Selecting Inclusive Teacher Candidates: Validity and Reliability Issues in Admission Policy and Practice

Promoting educational inclusivity has been a central priority of research, policy, and practice in recent years throughout countries with high levels of diversity (Hutchinson, 2010; Jennings, 2007; OECD, 2010). While inclusivity represents a complex educational construct that is often associated with varied theoretical and practical orientations, fundamentally, educational inclusivity refers to supporting and accepting the full range of diversities within a learning context to promote equitable education within a more cohesive society (Darling-Hammond et al., 2005). Results from numerous studies have identified significant benefits of inclusive education on reducing the achievement gap, promoting student self-perceptions and well-being, and supporting a socially integrated community of learning (e.g., Blais & Ouedraogo, 2008; Mueller & O'Connor, 2007; OECD, 2010; Smith & Schonfeld, 2000). Accordingly, literature recommends that pre-service teacher education programs focus on selecting teacher candidates with a propensity for inclusive teaching and that programs promote inclusivity as a fundamental pedagogical principle (Ball & Tyson, 2011). While there has been substantial research on pedagogical and programmatic structures that support teacher education commitments to inclusivity (Grossman, 2005; Hollins & Guzman, 2005), there has been notably little research into the process of selecting teacher candidates who value educational inclusivity and who would benefit from pre-service education that develops their practice of inclusive education (Villegas & Davis, 2007). Admission policy plays a dominant role in the systematic selection of teacher candidates and serves as the primary gatekeeping structure for entry into the teaching profession in jurisdictions where teacher education is a university-based program of study (Young, Hall, & Clarke, 2007). In practice, Solomon (2002) contends that concerns for inclusivity can be supported not only through program structures, curricula, and pedagogies that examine and modify beliefs about diversity but also through a recruitment and admission policy that enables a representative and responsive teacher candidate population. Similarly, Casey and Childs (2007) argue that admission policy should support the integrity of teaching values, such as inclusivity, and promote diversity within the teaching profession through equity-based admission processes. While there is recognition across this literature that teacher candidates need not enter their pre-service programs already having the skills and knowledge to create inclusive classroom contexts, there is acknowledgement that teacher candidates must maintain an interest in and propensity for developing this core teacher capacity throughout their teacher education program. Admitting and selecting teacher candidates with a propensity for inclusive teaching is a complex assessment process that is often confounded by a high number of applicants and short decision-making periods. Smithrim (2000) acknowledges two core prerequisites for teacher candidate selection: (a) an applicant's personal dispositions (i.e., qualities and beliefs), and (b) an applicant's subject scholarship (i.e., grade point average in teachable subject areas). While fairly stable and effective indicators of subject scholarship exist, systematic assessment ofpersonal dispositions is more difficult because they represent complex, socially-dependant constructs that are widely interpretable. Assessing personal dispositions is a subjective process reliant upon how admission committee members, individually and collectively, interpret and value dispositional constructs and upon the selection indicators and practices that determine admission decisions (Malvern, 1991). Consequently, the reliability of selection practices and the resulting validity of admission decisions may be threatened (Casey & Childs, 2007). To date, research on admission processes has largely focused on either selection trends or on determining the predictive and concurrent validity of admission indicators (Caskey, Peterson, & Temple, 2001). …