An alternative approach to measuring opportunity-to-learn in high school classes

Abstract

The Opportunity-to-Learn framework has provided policymakers and researchers a means to develop strategies to measure classroom practices. In particular, the measure of the delivered content has been shown to be a good predictor of student achievement on tests. The method presented in this article uses classroom artifacts as the main data source to determine the attention teachers give to various content in the curriculum. The number of treatments that address set learning outcomes was the unit of measurement employed in this method. The article illustrates now this method was used to describe content delivery and how content emphasis exposed the differences between two teachers following the same prescribed syllabus. This method is best applied at the secondary school level to measure one component of the delivered curriculum. Finally, the limitations and potential of this method are discussed for use in research and for school improvement.