Teacher Groups’ Conceptions and Uses of Student-Learning Data

Abstract

This article measures and discusses six teacher groups’ (a) time spent working with data and (b) time devoted to particular kinds of inquiry activities, and explores various contextual factors that influence these results. The authors make use of a framework useful in describing and analyzing the stance taken by teachers when they engage with student-learning data. Their findings suggest that most teacher groups spend the vast majority of their time collecting and analyzing data, with little time devoted to exploring potential data sources and reflecting on implications of their data analysis. Furthermore, “time on task” is less important than stance in determining the nature of the inquiry activity. Implications of these results are explored.