Reliably Measuring Culturally Responsive Teaching Skills in Preservice Teachers

• In Event: Cultivating Culturally Responsive Teaching: Insights From Preservice Teacher Experiences and Reflections

Abstract

Using mixed methods, we report the Likert skills around Culturally Responsive Teaching (CrT) of 68 pre-service teachers, and their ideas of how to apply those skills via short answers. The 9-item survey was aligned with Illinois’s Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards required for new IL pre-service teachers. Data suggest that Likert sum scores can be compared reliably across School-based Experiences (SBEs), though their sensitivity to development and application of CrT skills is poor. Students short-answer explanations, however, when coded for sophistication, are reliable across the Likert responses, and showcase the significant, measurable impact of SBEs. Implications focus on Differential Item Functioning to detect reliability of items across categories and disrupting ceiling effects often exhibited on pre-service teacher education instruments.

Authors

• Phillip Andrew Boda, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Colleen Elizabeth Kleinsmith, University of Illinois at Chicago