Browse Studies

National Board Certified Teachers and Their Students' Achievement

Institution:
Arizona State University

Principal Investigator:
Vandevoort, L. G., Amrein-Beardsley, A., Berliner, D. C.

Date:
September 2004

Study Overview:

Contemporary research on teaching indicates that teachers are powerful contributors to students' academic achievement, though the set and interrelationships of characteristics that make for high-quality and effective teaching have yet to be satisfactorily determined. Nevertheless, on the basis of the extant research and a vision of exemplary teaching, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) stipulated a definition of a superior teacher.

NBPTS did this without empirical evidence to support their claim that teachers who meet the NBPTS standards were superior in promoting academic achievement to those who did not meet those standards. In the 17 years since the founding of NBPTS, only a few empirical studies have addressed this important issue.

This study compared the academic performance of students in the elementary classrooms of 35 National Board Certified Teachers (NBCTs) and their non-certified peers in 14 Arizona school districts. Certified teachers and their principals provided additional information about these teachers and their schools. Four years of results from the Stanford Achievement Tests, 9th Edition (SAT-9) in reading, mathematics, and language arts in grades three through six were analyzed.

In the 48 comparisons (four grades, four years of data, three measures of academic performance), using gain scores adjusted for students' entering ability, the students in the classes of NBCTs surpassed students in the classrooms of non-certified teachers in almost three quarters of the comparisons. Almost one-third of these differences were statistically significant. In the cases where the students of non-certified teachers gained more in an academic year, none of the differences found were statistically significant.

Effect size, translated into grade equivalents, showed that the gains made by students of certified teachers were over one month greater than the gains made by the students of non-certified peer teachers. On average, teachers identified through the assessments of NBPTS were more effective teachers in terms of academic achievement, one of the many outcomes of education for which teachers are responsible.

This study did not address whether other, cheaper, or better alternatives to the National Board Certification process exist, as some critics suggest. On the other hand, the results of this study provide support for the policies in many states that honor and provide extra remuneration for NBCTs.

Main Research Questions:

1. What is the relationship between National Board Certification and student achievement as measured by performance on the Stanford Achievement Test-9th Edition (SAT-9)?

Publications:

Full text of study:

• From the Arizona State University Web site
• Download from NBPTS (PDF - 663kb)

Subject Area:
Student Achievement