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Carolyn Kelley

October 2004

"Rewards motivate performance improvement."

This belief is common among education policymakers.

But little was known until recently about the processes that underlie successful programs linking teacher rewards to improvement in student performance.

Recent research has identified teacher expectancy as the key motivational factor distinguishing schools with improved student performance from schools in which student performance failed to improve. Generally speaking, expectancy is the belief that individual effort will result in the achievement of specified goals.

A recent study by UW-Madison education professor Carolyn Kelley and colleague Kara Finnigan (University of Rochester) examined the factors associated with teacher expectancy to illuminate the specific factors in the organizational context that might predict higher levels of teacher expectancy and, therefore, greater improvement in student performance under school-based performance award programs. Their findings offer help for policymakers and administrators who seek ways to motivate teachers to achieve accountability goals for schools.

Drawing from a broad array of studies on effective schools, Kelley and Finnigan identified  potentially important predictors of teacher expectancy and school success. They then undertook a study of school-based performance award programs in Kentucky and in North Carolina's Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district (CM), at that time among the best established school-based performance award programs in the country.

Both programs were designed to raise student achievement, but with some differences. The CM program aimed to eliminate persistent historical differences in achievement outcomes between Black and White students. Kentucky's program, meanwhile, was designed to raise overall achievement in the state to a common standard that was significantly higher than most schools had previously achieved.

Kelley and Finnigan looked at the variables of teacher attitudes, organizational context, and school demographics as they related to teacher expectancy in both Kentucky and CM.

Among teacher attitudes, perceptions of program fairness stood out as the strongest predictor of individual teacher expectancy. Fairness was construed as reflecting the perception that the program was administered fairly and that teachers within each particular school context had a fair chance of achieving the goals.

Organizational context variables found to influence expectancy included the amount and quality of feedback on student performance, principal support, professional community, and amount of conflict between school goals and accountability program goals. This finding led Kelley and Finnigan to conclude that teacher expectancy can be enhanced by (a) providing student assessment data that can help teachers meet their school goals, (b) fostering principal support of accountability goals, and (c) developing a professional community within the school.

Variables related to school demographics included school level, school size, and student socioeconomic status (SES). School reward history was found to be a significant predictor of teacher expectancy in both study sites, as was school grade level. Teachers in high schools had lower expectancies than teachers in elementary or middle schools. This finding may be attributable to the fact that (a) the departmentalized organizational structure of high schools makes school-wide efforts at reform more difficult and (b) teachers in schools with school-based performance award programs find middle and high school students more difficult to reach than elementary students.

Attributes found not to be significant predictors of teacher expectancy were teacher knowledge and skills, goal clarity, site-based management, resource alignment, and student SES.

Recommendations

Kelley and Finnigan offer the following recommendations for policymakers and administrators seeking to increase teacher expectancy and thereby the effectiveness of accountability programs:

• Give weight to teacher perceptions of fairness by designing accountability programs that take school and student demographics into account, clearly communicate program goals, and encourage teacher involvement. Communication and teacher involvement may enhance perceived fairness by clarifying program rules and giving teachers a voice in accountability program design and implementation.
• Give teachers prompt, meaningful feedback about prior student performance and make sure they have the knowledge, skills, and time to make use of data. Teacher expectancy and program effectiveness are enhanced when programs give teachers prompt feedback on assessment results, opportunities for training in interpreting assessment results, and sufficient time to analyze these data and revise curriculum and instruction approaches accordingly.
• Foster principal support for accountability goals. Accountability programs should recognize the important role of the principal in creating an environment conducive to the high levels of teacher expectancy that enhance the likelihood of goal achievement.
• Strive to develop school and accountability goals that are complementary if not completely consistent. The pervasiveness of high-stakes accountability is pushing accountability goals to the forefront. School and district administrators should work to reduce conflict between accountability goals and school goals-and acknowledge conflict when it exists.
• Set challenging but achievable goals. A history of successful goal attainment enhances teacher expectancy and motivates teachers to work toward attaining future goals. It's important to set goals at levels that will enable schools to obtain early success so that teachers are motivated to work toward continued success.
• Assist high schools in overcoming organizational features that reduce teacher expectancy.

Kelley and Finnigan examined two distinct accountability environments. Despite important design and contextual differences in the two programs, similar findings were obtained at both sites about the factors that predict higher teacher expectancy and related improvements in student performance. These findings can guide policymakers and administrators in designing more effective accountability programs.

This material was published in different form in Educational Administration Quarterly, vol. 39, no. 5 (December 2003), pp. 603-634.

The research reported in this article was supported by a grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts and the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Research and Improvement.