Measuring and Evaluating Dispositional Affect: Addressing the Elephant in the Room

• In Event: 14.026 - Dispositions for Teaching and Learning: Conceptualization and Enactment Across Teacher Education Contexts

Abstract

When the viability of an institution is measured over time it is expected that there will be fluctuation in its economic health. However, there is a concern that in depressed economic times, these universities will accept, and graduate, candidates who are less than qualified for the degrees that they are seeking (Ohmann, 2012).

Recognizing this concern, institutions of higher education (IHEs) that prepare candidates for the teaching profession have an obligation to identify early, those students who are least likely to graduate and be effective teachers. This paper will explore the legal foundation for, and subsequent creation of, an instrument used to measure the intangible qualities associated with effective teachers and a process to assist these candidates in seeking other career paths.

The assessment of teacher-candidate dispositions is based not upon beliefs, but rather upon the manifestation of beliefs through observable behaviors. As such, it is the behavior and not the belief that is called into question. Although there exists a variety of beliefs that may be construed as contrary to the ethics of the profession, the rights of individuals who hold such beliefs must be protected. To overstep this boundary would be to attack academia at its roots. To accept only those who hold the same beliefs as the majority, not only acts in defiance of diversity, but contravenes the very principle that it attempts to uphold. Failure to uphold this principle would impinge upon the most fundamental of democratic rights and freedoms guaranteed by the US Constitution; specifically, the freedom to think what we want and the freedom to voice our opinions in an appropriate forum. If we take away this right then we relegate education to a system of propagating the status quo rather than upholding it as a means of redirecting our future. This right of the individual, however, must be balanced with the right of the institution to identify what dispositions are most significant to their programs and to the professions that these programs serve; and to explicitly define those dispositions which it regards are critical to both its conceptual framework and the profession (Arnstine, 1990; Brousseau et al, 1988; Collinson, 1999).

As most teacher educators are well aware, pre-service candidates must address three essential elements of practice; knowledge, skill, and dispositions. While knowledge and skill are, and for some time have been successfully assessed with a reasonable degree of validity and reliability, dispositional assessment has been lacking. Our research suggests that implementation of dispositional assessment addresses a need to determine who does or does not possess the appropriate values and attitudes to become a successful practitioner. In this age of increasing accountability, accreditation and state agencies are challenging schools of education to assess the dispositions of candidates whom the school recommends for certification as teachers. This presentation will focus on three specific outcomes;
1. Legal foundation for dispositional assessment.
2. Research based development of an instrument and procedures for its use.
3. An analysis of finding on validity, reliability and application.

Authors

• Dr. Thomas J. Sheeran, Niagara University

• Vince Rinaldo, Niagara University