Mathematical Sciences Education Board – Webcasts and Workshops

On Evaluating Curricular Effectiveness: Judging the Quality of K-12 Mathematics Evaluations

The Mathematical Sciences Education Board (MSEB) conducted a review of evaluations of 19 mathematics curriculum materials. The report breaks new ground in reviewing the literature that has accumulated on these K-12 mathematics curricula and in framing an ambitious and rigorous approach to curriculum evaluation that has relevance beyond mathematics. To read the consensus report online visit http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11025.html.

The committee that produced this report consisted of mathematicians, mathematics educators, and methodologists and they began with the following charge:

• Evaluate the quality of the evaluations of the thirteen National Science Foundation (NSF)-supported and six commercially generated mathematics curriculum materials;

• Determine whether the available data are sufficient for evaluating the efficacy of these materials, and if not;

• Develop recommendations about the design of a project that could result in the generation of more reliable and valid data for evaluating such materials.

The committee collected, reviewed and classified almost 700 studies, solicited expert testimony during two workshops, developed an evaluation framework, established dimensions/criteria for three methodologies (content analyses, comparative studies and case studies), drew conclusions on the corpus of studies, and made recommendations for future research. The report calls for the conduct of a mix of evaluation studies that will permit the drawing of trustworthy conclusions about curricular effectiveness, and establishes standards of evidence that individual studies should meet if they are to contribute to reliable, fair, and valid judgments about curricular effectiveness.

MSEB began a conversation on the committee’s work by hosting a two-hour seminar on September 29, 2004. The seminar was an opportunity to hear from two committee members and two respondents and discuss the report with seminar participants. Click here to view the committee’s PowerPoint presentation.