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ERIC Number: EJ1057845
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2015-Apr
Pages: 33
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1076-9986
EISSN: N/A
An Evaluation of Empirical Bayes's Estimation of Value-Added Teacher Performance Measures
Guarino, Cassandra M.; Maxfield, Michelle; Reckase, Mark D.; Thompson, Paul N.; Wooldridge, Jeffrey M.
Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, v40 n2 p190-222 Apr 2015
Empirical Bayes's (EB) estimation has become a popular procedure used to calculate teacher value added, often as a way to make imprecise estimates more reliable. In this article, we review the theory of EB estimation and use simulated and real student achievement data to study the ability of EB estimators to properly rank teachers. We compare the performance of EB estimators with that of other widely used value-added estimators under different teacher assignment scenarios. We find that, although EB estimators generally perform well under random assignment (RA) of teachers to classrooms, their performance suffers under nonrandom teacher assignment. Under non-RA, estimators that explicitly (if imperfectly) control for the teacher assignment mechanism perform the best out of all the estimators we examine. We also find that shrinking the estimates, as in EB estimation, does not itself substantially boost performance.
SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: journals@sagepub.com; Web site: http://sagepub.com
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: Institute of Education Sciences (ED)
Authoring Institution: N/A
IES Funded: Yes
Grant or Contract Numbers: R305D100028; R305B090011