life?</item> <p></p> <item> • Experiences with [insert social studies class]</item> </ulist> <p>Show each student an unanswered copy of the test. For each item in the test ask each student to describe the correct answer, to recall how he or she had learned that answer, and to recall any experiences or activities that were relevant to learning the answer.</p> <p>Ask student: "Please say anything that comes to mind as you answered the questions, any mental pictures, feelings or thoughts. Think aloud, so that you can talk as you are thinking, so that I can understand."</p> <p>Prompts for each item:</p> <p></p> <ulist> <item> a. How did you learn (know) that?</item> <p></p> <item> b. Where did you learn that?</item> <p></p> <item> c. Do you remember that coming up in class?</item> <p></p> <item> d. Was there anything said or done about that in class?</item> <p></p> <item> e. Where would you have seen (heard about) that?</item> <p></p> <item> f. Did you know that before the unit?</item> <p></p> <item> g. 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Sage.</bibtext> </blist> </ref> <aug> <p>By Michael Gurlea; Colleen Fitzpatrick; Stephanie van Hover and Ariel Cornett</p> <p>Reported by Author; Author; Author; Author</p> </aug> <nolink nlid="nl1" bibid="bib16" firstref="ref1"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl2" bibid="bib25" firstref="ref2"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl3" bibid="bib20" firstref="ref3"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl4" bibid="bib21" firstref="ref4"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl5" bibid="bib14" firstref="ref6"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl6" bibid="bib42" firstref="ref7"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl7" bibid="bib43" firstref="ref8"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl8" bibid="bib46" firstref="ref9"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl9" bibid="bib47" firstref="ref10"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl10" bibid="bib40" firstref="ref14"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl11" bibid="bib39" firstref="ref15"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl12" bibid="bib18" firstref="ref17"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl13" bibid="bib11" firstref="ref24"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl14" bibid="bib23" firstref="ref25"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl15" bibid="bib37" firstref="ref29"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl16" bibid="bib52" firstref="ref31"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl17" bibid="bib56" firstref="ref32"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl18" bibid="bib32" firstref="ref33"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl19" bibid="bib26" firstref="ref35"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl20" bibid="bib27" firstref="ref36"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl21" bibid="bib28" firstref="ref37"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl22" bibid="bib10" firstref="ref39"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl23" bibid="bib30" firstref="ref40"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl24" bibid="bib48" firstref="ref41"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl25" bibid="bib54" firstref="ref42"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl26" bibid="bib55" firstref="ref43"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl27" bibid="bib19" firstref="ref46"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl28" bibid="bib24" firstref="ref47"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl29" bibid="bib12" firstref="ref48"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl30" bibid="bib38" firstref="ref58"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl31" bibid="bib44" firstref="ref62"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl32" bibid="bib17" firstref="ref63"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl33" bibid="bib22" firstref="ref64"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl34" bibid="bib45" firstref="ref65"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl35" bibid="bib51" firstref="ref66"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl36" bibid="bib53" firstref="ref69"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl37" bibid="bib29" firstref="ref73"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl38" bibid="bib49" firstref="ref75"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl39" bibid="bib50" firstref="ref76"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl40" bibid="bib15" firstref="ref84"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl41" bibid="bib31" firstref="ref85"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl42" bibid="bib34" firstref="ref87"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl43" bibid="bib35" firstref="ref88"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl44" bibid="bib33" firstref="ref90"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl45" bibid="bib57" firstref="ref97"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl46" bibid="bib36" firstref="ref99"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl47" bibid="bib13" firstref="ref118"></nolink> |
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| Items | – Name: Title Label: Title Group: Ti Data: 'I Just Kind of Guessed': Student Constructions of Knowledge in AP Microeconomics – Name: Language Label: Language Group: Lang Data: English – Name: Author Label: Authors Group: Au Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Michael+Gurlea%22">Michael Gurlea</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Colleen+Fitzpatrick%22">Colleen Fitzpatrick</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Stephanie+van+Hover%22">Stephanie van Hover</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Ariel+Cornett%22">Ariel Cornett</searchLink> – Name: TitleSource Label: Source Group: Src Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22High+School+Journal%22"><i>High School Journal</i></searchLink>. 2023 107(1):41-68. – Name: Avail Label: Availability Group: Avail Data: University of North Carolina Press. 116 South Boundary Street, P.O. Box 2288, Chapel Hill, NC 27515-2288. Tel: 800-848-6224; Tel: 919-966-7449; Fax: 919-962-2704; e-mail: uncpress@unc.edu; Web site: https://ed.unc.edu/high-school-journal/ – Name: PeerReviewed Label: Peer Reviewed Group: SrcInfo Data: Y – Name: Pages Label: Page Count Group: Src Data: 28 – Name: DatePubCY Label: Publication Date Group: Date Data: 2023 – Name: TypeDocument Label: Document Type Group: TypDoc Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Research – Name: Audience Label: Education Level Group: Audnce Data: <searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22High+Schools%22">High Schools</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Secondary+Education%22">Secondary Education</searchLink> – Name: Subject Label: Descriptors Group: Su Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22High+School+Students%22">High School Students</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Economics+Education%22">Economics Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Microeconomics%22">Microeconomics</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Multiple+Choice+Tests%22">Multiple Choice Tests</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Student+Evaluation%22">Student Evaluation</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Student+Experience%22">Student Experience</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Advanced+Placement+Programs%22">Advanced Placement Programs</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Student+Centered+Learning%22">Student Centered Learning</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Instructional+Effectiveness%22">Instructional Effectiveness</searchLink> – Name: SubjectThesaurus Label: Assessment and Survey Identifiers Group: Su Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SU" term="%22Advanced+Placement+Examinations+%28CEEB%29%22">Advanced Placement Examinations (CEEB)</searchLink> – Name: DOI Label: DOI Group: ID Data: 10.1353/hsj.2023.a947205 – Name: ISSN Label: ISSN Group: ISSN Data: 0018-1498<br />1534-5157 – Name: Abstract Label: Abstract Group: Ab Data: This case study explored how a teacher, Ms. Walter, and her students experienced a unit of study on market structures in an Advanced Placement (AP) Microeconomics course. We employed qualitative research methods, drawing on the work of Nuthall and Alton-Lee, to connect students' experiences of classroom instruction to their reasoning on an end-of-unit multiple-choice test modeled after the AP Exam. Findings indicate a key misalignment between opportunities to learn the content during the unit and student performance on the unit test. Despite engaging in student-centered, interactive methods of instruction, students were unable to engage in the tasks required by the assessment. – Name: AbstractInfo Label: Abstractor Group: Ab Data: As Provided – Name: DateEntry Label: Entry Date Group: Date Data: 2025 – Name: AN Label: Accession Number Group: ID Data: EJ1463659 |
| PLink | https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=eric&AN=EJ1463659 |
| RecordInfo | BibRecord: BibEntity: Identifiers: – Type: doi Value: 10.1353/hsj.2023.a947205 Languages: – Text: English PhysicalDescription: Pagination: PageCount: 28 StartPage: 41 Subjects: – SubjectFull: High School Students Type: general – SubjectFull: Economics Education Type: general – SubjectFull: Microeconomics Type: general – SubjectFull: Multiple Choice Tests Type: general – SubjectFull: Student Evaluation Type: general – SubjectFull: Student Experience Type: general – SubjectFull: Advanced Placement Programs Type: general – SubjectFull: Student Centered Learning Type: general – SubjectFull: Instructional Effectiveness Type: general – SubjectFull: Advanced Placement Examinations (CEEB) Type: general Titles: – TitleFull: 'I Just Kind of Guessed': Student Constructions of Knowledge in AP Microeconomics Type: main BibRelationships: HasContributorRelationships: – PersonEntity: Name: NameFull: Michael Gurlea – PersonEntity: Name: NameFull: Colleen Fitzpatrick – PersonEntity: Name: NameFull: Stephanie van Hover – PersonEntity: Name: NameFull: Ariel Cornett IsPartOfRelationships: – BibEntity: Dates: – D: 01 M: 01 Type: published Y: 2023 Identifiers: – Type: issn-print Value: 0018-1498 – Type: issn-electronic Value: 1534-5157 Numbering: – Type: volume Value: 107 – Type: issue Value: 1 Titles: – TitleFull: High School Journal Type: main |
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