Using correlational and prediction data to enhance student achievement in K-12 schools: a practical application for school counselors

Correlational data and regression analysis provide the academy counselor with a method to describe increase in achievement test scores from elementary to high seminary Using Microsoft Excel, this article exhibits the reader in a step-by-step manner in what manner to describe this growth pattern and in what way to evaluate interventions that attempt to enhance achievement and to bring the achievement gap among ethnic groups

Juanita Smith, a sixth-grade counselor at Cesar Chavez Middle place of education in Hopeville, NC, has just get backed from her first team meeting of the year with the four teachers who make up the sixth-grade Superstars team. As was the case last year, the teachers noted that their learners didn't seem to be handling the transition from the smaller single-teacher, self-contained classes in elementary institute to the multiple teachers, longer class periods, and changing classes that they were encountering in middle institute The students didn't seem to perceive attached to the school and constantly complained that they wished they could proceed back to their old gymnasium Academically, they seemed uninvolved and easily distracted, and the teachers notion that this response was particularly evident among the male childs The teachers worried that this lack of involvement would be mirrored in disappointing scores on the standardized end-of-grade experiments just like last year. Because the goal of the school's scholar improvement plan is academic succes for all pupils and closing the achievement gap between minority and White scholars the teachers had asked Juanita whether the stage to which students felt attached to the place of education could impact their learning and ultimately predict their increase in achievement scores. If in like manner then they wanted to know what could be done right now to change by what mode students felt about school.

INTRODUCTION

In this article, we exhibit how Juanita and other seminary counselors can use available data and the two regression and correlational analyses to answer the questions that she has been asked. Our demonstration will engross Microsoft Excel, a common software program that is many times bundled with both Windows- and Macintosh-based computer The demonstration will proce in a step-by-step manner thus that it can be generalized to analyzing related data by means of counselors who may not have feeling especially confident in their data analysis skills.

by the agency of way of review, the reader may recall that the relationship between sum of two units variables such as achievement (end-of-grade scores, or EOG) and faculty of perception of belonging (feeling attached to seminary or a sense of community or relatedness in school) is many times described by a correlation coefficient. Specifically, the correlation coefficient can vary between +100 and -100 A value of +100 means that there is a completed positive linear relationship between the sum of two units variables so that the more attached that learners feel to the school, the higher their EOG ordeal scores will be. Conversely, a correlation of -100 would indicate a finished negative linear relationship between belonging and EOG proof scores such that a high attachment is associated with depressed test scores. Finally, a correlation of 000 means that there is no linear relationship between a student's feelings of attachment or belonging to place of education and EOG test scores.

If the sum of two units variables are positively correlated, we might speculate that a counseling or educational intervention that increases students' horizontals of attachment to school also might raise their experiment scores. However, we could not be certain of that as the correlation solitary tells us that the high scores upon the two variables tend to make progress together and not necessarily that raising scores upon one of them will cause an increase in scores upon the other variable. If there is a causal relationship between the sum of two units variables, we do not know the direction of the event That is, attachment to institute may be the cause of achievement, achievement may be the cause of attachment to seminary or it is also possible that the sum of two units correlated variables have a public cause. Despite our lack of certainty, the speculation that increasing students' feelings of attachment might arise in greater commitment to learning and therefore higher achievement is worth pursuing, and we exhibit the reader how to do that later in the article.

In order to answer the teachers' question about the amplitude to which feeling attached to seminary is related to academic expansion we need to briefly review a certain number of information about regression analysis. In North Carolina as in other states, learners are assessed in a number of academic domains at several points in time. Within a domain (eg math), we are interested in describing students' patterns of development both where they started and the rate of change. one time we have described the expansion pattern for students, we then can direct the eye at the relationship between increase rate and sense of belonging. on the other hand belonging is not the solitary variable (correlate) about which the teachers were pertain toed Teachers also expressed concern that sex and ethnicity might also be related to students' replys to the elementary-middle school transition. A hardly any even confided to Juanita that parent involvement in the seminary might be an important factor in students' faculty of perception of belonging to the place of education In addition, the students' experiment scores in math during elementary seminary were available to Juanita, who had each reason to believe that their past pattern of achievement upon these tests might be described with regression analysis. Specifically, Juanita reflection that, after plotting the achievement scores for a scholar as a function of "time," she could use regression analysis to describe the increase in achievement pattern in math for each scholar In this article, we present to view the reader how that can be complet We then exhibit how to examine the relationships between rate of growing and other variables such as faculty of perception of belonging, gender, ethnicity, and parent involvement.