Evaluations – Environment & the Economy Testing

HSBC Institute on the Environment and the Economy

Testing Project

In 2008, with funding from HSBC, the FTE conducted an assessment of student learning in 21 schools. The testing project was designed to determine if a teacher’s attendance at one of the FTE’s HSBC Institute on the Environment and the Economy (E&E) programs translated into increased student achievement. The assessment focused specifically on the teaching skills and knowledge gained at an E&E program – i.e. the FTE wanted to measure the pass-through impact of teacher training programs on their students.

Design – Twenty-one teachers, who indicated that they would be teaching the same semester-long course before and after attending an E&E program, were selected from among the 278 applicants to E&E programs in 2008. Before participating in the FTE E&E program, the 21 teachers administered an assessment aligned with the content of the E&E program to students in their economics classes. In the semester after participating in the E&E program the same 21 teachers administered the same assessment to students in the same economics classes that were taught the semester before. More than 700 students were assessed in the pre- and post-test (759 in the pre-test and 732 in the post-test). The pre-test refers to the assessment conducted before teachers participated and the post-test refers to the assessment after teachers participated in the E&E program. The following pages show the measurement data, which is also available on the FTE’s Webpage, to: www.fte.org/evaluations/eetesting

Instrument – The multiple-choice test contained 20 cognitive test questions based on the content taught in the E&E program. In addition, students were given 5 attitudinal questions. The same test form was used for the pre-test and post-test (see attached).

Student Learning – On average, across the 21 teachers, there was a gain of 11 percentage points from the pre-test to the post-test. This student gain of 33% (11 over 33) came as a result of these teachers’ participation in the E&E program – a solid validation of the impact FTE programs have on student learning.

E&E Testing Project – Tables and Test (pdf)