Chapter 5: Middle School Reform and its Relationship to Learning Environments and Student Outcomes

The purpose of this study was to examine the middle-level reform in one school district and to assess the relationship among reform implementation, the learning environment, and actual student outcomes. Teachers on middle school teams were surveyed regarding their perceptions of specific elements of middle-level reform implementation (i.e., structural features, skill and professional training, normative/attitudinal features, communication/coordination processes, and instructional practices) as well as their perceptions of the learning environment (i.e., academic emphasis and student engagement emphasis). District data on student outcomes were utilized as the dependent variables in the study (i.e., student grade-point average, citizenship-point average, and language arts and math achievement test scores). The data were analyzed using path analysis, assessing the relationships among reform implementation, the developmentally enhancing learning-environment elements, and student outcomes. The results largely support the study’s conceptual model. Results indicate that the overall level of reform implementation had a significant positive relationship to developmentally enhancing learning environments, including academic emphasis and student engagement emphasis. However, only the student engagement element of the learning environment had a significant positive relationship to two of the student outcomes, student grade-point average, and student language arts achievement test scores.