Measuring Cultural Dimensions of Classroom Interactions: Initial Psychometric Findings

• In Event: Poster Session 6
  In Poster Session: Learning and Motivation in Social and Cultural Contexts Poster Session 1

Abstract

Measuring the cultural nature of social interactions in classroom settings (i.e., classroom interactions) provides a fantastic opportunity to motivate relevant learning for underperforming racial- and ethnic-minority students. We amalgamate sociocultural and psychometric approaches to develop a reliable observational system that scores 11 dimensions of classroom interactions in prek-6 settings, organized into three domains: Life Applications, Self in Group, and Agency. In this paper we describe the model and present initial psychometrics of this new observation tool. We analyze 480 15-minute video segments from a sample of 4th and 5th grade classrooms (n=60), from the Measures of Effective Teaching Longitudinal Database (MET LDB). We provide information on instrument factor structure, inter-rater reliability, internal consistency, construct validity, predictive validity, and ecological validity.

Authors

• Bryant Jensen, Brigham Young University

• Sara Bernice Chapman, Brigham Young University