ME.ET Instruments and Protocols
Information about : Department interview / Instructor survey / Student assessment /Institutional Review Board Forms
Download the instruments: Department Interview / Instructor survey / ME.ET non-mathematics items (see explanation below)/ IRB Forms (links below)
Mathematics department interview. Within three target sites -- Michigan, New York City, and South Carolina -- the project is surveying all mathematics departments in 4-year institutions that certify teachers in undergraduate programs. Our aim is to interview the mathematics deprtment chair or someone he or she designates as knowledgeable about the courses offered to prospective teachers. We are learningwhat courses they offer, who teaches them, what kinds of students are enrolled in the courses (e.g., prospective teachers only or general student population) and other data such as class size, textbook(s) used, common syllabi and exams, and topics covered. The department survey identifies all instructors of these courses to construct the sampling frame for the instructor survey, as well as gathering basic demographic information about instructors.
This form is used as an interview protocol with written followup as needed. The purpose of the interview is to learn what courses are offered to elementary teachers, who teaches them, whether and how they are coordinated with education (methods) courses, how they are staffed, and what content is included. We will learn whether classes have a common syllabus, common exams, or a course coordinator. This survey identifies instructors establishing the population and contacts for the instructor survey. Download a pdf copy of the interview protocol.
Instructor survey
Instructors are being surveyed to learn what and how they teach, including overall content of the course and measures of opportunities to learn in three focal topics -- fractions, multiplication, and reasoning and proof. Instructors are asked to indicate their primary and secondary goals for a detailed list of topics in the general categories of number and operations. We gather additional demographic information from instructors to learn more about who teaches these classes.
This survey is given to all instructors identified by the department as teaching the first mathematics course for prospective elementary teachers. In some cases, this is the first in a sequence of classes designed and required for elementary education majors. In other cases, this is the course they are most likely to take and is part of a general mathematics requirement (e.g., 6 credit hours of mathematics at or above a certain level), but it is not a course designed for future teachers. The survey asks detailed questions about what they teach, how they teach, what they know and understand about certification requirements and state and national standards, and what their experience is with teacher education. We focus here, as in the textbook analyses, on three topics: Fractions, multiplication, and reasoning & proof, asking instructors detailed questions about opportunities to learn within these topics.
This survey will be administered for the first time in November 2006 and may be modified before the final version is mailed out to instructors. Download a pdf copy of the current version of the instructor survey.
Student (prospective elementary teacher) assessment
A sample of students (prospective elementary teachers) enrolled in classes at certifying institutions are being surveyed to assess their mathematical knowledge after completing their mathematics courses. The assessment consists of two different forms in four versions to give a pre- and post- test for each participating section. The pre-tests consist of 18 mathematics items on two forms with 6 that are common to both forms; a set of questions about attitudes and beliefs; and a set of demographic questions. The post-tests are in two forms with 12 mathematics items identical to the pre-test items without the set of common items. The post-test does not include attitudes and beliefs questions, but we do include the demographic section in case there are students taking the post-test who did not complete the pre-test.
The mathematics items in the assessments are from the Learning Mathematics for Teaching (LMT) project and are not available for public release. We include here a link to the public release items from the LMT project. The other sections of ME.ET forms -- attitudes and beliefs, and demographics -- are available for download.
Administration of these assessments started in August 2006 and will continue through Fall 2007.
Download LMT public release items
Download ME.ET non-mathematics items
Consent forms
The project is working in approximately 80 colleges and universities. In some of these, we were required to go through their Institutional Review Board for project approval. In others, the Michigan State University approval was accepted. Below are links to the consent forms approved at Michigan State and a letter of introduction and sample report sent to instructors asking them to participate. These are included on the Web site in hopes that they may be helpful to others who are required to go through these increasingly complex processes to gain approval for research projects.
Pre-test letter and consent form
Post-test letter and consent form
Instructor contact letter and sample report
Instructor consent form
Next research page: Document Analysis
