About the MET Project

The Project

The Measures of Effective Teaching(MET) project is the largest study of classroom teaching ever conducted in the United States. Supported by a grant from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, MET researchers collected a variety of indicators of teaching quality over a two year period (AY 2009-2010 and AY 2010-2011) in the classrooms of more than 2500 fourth- through ninth-grade teachers working in 317 schools located in six large school districts in the United States. During a second two-year period (AY 2011-12 and AY2012-13), the Foundation funded the MET-Extension project designed to gather additional classroom video and data from about 350 of the teachers who participated in the first phase of the MET project.

The University of Michigan compiled the MET data and video files into a rich research collection called the MET Longitudinal Database. Approved researchers can access the restricted MET quantitative and video data using secure online technical systems. The MET Longitudinal Database consists of a Web-based application for searching the collection and viewing the videos with accompanying metadata, and a Virtual Data Enclave that provides secure remote access to the quantitative data and documentation files.

The Data

The data collected on teachers and their teaching includes: (a) measures of students' achievement in each teachers' classroom drawn from state-administered assessments and supplemental achievement tests; (b) a survey of students in each teacher's classes; (c) video-recorded lessons taught by a teacher with some lessons scored by independent observers using multiple classroom observation protocols; (d) an assessments of a teacher's pedagogical and content knowledge for teaching; and (e) two different teacher surveys. In addition, principals of the schools where teachers worked also completed a survey and other administrative data on schools, teachers, and students are available for analysis.

The Research Partners

The MET project is a research partnership of academics, teachers, and education organizations committed to investigating better ways to identify and develop effective teaching. Funding is provided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Lead research and organizational partners include:

• Mark Atkinson, Teachscape
• Joan Auchter, National Board for Professional Teaching Standards
• Nancy Caldwell, Westat
• Charlotte Danielson, The Danielson Group
• Ron Ferguson, Harvard University
• Drew Gitomer, Rutgers University
• Dan Goldhaber, University of Washington
• Pam Grossman, Stanford University
• Heather Hill, Harvard University
• Eric Hirsch, New Teacher Center
• Sabrina Laine, American Institutes for Research
• Michael Marder, University of Texas
• Dan McCaffrey, RAND
• Catherine McClellan, Educational Testing Service
• Denis Newman, Empirical Education
• Roy Pea, Stanford University
• Raymond Pecheone, Stanford University
• Geoffrey Phelps, Educational Testing Service
• Robert Pianta, University of Virginia
• Morgan Polikoff, University of Southern California
• Rob Ramsdell, Cambridge Education
• Steve Raudenbush, University of Chicago
• Brian Rowan, University of Michigan
• Doug Staiger, Dartmouth College
• John Winn, National Math and Science Initiative

Development of the MET Longitudinal Database

ICPSR. A world leader in social science data access and curation, ICPSR functions as the administrative home for the MET Longitudinal Database. With a staff of over 100 professionals with expertise in data processing and data archiving, ICPSR houses, maintains, and conducts trainings on the proper use of the MET Database and its associated streaming and analysis technologies.

SRC. A center within the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research, SRC is a world leader in the collection and analysis of data from scientific sample surveys. Professionals at SRC involved with the MET Database have developed a number of data analytic resources utilized here, including secure, large-scale video streaming and harmonization of multi-instrument observation data sets.

School of Education. The School of Education (SOE) at the University of Michigan is a leader in the study and improvement of education practice and policy, both in K-12 and higher education. The SOE is home to the Brandon Center Digital Archive (BCDA). The BCDA is an extensive digital archive of "records of practice" for use in teacher education and professional development, materials development, and research.

University of Michigan Library. The University of Michigan Library is one of the largest and most innovative research libraries in the world. The Library brings to the MET Database project extensive experience in managing digital resources, including designing digital library collections infrastructure, creating technologies and services for providing digital assets management for video, audio, images, and documents, and a groundbreaking partnership between the University of Michigan and Google, Inc. to digitize the entire print collection of the University Library.