A Fairer and Simpler Approach to Value Added Calculation.

He, Q.; Tymms, P.

Abstract

The assessment of the achievement of students and the quality of schools has drawn increasing attention from education researchers, policy makers and practitioners, and various accountability and feedback systems involving the use of value added techniques have been developed for evaluating the effect of schools on the performance of students. Central to such systems is the use of value added measures as performance indicators that are assumed to reflect the effects of the operation of schools. Various models have been employed for calculating value added, including the use of linear regression models which link students' present and prior performance measures. One of the limitations associated with the use of the conventional linear regression method in value added calculation is that the value added will be overestimated for students with higher prior performnce while that for students with low prior performance will be underestimated. This study proposes an alternative approach, the Principal Axis approach, to calculating value added which eliminates such limitations.

Citation

He, Q., & Tymms, P. (2007, April). A Fairer and Simpler Approach to Value Added Calculation. Paper presented at AERA 2007, Chicago

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: AERA 2007
• Conference Location: Chicago
• Publication Date: 2007-04