The accuracy of teachers' expectations using Measures of Academic Performance Rasch Unit scores and spring Delaware Student Testing Program scores

The major issues raised in this correlation study concerned (a) the correlation between fall and winter MAP scores and spring DSTP scale scores in reading and mathematics, (b) the extent to which teachers were able to project students' future DSTP categorical performance based on the fall and winter MAP scores, and (c) to determine whether the correlations between RIT scores and DSTP scores were different when disaggregated by ethnicity and gender. The findings from this study suggest that RIT scores were better at projecting DSTP scale scores than teachers were at projecting DSTP performance levels, even with knowledge of MAP scores. The teachers overestimated the number of students performing in categories 1 and 2 in reading and mathematics and underestimated the number of students performing in categories 4 and 5, more so for African-American and Latino students than for European-American students. This study also found that more African-American and Latino students achieved performance levels 1 and 2 in reading and mathematics and fewer students achieved performance levels 4 and 5 in those same subjects. The review of the literature suggests teacher expectations may have been an influence in this finding. The teachers were more accurate in projecting the number of students performing in category 3 in reading and mathematics for all ethnic groups. Male and female students' reading scores in all performance levels reflected a very small gap. However, more males received performance levels 4 and 5 in mathematics. The researcher analyzed 320 sets of reading and 359 sets of mathematics data. The Pearson product-moment correlation of r = 0.77, p < 0.05, represented a statistically significant and high correlation for both the fall and winter MAP reading scores and the DSTP reading scale scores. The results of r = 0.72 and r = 0.73, p < 0.05, respectively, represented a statistically significant and high correlation for the fall and winter MAP scores and the DSTP scale scores in mathematics. The Spearman's rho correlation coefficient was used to analyze the teachers' expectations of students' reading and mathematics categorical scores and the spring DSTP reading and mathematics categorical scores.