Improving Educational Outcomes

Improving Educational Outcomes Research Paper format provided by Paper Masters:

Paper Masters helps you write a research paper on improving educational outcomes through standardized testing. Administrators and teachers are continually looking to improve outcomes for students, whether they be students with learning disabilities or the general population. Using standardized testing to improve outcomes is typical and education majors are often required to write research papers on various different tests and the outcomes that they attempt to measure. What you see here is a sample of a research outline on how to write a research paper on improving student outcomes.

How to Write a Research Paper on Improving Outcomes Through Standardized Testing

Testing is one method of assessing students that has been used extensively in the United States educational system. Testing has been used to meet the needs of all of the above mentioned groups, intending to bridge the communication between the classroom and society. There are two main types of tests: classroom-focused and standardized. Classroom-focused tests are usually chosen by the teacher to evaluate the learning that has taken place in a specific class. Standardized tests are assessment tools which try to evaluate students based on knowledge or skills that are expected of any student at a given level across large geographical boundaries, such as an entire state or an entire country.

Outline

1. Introduction
1. Intro paragraph should discuss curriculum based measurement and the benefits for the various student populations.
2. High stakes testing is a negative way to monitor progress for this population for several reasons.
3. Use a CBM in your research - curriculum based measurement-is an effective way to improve educational outcomes for students with mild disabilities.
4. Intro paragraph should really sell to reader the importance of this Improving Educational Outcomes.
2. Curriculum Based Measurements
• What is it?
• How does it work?
• Origins, where did it come from, from who, why and how?
3. High stakes/annual testing
   1. Why this does not work for improving educational outcomes or monitoring the progress of students with mild disabilities.
4. CBM Vs. High stakes/annual testing
   • Contrast and compare both

   V. The winner is...

   • CBM, explain why CBM is clearly the way to go with this population, even the student population at large, not just for students with mild disabilities.
   • Specifically identify how positively effective CBM has been used with students that are ADHD.
   • This is to use a specific example of how CBM has been effective with a specific category population under the mild disability umbrella.

   VI. Conclusion

   • CBM the way to go for students with mild disabilities.

What Your Research Should Determine for Educational Outcomes

Overall, you will want to argue that if a standardized test is to be used to produce changes in curricula, then those same tests should not be used to make high-stakes decisions about the individual test takers unless definitive proof can be shown that the test accurately reflects that individual's performance in the classroom. As noted earlier, it is difficult to definitively prove very little if anything from the results of standardized tests. Therefore, based upon this line of reasoning, standardized tests serve as little more than tools that can be used to spur changes in the educational process if necessary but offer little in the way of proving some level of comprehension of the individual test takers. At this level standardized testing holds some merit since it allows an educational institution the ability to determine significant shortcomings in its educational programs; however, beyond this limited use, standardized testing offers little value to any school or classroom.

All in all, standardized testing should not be used as a means to determine the academic fate of students since such testing does not reflect an accurate portrait of student ability. Similarly, standardized testing should not be used as a means to promote or retain teachers and should merely be used to provide them with an indication of limitations in their curricula. By basing promotions on standardized test results, school administrators are forcing teachers to teach directly to the test which wastes valuable classroom time that could be better spent on providing students with skills that will be useful in life as opposed to skills that will be used simply to improve performance on a test and will be forgotten shortly afterward. In the end, testing has a very definite need in an educational setting to provide some indication of student performance; however, the level of importance placed on testing, and particularly on standardized testing, should be limited.