Teacher Professional Dispositions: Much Assemblage Required

• In Event: Valid, Reliable, Fair, and Efficient? Evaluating Teachers and Teaching

Abstract

The quest for a sound conceptual foundation of teacher dispositions has been contentious in multiple ways. In the past few years, scholars have debated how to define dispositions, how to operationalize and assess them, and even whether they can be assessed at all. Despite this disagreement, the field as a whole generally seems to concur that teacher professional dispositions do matter. With this contentious and largely unresolved teacher professional dispositions landscape in mind, in this paper we: a) review the traditional and often-utilized constructs of teacher dispositions; b) put forward an alternative, rhizomatic, way of looking at dispositions; c) analyze professional disposition assessment tools through this rhizomatic lens; and d) propose a re-conceptualizing of teacher dispositions based on this analysis.

Authors

• Jason M. Margolis, Duquesne University

• Kathryn J. Strom, California State University - East Bay

• Nihat Polat, Duquesne University