Exploring Use of the Measure of Montessori Implementation to Understand Montessori Early Childhood Classroom Types

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 11:45 am - Gold 3
  In Roundtable Session: Montessori Pedagogy and Practice

Abstract

This paper summarizes exploratory analysis of data from the Measure of Montessori Implementation – Early Childhood (MMI-EC) pilot. Our objective is to examine the feasibility of using the MMI-EC to understand the types of Montessori classrooms that exist across the U.S. The wide range of Montessori implementation makes it necessary to identify reliable and valid ways to gauge classroom practices. We identified 11 components underlying the MMI-EC using Principal Components Analysis and produced three classroom clusters using k-Means clustering. While the sample size for this study and the analytical approaches we used are less than robust, this is an important contribution to the field because it offers a roadmap of possible future analysis with larger datasets allowing more rigorous statistical analysis.

Authors

• Angela Murray, University of Kansas

• Amelia Murray, University of Kansas

• Carolyn Jean Daoust, University of Kansas