Dispositional Statements on Student Teacher Evaluation Instruments: Commonalities Across Institutions

Teacher Disposition Scale (TDS): construction and psychometric validation

“…In empirically deriving a core set of dispositions, our analysis additionally suggested behaviours associated with each of these dispositions. These dispositions share similarities with those identified by Young and Wilkins (2008) (Eccles and Wigfield, 2002) and expand upon the widely assessed disposition of Fairness (NCATE, 2008) through the TDS factor, Teacher Efficacy.…”

“…This process can often produce repetitious or superfluous items, which may distort dispositional assessment (Lang and Wilkerson, 2008). The TDS contained such items within the common themes of existing instruments, including enthusiasm, professional growth, reflexivity and relationships (Young and Wilkins, 2008). However, the original TDS was streamlined through empirical validation to produce a set of core items and subscales, where some subscales were subsumed into core dispositions.…”

“…The tools that do exist often lack psychometric evaluation or consultation with current and highly accomplished members of the teaching profession. However, this has not stopped the development and use of many institutional dispositional scales, many sharing common dispositional themes that are proposed as demonstrating effective teaching such as ethics, professional growth and service (Young and Wilkins, 2008).…”

The Predictive Validity of Measures of Teacher Candidate Programs and Performance

“…However, the factors were highly intercorrelated (between .82 and .89) and could be assessed with reasonable fit statistics as a one-factor construct. Another study of 32 field experience instruments found 13 disposition categories and 3 major dispositional themes-professional behaviors, professional way of thinking, and personality characteristics (Young & Wilkins, 2008). In our review of the literature, we did not find empirical research on the relationship between dispositional ratings of teacher candidates and the test scores of students they later taught.…”

“…Institutions are evaluated on how well teacher candidates can "identify, define and operationalize" professional dispositions (NCATE, 2008, p. 90). However, because dispositions are based on internal characteristics that are difficult to define and assess, institutions and governing bodies have defined dispositions in various ways, which complicate this measure for teacher candidates (Ginsberg & Whaley, 2003;Young & Wilkins, 2008). For example, INTASC describes "critical dispositions" as the "habits of professional action and moral commitments that underlie the performances [and] play a key role in how teachers do, in fact, act in practice" (Council of Chief State School Officers, 2011, p. 6).…”