Using Curriculum-Based Measures to Assess Special Education Teacher Candidates' Application of Defining and Measuring Behavior Skills
Open Access
- Author:
- Hildebrand, Katie Eileen
- Graduate Program:
- Special Education
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- May 06, 2008
- Committee Members:
- David Lee, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Frank R Rusch, Committee Member
Daniel J Weiss, Committee Member
Kathy L Ruhl, Committee Member - Keywords:
- teacher preparation
teacher education
assessment
evaluation - Abstract:
- ABSTRACT Determining teacher preparation program effectiveness is critical as students are served best by teachers who possess highly developed skill sets. Yet, research suggesting viable methods to evaluate preparation programs is sparse. This limited research base suggests that effectiveness is determined by both external reviewers (i.e., accrediting agencies) and internal evaluators (i.e., faculty within a preparation program). Both external and internal reviewers rely on much the same data, commonly using methods of surveys, interviews, examinations, portfolios, and to a lesser extent, observations individually or in combination to determine program effectiveness. As there are benefits to using each method, there are a multitude of limitations. For instance, all measures are summative in nature indicating that they provide an overall picture of the program and its teacher candidates at a given point in time, often at the program’s end. Additionally, measures such as examinations focus primarily on content knowledge and do not assess application of pedagogical skills. Given these limitations, teacher educators may find it difficult to identify gaps in the program or teacher candidates who are having difficulty developing necessary skills. To address these limitations, an assessment system based on principles of curriculum-based measurement was created to assess teacher candidates’ application skills. In curriculum-based measurement, alternate forms of probes (i.e., quizzes) are administered repeatedly to monitor the students’ progress over time. In this study, 20 undergraduate special education teacher candidates enrolled in a large eastern university were evaluated on one strand of the teacher preparation curriculum, defining and measuring behavior, using a series of 4 application probes plus a post-test measure. Results indicated that probes were internally consistent, and alternate forms of the probes were equivalent. In terms of validity, probes were not able to predict overall course grades, but were able to predict performance on the post-test. Additionally, when using the post-test data as the outcome measure, probes were able to discriminate among high, medium, and low performers. Implications, limitations, and future research directions are discussed.