How Do Schools and Teachers Affect Immigrant Students ...openaccesslibrary.org/images/BGS314_Mido_Chang.pdf · How Do Schools and Teachers Affect Immigrant Students’ Science Performance?

International Journal of Arts and Sciences 3(17): 38-46 (2010)

CD-ROM. ISSN: 1944-6934

© InternationalJournal.org

How Do Schools and Teachers Affect Immigrant Students’ Science Performance? Mido Chang, Virginia Tech, USA Kusum Singh, Virginia Tech, USA Youngji Y. Sung, Virginia Tech, USA Sunha Kim, Virginia Tech, USA

Abstract: Science education for immigrant students, particularly English language

learners (ELL), cannot be accomplished successfully unless teachers and schools bridge

the gap between cultural and linguistic differences (Cho & McDonnough, 2009; Lee,

2005). Several studies report that immigrant students who do not have an American

cultural and linguistic understanding display significantly lower science performance

than native-born English-speaking students in schools (Crosnoe, Lopez-Gonzalez, &

Muller, 2004; Pong & Hao, 2007; Schnepf, 2004). The main objective of this project is

to examine the effects of teachers’ certification in science and school demographic

environments (minority student proportion, ELL student proportion, and the proportion of

students who are eligible for free lunch) on the science performance of eight grade

students, with focused attention to ELL students. The study employed a three-level

Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) to a US national data, the Early Childhood

Longitudinal Survey (ECLS-K). The study found that while teacher certification in

science and the ELL student proportion in a school did not have a significant effect on

students’ science performance, the minority student proportion and the proportion of

students who are eligible for free lunch had a negative effect on the average performance

of students. Interestingly, ELL students displayed comparatively higher science

performance in schools with high minority population where native-born English-

speaking students had low science performances. The findings of the study from national

databases will lay the foundation for further research regarding science outcomes of

immigrant students.

Keywords: immigrant students, science performance, teacher science degree, school

environments

Introduction Despite the widespread belief that science can be learned using a universal language,

research has shown that science subjects include a large amount of content-specific

vocabulary and background knowledge rooted in American and European cultures (Lee,

2005). Science education for immigrant students, particularly ELL students, cannot be

accomplished successfully unless teachers and schools bridge the gap between cultural

and linguistic differences (Cho & McDonnough, 2009; Lee, 2005). Several studies report


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that immigrant students who do not have an American cultural and linguistic

understanding display significantly lower science performance than native-born English-

speaking students in schools (Chang & Kim, 2009; Crosnoe, Lopez-Gonzalez, & Muller,

2004; Pong & Hao, 2007; Schnepf, 2004). The performance gap is particularly large for

immigrant students with limited English proficiency (LEP) (Baldi, Jin, Green, & Herget,

2007; Chang, 2008; Chang, Singh, & Filer, 2009; Haile & Nguyen, 2007; Kim & Chang,

2008, 2010; Muller, Stage, & Kinzie, 2001; Sung & Chang, 2008).

The main objective of this project is to examine the effects of teacher certification in

science and school demographic environments on the science performance of students in

middle school. The study particularly paid attention to the science proficiency of

immigrant students to suggest educational policies that are responsive to the needs of

immigrant students for their school success.

The study used the eighth grade data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey

Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K), a US nationally representative data. As a main statistical

tool, the study employed a three-level Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) to consider

the nested structure of students, teachers, and schools. By benefiting from advanced

features of the HLM analysis, this study explored how students get influenced from

teachers’ educational preparation in science, and how dynamics between students and

teachers are influenced by school environments. The overarching research questions of

this study are as follows:

1. Does a teacher’s certificate in science show an effect on the science performance

of students in middle school? If it does, is the effect significantly different for

immigrant students?

2. Do school environmental factors (proportions of racial minorities, English

language learners, and students who are eligible for free lunch) have effects on the

average science performance of middle schools? If they do, are the effects

different for native-born and ELL student groups?

Literature Review Immigrant Students and School Performance

Over the past ten years from 1996 to 2006, the growth rate of ELL students was 57.17%

in the total PK-12 enrollment, having 3.66% of a growth rate of total enrollment (NCELA,

2009). Approximately 10 million students in the US, aged from 5 to 17, speak other

languages than English at home (NCES, 2005). Unfortunately, those large number of

ELL students have displayed significantly lower school performance, including science.

The study on ELL students’ science performance in middle school and significant factors

associated with their school performance is particularly important to reduce the science

performance gap and to ensure the academic success in the later schooling (National

Research Council, 2009).


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Teacher Certification in Science

Research has shown that teacher’s qualification in science fields is associated with high

science performance of students (Darling-Hammond, Berry, & Thoreson, 2001;

Goldhaber & Brewer, 1996). A major policy issue in the U.S. is that science education

suffers from a lack of certified teachers. Only 69% of science teachers in middle and high

schools majored in science fields in college (Goldhaber & Brewer, 1996). Teachers

without standard certification tend to teach African-American students and students from

low SES (Darling-Hammond, Holtzman, Gatlin, & Heilig, 2005). Students in schools

with a high percentage of ELL students are likely to be served by unqualified and

substitute teachers, as compared to those in schools with a low percentage of ELL

students (de Cohen, Deterding, & Clewell, 2005).

School Environments

The performance of immigrant students is more strongly affected by the school

environment than that of non-immigrant students (Han, 2008). Conversely, schools can

be an effective assimilation vehicle for immigrant students. The average income of

students’ families in a school has been found to have a long-term effect on immigrant

students’ science achievement, just as their personal family income is a major factor for

school performance (Kyriakides & Creemers, 2008). Many immigrant families live in

inner-city areas, where immigrant students are negatively influenced by native-born

English-speaking peers who tend to exhibit a lower level of school engagement (Hao &

Pong, 2008). Yet, when immigrant students are enrolled in schools in which ELL

students are highly concentrated (usually in urban areas), they are segregated from

mainstream education. Moreover, students in schools with a high percentage of ELL

students are more likely to be served by unqualified and substitute teachers, as compared

to those in schools with a low percentage of ELL students (de Cohen et al. 2005). These

school environment factors affect students’ educational performance.

Methods Data

The study used the ECLS-K eighth-grade data which were collected from spring 2006 to

spring 2007. The ECLS-K is a nationally representative cohort from kindergarten through

eighth grade. The total of 21,260 kindergarteners in the fall of 1998 participated in the

base year data and the total 9,725 eighth grade students participated in the various

measurements until the end of spring 2007. The sampling method of the ECLS-K used a

multistage probability sample design. In the primary sampling of the ECLS-K, the units

were randomly selected from 90 strata of geographic areas consisting of counties. In the

second stage schools were randomly selected within sampled counties. The total 1277

schools, 914 public and 363 private, participated in the data collection. At the final stage

all students within the selected schools became final units (Tourangeau, et al. 2006).

Variables

The science performance score measured by Item Response Theory (IRT) was the

dependent variable of the study. The major benefit of the IRT scale score is that it


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measures students’ ability by separating it out from test characteristics (e.g., item

difficulty and item discrimination). In other words, the IRT score measures

comparatively true student ability that was not contaminated by test characteristics.

As the objectives of the study indicated, this study focused on immigrant students,

specifically ELL students. The study conducted analyses for two language groups of

students: native-born English-speaking and ELL students. The native-born English

speaking group was coded as 0 and served as the reference group in the analysis while the

ELL group was coded as 1.

The main predictor variables for the study are teacher certification in science and three

school environment variables (minority student proportion, ELL student proportion, and

the proportion of students who are eligible for free lunch). The variable of teacher

certification in science is a composite score of science teacher certificates either in the

fall or the spring of the eighth grade (Yes=1; No=0). The proportion of minority students

in a school was a variable with five categories (1=less than 10%; 2=10% to less than

25%; 3=25% to less than 50%; 4=50% to less than 75%; and 5=75% or more). The

variables for proportions of ELL students and students eligible for free lunch were actual

percentages of those students. The variable of the proportion of students who are eligible

for free lunch in a school was used as a proxy for the average school poverty level.

The important student variables of gender (male=0; female=1), and socio-economic

status measured in a continuous scale were specified in the analysis.

Analysis

The study ran a three-level HLM analysis applying a proper weight (the 8th grade full

child weight full sample: Cwc90) to treat design effects and to have the sample

representative of the US national 8th

grade student population and arrive at study

conclusions with generalizability.

The three models at each level of HLM analysis are specified as follows:

Level 1 model:

Y =π0 + π1*(Sex) + π2*(ELL)+ π3*(SES) + e.

Level 2 model:

π0 = β00 + β01*(Science Teacher),

π1 = β10 + r1,

π2 = β20, and

π3 = β30.

Level 3 model:

β00 = γ000 + γ001(Minority) + γ 002(ELL) + γ 003(Free Lunch) + μ00,

β01 = γ 010,

β10 = γ 100,


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β20 = γ 200 + γ 201(Minority) + γ 202(ELL) + γ 203(Free Lunch), and

β30 = γ 300.

Results As shown in Table 1, this paper paid attention to the science performance of ELL

students comparing it with that of native-born English-speaking students. The overall

performance of ELL students in science was significantly lower than that of native-born

English-speaking students (γ 200 = -3.092, p<0.01) after controlling for student gender

and socio-economic status.

One of the main research questions of the study, the effect of a teacher certificate in

science, did not show a significant effect on the science performance of students which

was contrary to our expectation. Another main research question regarding school

environments indicated some significant effects on student science performance. The first

school demographic environmental factor, minority proportion, showed a negative effect

on the average science performance of students (γ001 = -1.266, p<0.01). In other words,

when a school had a high proportion of minority student population, the overall science

performance of students in that school tended to be low as compared to the average

performance of a school that have a zero minority student population. The second school

environmental factor in the study, ELL student proportion did not indicate a significant

effect. The last school environment factor, the proportion of students who are eligible for

free lunch did reveal a significant, negative effect (γ003 = -0.082, p<0.01), indicating the

higher the proportion of those students in a school, the lower the average science

performance of the students in the school.

The important results of the study are the differential effects of the main predictor

variables on the science performance of ELL students. The effects of the teacher science

certificate, the ELL proportion of a school, and the school proportion of students who are

eligible for free lunch did not show significant differential effects for ELL students.

Therefore, the teacher certificate in science and the ELL proportion of a school did not

show significant associations with the science performance of ELL students. However,

when ELL students go to a school that has a high proportion of students who are eligible

for free lunch, they tend to indicate a low science performance level.

The last important finding of the study is the effect of the school minority proportion on

the science performance of ELL students. The effect was significantly positive (γ 201 =

4.087, p<0.01), with ELL students having higher science performance in a school with

the high minority population as compared to native-born students in the same condition.

In other words, ELL students did not get affected by the negative conditions as much as

native-born English-speaking students.


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Table 1. HLM Analyses for Science Achievement Using Three-Level Model

Baseline Model Teacher & School Model

Fixed Component

Coefficient SE Coefficient SE

Initial Score

Intercept 84.092** 0.270 84.858** 0.311

Intercept -1.266** 0.249

Minority Proportion 0.039 0.039

ELL Proportion -0.082** 0.014

Free Lunch Eligible Proportion

Science Degree

0.573 0.480

Gender

-2.738** 0.475

ELL

Intercept

Intercept -3.092** 0.843

Minority Proportion 4.087** 0.661

ELL Proportion -0.105 0.063

Free Lunch Eligible Proportion -0.042 0.034

SES 6.601** 0.352

Random Component

Variance 2 df Variance 2 df

Level 3 67.152 ** 4481.31 2330 34.661** 3461.25 1708

Level 2 38.469** 3385.01 2161 127.665** 4887.36 3586

Level 1 151.371 81.449

Deviance 66671.04 4 52341.62 14

Reliability of Gender 0.438

Reliability of Intercept 0.396 0.400

p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01

Discussion The primary goal of this study was to provide a sound empirical basis for policy

development on the effects of teacher certification in science and school demographical


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environments on the science performance of immigrant students. The study presented

empirical data on the effects of those factors on the science performance of ELL students

in middle school. In order for study findings to have high generalizability, the study

employed an advance statistical tool, a three-level HLM to a nationally representative

database of ECLS-K with proper weight adjustment.

The study found that the science performance of ELL students was significantly lower

than that of native-born English-speaking students, and this result supports previous

research findings that immigrant students lag behind native-born English-speaking

students (Baldi, Jin, Green, & Herget, 2007; Chang & Kim, 2009; Chang, 2008; Chang,

Singh, & Filer, 2009; Haile & Nguyen, 2007; Muller, Stage, & Kinzie, 2001; Sung &

Chang, 2008).

Against the general expectations, teacher certification in science and the ELL student

proportion in a school did not have a significant effect on students’ science performance

in the study. In that regard these results did not match with prior research findings.

According to Darling-Hammond, Berry, and Thoreson (2001) and Goldhaber and Brewer

(1996), teacher preparation or qualification in science subject areas are important

conditions for effective science teaching. The study did not find a significant interaction

of poor quality of teachers and the large population of ELL students (de Cohen et al.

2005).

However, the minority student proportion and the proportion of students who are eligible

for free lunch had a negative effect on the average performance of students as noted in

several studies (Kyriakides & Creemers, 2008).

One interesting, important finding of the study is that ELL students displayed

comparatively higher science performance in schools with high minority population

whereas native-born English-speaking students had low science performance. This

condition should be further studied in conjunction with other school factors such as

school programs for ELL students.

The findings of the study from national databases will lay the foundation for further

research regarding science outcomes of immigrant students. Though the study is based on

survey questionnaires, thus rendering any causal inferences tentative at best, this study is

a contribution to our knowledge of the effects of school environments on the educational

performance of the ELL students. Although school environment affects a student’s

academic science performance, it is not the only factor. This study further points to the

need for more future studies.


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How Do Schools and Teachers Affect Immigrant Students ...openaccesslibrary.org/images/BGS314_Mido_Chang.pdf · How Do Schools and Teachers Affect Immigrant Students’ Science Performance?