Growing Hope as a
Determinant of School Effectiveness
The EdVisions model of
secondary schools grew out of the belief that there must be a better match
between the educational environment and the core needs of adolescents. Mr.
Newell and Mr. Van Ryzin present convincing evidence
that focusing on these needs is not at odds with NCLB's focus on raising
student achievement.
DEFINING an effective school
has always placed educators in a difficult position. The passage of No Child
Left Behind (NCLB) and the rapid growth of state
testing systems are complicating matters rather than simplifying them.
Standards and standardized tests fail to take account of students' characters
or their attitudes toward life and learning. The focus of such measurement is
squarely on a single kind of ability at a single point in time. Such data can
be useful when diagnosing individual needs in basic skills and knowledge, but
they are insufficient when judging the effectiveness of teachers and schools.
What we need if we are to
judge school effectiveness is a means by which schools can be assessed as cultures that create
sets of relationships, norms of behaviors, and values and obligations that lead
to the development of healthy and productive adults. Although such elements
appear difficult to judge, it is possible to use a series of scientifically
sound self-perception surveys in conjunction with a set of school design
concepts created to produce growth in the dispositions needed for success in
life.
Focusing on youth development
is a legitimate means of determining the effectiveness of schools. In a
previous Kappan
article, Dr. James Comer outlined how the Yale Child Study Center Project was
able to effect significant academic growth in children when "teachers and
administrators bought into the value of basing their work on the principles of
child and adolescent development." Comer argued that "many practices
in education that have been developed over the past two decades have been less
successful than they might have been because they have focused primarily on
curriculum, instruction, assessment, and modes of service delivery."1
We could not agree more.
Our experience
reveals that when certain concepts are built into a learning community --
concepts that value "personhood" over ruthless efficiency and
encourage student self-directedness and teacher/student ownership
instead of top-down hierarchies -- then that community can indeed foster
healthy development. EdVisions, an intermediary organization funded by the Bill
& Melinda Gates Foundation to create and sustain secondary schools that use
teacher ownership and student-directed learning, now has more than six years of
experience in designing and implementing schools that pay attention to
adolescent development as
a means to academic success.
Over the years, EdVisions
schools have consistently achieved adequate yearly progress (AYP) under NCLB in
both reading and mathematics. Moreover, many of the schools have posted
additional indicators of success, such as performance levels in the top 25% of
comparable schools, and the schools reliably meet NCLB standards for attendance
and graduation, despite serving student populations that often have
higher-than-average numbers of low-income, special education, and
limited-English-proficient students.
To support our efforts to
expand our network of schools, EdVisions not only has created the design
essentials, the characteristics, and the tools by which such schools can be
built, but also has constructed a schoolwide measurement instrument to assess
how well each individual learning community is using the EdVisions toolkit to
meet the developmental needs of its students. This instrument is called the
Hope Study.
The Hope Study was originally
designed to evaluate whether our educational setting would produce more
positive student outcomes than the traditional model of a secondary school. The
basic proposition of our model grew out of the theory of adolescent development
known as "stage/environment fit," which hypothesizes three core,
overarching needs of adolescents: autonomy, belongingness, and competence.2
(Autonomy refers to the opportunity for self-management and choice,
belongingness refers to the depth and quality of interpersonal relationships,
and competence refers to the desire to be effective and successful.) According
to this theory, a mismatch between these developmental needs of adolescents and
the educational environment can result in such negative outcomes as
disengagement, dropping out, or behavioral problems. However, a better match
between the needs of adolescents and the educational environment should result
in higher levels of motivation, engagement, and achievement.3 In addition,
placing students in a more developmentally appropriate environment should have
a positive effect on student psychological health.
Thus the major questions we
have asked in evaluating EdVisions schools have been, Is our educational
environment developmentally healthier for adolescents, and, if so, how do they
respond?
To assess an educational
environment, we measure the degree to which the school context supports the
students' core developmental needs of autonomy, belongingness, and competence.
Measuring the first two components is relatively straightforward, but measuring
competence is not so simple. In the Hope Study, we measure support for student
competence by means of a concept known as "goal orientation."
In examining student outcomes, academics and standardized test scores are just one piece of the puzzle. From a developmental psychology perspective, student beliefs about themselves (i.e., psychological health) and their attitudes toward school (i.e., motivation and engagement) are also important contributors to academic achievement. Thus, in addition to measuring student perceptions of the environment in terms of autonomy, belongingness, and competence, we also gathered data on how students respond to the environment in terms of engagement and psychological health.
The Measurements
Autonomy. Erik Erikson argued that the need for autonomy is
innate in all human beings and that a frustration of this need during childhood
or adolescence leads to maladaptive behavior and neurosis. Subsequently,
research in education has demonstrated the value of student autonomy in
encouraging academic success and personal development. Giving students autonomy doesn't mean that they "get to do
whatever they want"; rather, it means that the student's personal point of
view is acknowledged and that students are given some level of choice in
satisfying learning requirements. These types of high-autonomy learning
situations stimulate student motivation, engagement, and persistence. These in
turn result in higher levels of achievement and lower dropout rates.4 In
contrast, a controlling approach in the classroom reduces perceptions of
autonomy, which can interfere with student learning and creativity, especially
with regard to more complex tasks.
Autonomy is also essential to
healthy adolescent development.5 Higher levels
of autonomy are associated with positive coping strategies in school, whereas
less autonomy is associated with higher levels of anxiety and negative coping
strategies. Lack of autonomy in childhood and adolescence,
when the need for increasing amounts of autonomy is critical to psychological
development, can lead to various forms of psychopathology and increased
participation in externalizing or high-risk behaviors.
The Hope Study measures
student perceptions of autonomy in terms of self-reported reasons for taking
certain actions in school. To do this, we make use of the Academic
Self-Regulation Questionnaire, originally developed by Edward Deci of the University of Rochester.
Belongingness. The need to belong or to form strong, mutually
supportive relationships and to maintain these relationships through regular
contact is a fundamental human motivation. It can affect emotional patterns and
cognitive processes alike.
In school, positive peer
relations and teacher/student relationships are vital to maintaining high
levels of motivation, engagement, achievement, and positive behavior.6 By
contrast, socially rejected students show lower levels of engagement, have
higher levels of academic and behavioral problems, and can be at significant
risk of dropping out of school.7
Belongingness also has a
profound impact on adolescent mental heath and
well-being.8 Intimate,
supportive relationships can enhance adjustment, perceived competence, and
self-esteem; they can also reduce emotional distress and suicidal thoughts and
lead to lower levels of involvement in high-risk behaviors.
The Hope Study measures
belongingness in terms of student perceptions of support from educators and
from the general peer group in the school. To do this, we use the Classroom
Life Scale, originally developed by David Johnson of the University of
Minnesota.
Competence. A student's "goal orientation" refers to
the reasons behind his or her efforts to achieve. A "learning" or
"mastery" goal orientation represents a desire to achieve purely for
the purpose of obtaining knowledge and increasing skills. A
"performance" or "ego" goal orientation, on the other hand,
represents a focus on appearances rather than on real learning. Thus, for a
student with a "performance" goal orientation, the purpose of all
activity in school is not to enjoy learning or to satisfy personal interest but
to demonstrate superiority or to avoid the appearance of failure.
Research has found that the
perceived goal orientation of a school can significantly affect a student's own
goal orientation. Students who perceive that their school exhibits a
"learning" goal orientation seek challenges, show persistence in the
face of adversity, use more effective learning strategies, have more positive
attitudes, and are more cognitively engaged in learning.9 A
"learning" goal orientation in a school fosters a desire among
students to learn for the sake of learning, without need for external
comparisons. As a consequence, it has been linked to higher levels of
motivation and, in turn, of academic achievement.
On the other hand, students
who perceive a "performance" goal orientation in their school seek to
avoid challenge and, in the face of failure, exhibit a "learned
helplessness" response.10 As a result,
a "performance" goal orientation in a school leads to reduced
motivation and lower academic achievement.
The Hope Study measures
students' perceptions of the goal orientations of their schools. To do this, we
make use of the Patterns of Adaptive Learning Survey, developed by Robert Roeser of Tufts University.
Engagement. Engagement refers to a student's behavior and
attitudes in school. Being behaviorally engaged, for example, means that a
student works hard, concentrates, and pays attention. A student who is not
behaviorally engaged is bored, distracted, and doing just enough to get by.
Being emotionally engaged means that a student enjoys being in school and
learning new things, whereas an emotionally disengaged student worries or feels
discouraged and believes that school is not a fun place to be.
The quality of students'
engagement in school correlates with the amount of effort and persistence they
put into their learning.11 Students who
are not engaged are more likely not to be able to complete their work on time
and not achieve to their potential. An engaged learner, however, attacks
schoolwork with passion and regularly achieves solid results. The quality of
the learning is also superior for engaged learners, who obtain a deeper
understanding of the material and retain knowledge for a longer period of time.
Finally, engaged learners are more likely to complete school.12
Engagement in learning is
encouraged when students' core developmental needs are met in school. In other
words, if the school environment is perceived as providing opportunity for
autonomy, support for belongingness, and a "learning" goal orientation
instead of a "performance" goal orientation, then students will be
more engaged in their learning.13
The Hope Study measures
students' self-reported engagement from both a behavioral and an emotional
perspective. To do this, we use the Engagement vs. Disaffection with Learning scale, originally developed by Ellen Skinner of
Portland State University.
Psychological health. We assessed students' psychological health using a
measurement known as Dispositional Hope. The concept of "hope"
reflects an individual's perceptions regarding his or her ability to clearly
conceptualize goals, develop specific strategies to reach those goals, and initiate
and sustain activity based on those strategies. According to hope theory, a
goal can be anything that an individual desires to experience, create, obtain,
accomplish, or become. A goal may be related to grades in school or activities
outside of school, but the important thing is that the goal
have value to the individual.
Hope can benefit students
during their time in school as well as in other parts of their lives.14
Students who are more hopeful not only set more challenging school-related
goals for themselves when compared to lower-hope students, but they also tend
to perceive that they will be more successful at attaining their goals even if
they do not experience immediate success.
More hopeful students also
perform better in college.15 Hope scores
can predict final grades in a college class, after taking into account the
grades on the midterm exam. In addition, hope scores can predict college
grade-point averages, after controlling for entrance-examination scores on the
ACT. Higher-hope students are also more likely to graduate. In other words, for
students of relatively equal ability, the higher-hope students have a greater
chance of success in college. Finally, higher-hope people report more optimism
about life, better physical health, and greater levels of happiness, as well as
less anxiety and depression.
The Hope Study measures the
students' self-reported levels of hope. To do this, we use the Dispositional
Hope Scale, originally developed by Richard Snyder of the University of Kansas.
The EdVisions Model
How does the EdVisions
learning model support the development of these constructs? In brief,
EdVisions' design essentials provide space, relationships, and opportunities
for students to develop autonomy, belongingness, and a "learning"
goal orientation. Out of this design emerge engagement, achievement, and
psychological health. The EdVisions design is characterized by four main
themes: a student-centered democratic culture; a self-directed, project-based
learning program; the use of authentic assessment; and teacher ownership and
accountability.
Democratic culture. A democratic learning community thrives in a small
school of 200 students or less. Upon enrollment, students join a long-term
advisory of 16 to 18 students and generally stay in this advisory during their
entire time at the school. The physical makeup of a learning community consists
of a series of personal student workstations organized within advisory spaces,
an arrangement that gives ownership to students. Teacher/advisors meet twice
daily with advisees, oversee student projects, keep track of advisee progress,
and provide personal support and coaching. Students are also encouraged to
support one another, and a restorative justice system is used.
To encourage active student
participation in the school community, each school has a student congress or
student senate. These organizations give students a real voice in the
management of the learning community. Students are active decision makers and
even have seats on committees for hiring new staff. Students also contribute to
the school community through processes of peer tutoring and peer mediation.
Project-based learning. The learning program is centered on self-directed,
project-based learning. Each student's uniqueness is nurtured and respected,
and individual learning styles are taken into account. The design of projects
is guided by student interest and facilitated by teacher/advisors to ensure
compliance with state standards for learning.
Each student has a personal
learning plan that emphasizes student interests, goals, strengths, and
weaknesses, and, starting in ninth grade, each student has a postsecondary
education plan. Student movement through state learning standards is tracked
with an electronic project-management system that also supports the design of
project proposals, reflection and journaling, documentation of time and
learning, and self-assessment. Thus student choice and self-sufficiency are
reinforced while academic rigor and accountability are ensured.
Students undertake both
individual and group projects, with collaborations often spanning more than one
school and sometimes including community members. Teacher/advisors help
students locate community experts and resources, actively engage parents in the
learning program, and support students' public presentations with community and
parental input. Students are encouraged to engage in place-based and
service-learning projects that contribute to the local community. Senior
projects are expected to exhibit students' life skills and learning-to-learn
skills prior to graduation.
Authentic assessment. Project products are assessed by teacher/advisors and
parents, and opportunities are provided to make improvements before learning
credits are awarded. Each student is required to present multiple projects to
the public each year, to use technology effectively, and to choose appropriate
presentation methods. Rigorous rubrics are used to assess learning-to-learn
skills and individual development, as well as performance, time management, and
project outcomes. These rubrics provide a standard set of evaluation criteria
while also allowing assessment to be customized according to the idiosyncratic
nature of each project. As a result, students have the opportunity to excel and
benefit from high expectations without undergoing direct comparison to others.
Our electronic
project-management tool allows us to aggregate individual and schoolwide growth
and enables students to develop electronic portfolios of their work.
Standardized test scores are systematically gathered, tracked, and used to
inform the personal learning plans of each student as well as decisions about
the learning program and continuous improvement plans at the school level.
Teacher ownership. Not only are students valued highly, but so are
teachers. The EdVisions model calls for teacher leadership and ownership of the
entire school enterprise. This provides staff members with the opportunity to
be involved in whole-school decision making and ensures the highest levels of
personal accountability. It may be true that the teacher/advisors in EdVisions'
schools work very hard -- and in some cases for less money than their peers in
traditional environments. However, they have complete control over their
schools and their professional lives.
Initial Findings
The first set of data was
obtained in 2004 from students in both EdVisions schools and traditional
secondary schools. After verifying that the correlations were very strong
between autonomy, belongingness, goal orientation, engagement, and hope, we
performed more detailed analysis and noticed some marked differences between
EdVisions schools and the traditional schools.
For one thing, student
perceptions of autonomy, belongingness, and a "learning" goal
orientation were generally higher in EdVisions schools, even though the school
populations generally included more low-SES, special education, and
limited-English-proficient students. Even more interesting, the EdVisions
students showed a higher level of engagement than did students in traditional
schools, and EdVisions students showed an upward trend in hope, while students
in traditional schools showed a flat trend in hope. This finding is in line
with existing research showing that engagement generally goes down over time in
most secondary schools. The fact that it was higher in EdVisions schools
encouraged us to move forward and gather more data.
Our next step was to directly
compare three schools located in the same rural area southwest of Minneapolis.
The three schools contained demographically similar students, and the qualifications
of staff members were comparable. One of the schools was a long-term EdVisions
site, one school was a relatively new EdVisions site, and one school was a
traditional comprehensive secondary school, not unlike many others in rural
Minnesota. Surveys at all three schools were administered multiple times, so
longitudinal measures of change could be captured for the same students.
The data indicated that
student perceptions of autonomy, teacher support, and a "learning"
goal orientation were significantly higher at the EdVisions sites, while
perceptions of a "performance" goal orientation were significantly
higher in the traditional high school. Only measures of peer support were
relatively similar, although EdVisions students showed slightly higher levels.
Students in the EdVisions
schools also demonstrated significantly higher levels of engagement, and
student hope scores grew over the relatively short span of one semester, while
hope scores fell slightly for students in the traditional high school over the
same period. In EdVisions schools, hope grew from an aggregate score of 48.87
to 50.69 at the older site and from 47.47 to 49.45 at the newer site. Both
increases were statistically significant. Hope fell slightly from 48.59 to
48.35 at the traditional site. The growth in hope among the EdVisions students
is remarkable given that research has generally found hope scores to be quite
stable during adolescence and adulthood, unless a significant intervention is
introduced.
The increases in hope scores
were accompanied by other indicators of success at EdVisions sites. Scores in
reading and math went up at every EdVisions site where data were available for
three years, increasing a total of 6.3 percentiles in reading and 8.7
percentiles in math. ACT scores at the nine oldest EdVisions sites averaged
22.4 in 2004-05, which is higher than the Minnesota state average (22.2). These
data suggest that growth in hope and growth in standardized test scores are
correlated with each other, and it seems likely that the joint rise in scores
is the result of the higher levels of engagement seen in the EdVisions schools.
In other words, the "progressive" educational goal of creating happy,
healthy, self-motivated students is not superfluous in the era of NCLB. Indeed,
such students also happen to be higher achievers than their less happy, less
healthy, less motivated peers. More research remains to be done, but the
results thus far are quite promising.
Lessons from EdVisions
The EdVisions design involves
wholesale school reform and the re-creation of the secondary school environment
from the ground up. To obtain similar results, it might be necessary to engage
in change at a similarly fundamental level. However, traditional secondary
schools can benefit from the experience of EdVisions by taking into account
adolescent needs for autonomy, belongingness, and competence. By incorporating
some of the design concepts mentioned above or by developing home-grown
practices aimed at supporting adolescent needs, it is possible that traditional
secondary schools could reverse the downward trend in student engagement over
time and show some growth in hope among their students. The methods of the Hope
Study can be used to judge how reforms at the school level are viewed by the
students, since student reaction will ultimately determine whether the reforms
are successful.
By using a set of
scientifically designed surveys that can determine how students perceive their
environment, schools can be encouraged to adopt reforms aimed at enhancing the
psychological "healthiness" of educational settings. The desire to
create a psychologically healthy school environment should not be seen as
another example of progressive educators tilting at windmills, nor should it be
rejected out-of-hand as beyond the scope of education in the era of NCLB. In
fact, our experience indicates that seeking to create psychologically healthy
schools offers an opportunity to promote higher
levels of achievement.
In sum, much has to be done to
overcome the present fixation on assessing school effectiveness solely by
standardized tests and other traditional measures. We believe, as does Comer, that improvement in school culture must come first,
"or the relationships needed to engage students in a powerful way won't be
created."16 Putting in
place rigid curriculum, instruction, testing, and delivery systems in an
environment that fails to meet adolescents' needs will not lead to long-term
effects for students. Our experience at EdVisions has led us to believe that
the new three R's (relationships, relevance, and rigor) are at least as
important as the old ones. At EdVisions schools, creating environments that
allow for good relationships, relevant learning experiences, and rigorous
assessment has created passionate, self-motivated, lifelong learners.
1. James P.
Comer, "Child and Adolescent Development: The Critical Missing Focus in
School Reform," Phi Delta Kappan, June 2005, p. 758.
2. Richard M.
Ryan and Edward L. Deci, "Self-Determination
Theory and the Facilitation of Intrinsic Motivation, Social Development, and
Well-Being," American
Psychologist, January 2000, pp. 68-78.
3. Jacquelynne S. Eccles and Carol Midgley,
"Stage/Environment Fit: Developmentally Appropriate Classrooms for Early
Adolescents," in Russell E. Ames and Carol Ames, eds., Research on Motivation in Education,
Vol. 3 (San Diego, Calif.: Academic Press, 1989), pp. 139-86; and Robert W. Roeser and Jacquelynne S. Eccles,
"Adolescents' Perceptions of Middle School: Relation to Longitudinal
Changes in Academic and Psychological Adjustment," Journal of Research on Adolescence,
vol. 8, 1998, pp. 123-58.
4. Edward L. Deci et al., "Facilitating Internalization: The
Self-Determination Theory Perspective," Journal
of Personality, vol. 62, 1994, pp. 119-42; Wendy S. Grolnick and Richard M. Ryan, "Autonomy in Children's
Learning: An Experimental and Individual Difference Investigation," Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, vol. 52, 1987, pp. 890-98; and Richard M. Ryan and
Wendy S. Grolnick, "Origins and Pawns in the
Classroom: Self-Report and Projective Assessments of Individual Differences in
Children's Perceptions," Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 50, 1986, pp. 550-58.
5. Richard M.
Ryan and James P. Connell, "Perceived Locus of Causality and
Internalization: Examining Reasons for Acting in Two Domains," Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, vol. 57, 1989, pp. 749-61; and Richard M. Ryan, Edward
L. Deci, and Wendy S. Grolnick,
"Autonomy, Relatedness and the Self: Their Relation to Development and
Psychopathology," in Dante Cicchetti and Donald
J. Cohen, eds., Developmental
Psychopathology, Vol. 1 (New York: Wiley, 1995), pp. 618-55.
6. Kathryn R. Wentzel, "Social Relationships and Motivation in
Middle School: The Role of Parents, Teachers, and Peers," Journal of Educational Psychology,
vol. 90, 1998, pp. 202-9; and Kathryn R. Wentzel and
Kathryn Caldwell, "Friendships, Peer Acceptance, and Group Membership:
Relations to Academic Achievement in Middle School," Child Development,
December 1997, pp. 1198-1209.
7. Melissa E. DeRosier, Janis B. Kupersmidt,
and Charlotte J. Patterson, "Children's Academic and Behavioral Adjustment
as a Function of the Chronicity and Proximity of Peer
Rejection," Child
Development, December 1994, pp. 1799-1813; and Jeffrey G. Parker
and Steven R. Asher, "Peer Relations and Later Personal Adjustment: Are
Low-Accepted Children at Risk?," Psychological
Bulletin, vol. 102, 1987, pp. 357-89.
8. Eric F. Dubow et al., "A Two-Year Longitudinal Study of
Stressful Life Events, Social Support, and Social Problem-Solving Skills:
Contributions to Children's Behavioral and Academic Adjustment," Child Development, June
1991, pp. 583-99; and Susan Harter, "Teacher and Classmate Influences on
Scholastic Motivation, Self-Esteem, and the Level of Voice in
Adolescents," in Jaana Juvonen
and Kathryn Wentzel, eds., Social Motivation: Understanding
Children's School Adjustment (New York: Cambridge University Press,
1996), pp. 11-42.
9. Martin V.
Covington, "Goal Theory, Motivation, and School Achievement: An
Integrative Review,"
Annual Review of Psychology, vol. 51, 2000, pp. 171-200; and Elaine
S. Elliot and Carol S. Dweck, "Goals: An
Approach to Motivation and Achievement," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
vol. 54, 1988, pp. 5-12.
10. Ibid.
11. Jennifer Fredricks, Phyllis Blumenfeld,
and Alison Paris, "School Engagement: Potential of the Concept, State of
the Evidence," Review
of Educational Research, vol. 74, 2004, pp. 59-109.
12. Jeremy D.
Finn and Donald A. Rock, "Academic Success Among
Students at Risk for School Failure," Journal
of Applied Psychology, vol. 82, 1997, pp. 221-34.
13. James P.
Connell and James G. Wellborn, "Competence, Autonomy and Relatedness: A
Motivational Analysis of Self-System Processes," in Megan R. Gunnar and L.
Alan Sroufe, eds., Minnesota
Symposium on Child Psychology, Vol. 22 (Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum,
1991), pp. 43-77.
14. C. Richard
Snyder, "Hope Theory: Rainbows in the Mind," Psychological Inquiry,
vol. 13, 2002, pp. 249-75.
15. C. Richard
Snyder et al., "Hope and Academic Success in College," Journal of Educational Psychology,
vol. 94, 2002, pp. 820-26.
16. Comer, p. 762.