Assessing Teacher Dispositions : Five Standards-based Steps to Valid Measurement Using the Daats Model

"There is a vitally important link between teacher preparation and the performance of those teachers and their students. Assessing Teacher Competency and Assessing Teacher Dispositions provide a strong underpinning to improve teacher competencies in both the cognitive and affective domains in ways that we can hope will endure post-licensure."
―From the Foreword by Richard C. Kunkel

"Well researched and standards based, with activities, worksheets, definitions, and rubrics. Addresses a topic that has been a mystery to assessment gurus."
―Marilyn K. Troupe, Director
Division of Educator Preparation, Kentucky Education Professional Standards Board

At last, a step-by-step guide for assessing teacher dispositions that addresses national accreditation standards.

While school leaders have long sought a definitive tool for assessing teacher affect and dispositions, a practical method for measurement has proven elusive―until now.

Assessing Teacher Dispositions presents a conceptual framework that helps educators understand what "appropriate dispositions" are, why it is important to measure them, and how to implement an assessment process in their schools and districts.

This indispensable companion to Assessing Teacher Competency introduces the authors′ research-based five-step DAATS model, combining user-friendly definitions and guiding questions with an examination of assessment design, planning, instrument development, decision making, and data management. Linked to national standards for best practice set by NCATE, INTASC, and NBPTS, the DAATS approach offers:

• A step-by-step implementation sequence with worksheets and training activities
• Examples from preservice and inservice settings
• A comprehensive assessment system when used with the CAATS model for assessing teacher competency (knowledge and skills)

This groundbreaking text offers a field-tested, valid, and reliable process for dispositions assessment that is ideal for schools of education, teacher induction programs, and preservice and inservice training.

Judy R. Wilkerson is an Associate Professor of Research and Assessment at Florida Gulf Coast University, where she teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in measurement and evaluation. As in this book and all of her research, she focuses her efforts with students on providing a highly pragmatic approach, based in theory, with the goal of instilling a commitment in them to assess K-12 learning. Her Ph.D. is in Measurement and Research from the University of South Florida, where she served for 15 years as Director of Program Review, leading College and University efforts in accreditation. Her career has been dedicated to standards-based assessment of programs and teachers, beginning with the creation of an evaluation model for accreditation in 1987, which she implemented in several states. Beginning in 1990 for 15 years, she served as the primary consultant for higher education to the Florida Department of Education, where she drafted the standards for the initial approval of teacher education programs, designed the program approval process, and provided technical assistance to colleges of education in evaluation of teachers and programs statewide. She has consulted nationally on NCATE accreditation and worked with state associations of teacher educators on accreditation related issues. She has also consulted with school districts in Florida on assessment systems for teachers. She was lead designer of the assessment system for the Florida Alternative Certification Program, now used in over 40 of the 68 school districts in the State.

William Steve Lang is a Professor of Educational Measurement and Research at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg, where he teaches graduate courses in measurement, statistics, and research.   He, too, focuses his teaching on making meaningful and pragmatic uses of the disciplines he teaches.  He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Georgia in 1984.  He has taught as a public school teacher in South Carolina and Georgia and as a college faculty member in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.   He has published on a variety of applications in educational testing and works extensively with the Rasch Model of Item Response Theory.  He began working extensively with Judy when she joined the faculty of the St. Petersburg Campus in 2001.  Since that time, they have collaborated in all aspects of their research and service efforts with the Florida Department of Education, Florida school districts, and teacher education programs nationwide.   They are working together to build two teacher assessment scales – one on teacher competencies, the subject of this book, and another on dispositions.  Their work in both areas is standards-driven.