Teacher Disposition Scale (TDS): construction and psychometric validation

Abstract

Despite the growing prominence and importance of the field of teacher dispositions for addressing selection criteria and assessment in educational research, there is an absence of psychometrically evaluated instruments to facilitate investigations. Furthermore, research thus far has not explored the relationship between teacher dispositions and better student outcomes. To address this paucity, key dispositional factors conducive to successful teaching and learning were identified through interviewing high performing teachers. Based on the interview, data a 24-item Teacher Disposition Scale (TDS) was constructed consisting of five dimensions: Motivation to teach; Teacher efficacy; Willingness to learn; Conscientiousness; and Interpersonal and communication skill. The scale was psychometrically tested on 179 pre-service undergraduate students at an Australian university. Both factor analysis and Rasch measurement modelling indicated evidence of a reliable and valid multi-dimensional scale. The article concludes with a discussion on the implications of the scale for future research.

School Principals' Informal Criteria in Assessing Their Teachers: A Comparative Study

“…Some traits, like motivation, are more favored than others (e.g., "wisdom"). As it turns out, with small nuances between the negative and positive traits' ranking, the overall picture depicts three clusters: The most valued group are the engaged and motivated teachers, which confirm previous research results on the importance of motivation in obtaining professional performance within teaching career (Yariv, 2009;West, 2018). A second favored group of teachers is those who present good (or poor) interpersonal skills.…”

“…Due to their close relations and acquaintance with teachers (Jacob & Lefgren, 2008), principals are probably the most knowledgeable persons to evaluate their staff. They assess their teachers' performance according to many aspects, such as professionalism, creativity, demographics -race, gender, religion, and the like (Harris et al, 2010;Engel, 2013;Ingle et al, 2018;West et al, 2018). However, their ability to rate staff members' effectiveness accurately was questioned in many studies (Orphanos, 2014).…”

Developing a Short Form of the Self-Assessment Practices Scale: Psychometric Evidence

“…To provide complementary information about the psychometric properties of the SaPS-SF, both confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and Rasch analysis (Rasch, 1960) were employed. This approach has been used in many empirical studies (e.g., Deneen et al, 2013;Hart et al, 2013;Primi et al, 2014;Yan, 2016;West et al, 2018;Testa et al, 2019) for the benefit of providing comprehensive scrutiny of the psychometric qualities of instruments.…”

Psychometric properties of the Self‐assessment Practice Scale for professional training contexts: evidence from confirmatory factor analysis and Rasch analysis

“…This combined analytical approach has been used in recent empirical studies (e.g. Hart et al ., 2013; Primi et al ., 2014; Testa et al ., 2019; West et al ., 2018; Yan, 2018b, 2020a) for the benefit of providing supplementary information about the psychometric properties of instruments.…”