Descriptions of Dispositions for Assessment in Pre-Service Teacher Education Field Experiences. (2011)

Field Experiences Background A fundamental task of colleges and departments of teacher education is that of tracking, monitoring, and assessing candidate performance through their program. In recent years, in part because of external accreditation requirements, teacher education programs have been charged with the responsibility of assessing more than their candidates knowledge and skills in teaching. The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) accreditation process, as well as other professional organizations, requires teacher preparation programs to develop appropriate assessment devices to measure and document candidate dispositions while they are in field and internship experiences. Researchers have already validated indicators of good disposition. The indicators include items like demonstrates a professional and diversity. A professional attitude can look very different depending on the person doing the rating because these indicators are amorphous by nature. They are therefore open to subjectivity when rating. The disposition assessment could then become problematic when estimating inter-rater reliability which is a violation of measurement standards (AERA, 1999). This requirement has prompted teacher education programs further exploration of what is meant by dispositions and investigating how they can be assessed in advance of this problem. Defining Dispositions Dispositions related to effective teaching have been defined in a number of ways over the years. NCATE (2002) defines dispositions as the values, commitments, and professional ethics that influence behaviors toward students, families, colleagues, and communities that affect student learning, motivation, and development as well as the educator's own professional growth. Dispositions, according to NCATE, are steered by attitudes and beliefs related to values like caring, honesty, fairness, empathy respectfulness, responsibility, and thoughtfulness. NCATE, however, does not specifically define what elements compose target dispositions. The Interstate New Teachers Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC) (1992) used the following descriptors to encompass the concept of dispositions: adopts, appreciates, believes, is committed, has enthusiasm, persists, realizes, recognizes, responds, seeks, is sensitive to, understands, and values. Taylor and Wasicsko (2000) define dispositions as the personal qualities or characteristics that are possessed by individuals, including attitudes, beliefs, interests, appreciations, values, and modes of adjustments. Schulte, Edick, Edwards, and Mackiel (2004) define disposition as a pattern of behavior exhibited frequently and in the absence of coercion, and constituting a habit of mind under some conscious and voluntary control, and that is intentional and oriented to broad goals. These definitions described all have some overlap in indicators which suggests construct validity. That is, experts seem to generally agree on the indicators of disposition. There is still an amount of subjectivity present in constructs like these dispositions. Raters/experts may agree to the indicators but not agree upon or understand what is meant by each indicator. The indicators seem to need further refining to understand exactly what is meant by each one. Respectfulness and enthusiasm are examples often considered to be part of good teacher disposition but the exact behaviors associated with these indicators still remain subjective. Specifically, respectful or enthusiastic behavior may vary by rater especially without identifying descriptions of the constructs. Why Assess Dispositions The importance of disposition assessment was stated by Borko, Liston, and Whitcomb (2007). They explain that dispositions are an individual's tendencies to act in a given manner and are predictive of patterns of action. It suggests that teachers are likely to apply the knowledge and skills they learn in teacher preparation programs to their own classroom teaching when they are not being critiqued. …