Matthew Tom and Kimberly Sofronas

Presented is research whose goal is to predict teacher candidates'  success on the Communication and Literacy Skills Test, for educator licensure.

In the late 1990s, the Department of Education in the State of Massachusetts redefined the requirements for teacher licensure, implementing a series of licensure examinations called the Massachusetts Tests for Educator Licensure [MTEL]. Since that time, many Massachusetts colleges and universities have offered preparatory support programs to help teacher candidates  pass those required tests. Little research has been conducted to determine the impact, statistical or otherwise, of these measures on students’ MTEL scores. This paper outlines the  development and analysis of a linear model for predicting the scores of teacher candidates at a small liberal arts college on the one common MTEL that all K-12 teacher candidates must successfully complete: the Communication and Literacy Skills Test.  While failing test scores are reported numerically by the Massachusetts Department of Education, passing scores are not. A variation on the Expectation Maximization (EM) algorithm is applied to address the missing data problem.

Location: Emmanuel College

Time:6:30 dinner,  7:30 lecture

To register by check, include the check made payable to BCASA, your name, affiliation, and mail by October 23 to:

Huichao Chen, PhD
Department of Biostatistics/CBAR
Harvard University
651 Huntington Ave, FXB502
Boston, MA 02115