Assessing the Item Difficulty of a Tool for Screening Teaching Demonstrations
The International Journal of Educational and Psychological Assessment, Vol. 10, No. 2, May 2012
14 Pages Posted: 30 Jun 2013
Date Written: May 1, 2012
Abstract
The present study developed a scale used to rate higher education teacher applicants on their teaching demonstration performance. The scale guides a screening committee to decide on the selection of a faculty applicant. The items in the scale were anchored on Danielson‟s components of professional practice. The domains include (1) planning and preparation, (2) classroom environment, (3) instruction, and (4) professional responsibility. The items were first reviewed by the stakeholders such as those who had experienced in screening teachers and administrators. The items were then pilot tested for teacher applicants during the hiring period for three consecutive trimesters. A total of 161 faculty applicants were used to pilot test the instrument. The results obtained showed that high internal consistencies were obtained for the three domains but low for professional responsibility. The four-factors when used to screen faculty applicants converged with significant path coefficients. An adequate fit was obtained for the four-factor structure (RMSEA=.08, PGI=.89, GFI=.96, and NFI=.93). When the polychotomous Rasch model was used, only one item did not fit, proper items resulted to be easy and difficult, appropriate step functions were obtained for the four point scale, and precise measurement for teacher performance was obtained based on the TIF.
Keywords: Teacher performance, teaching demonstration, components of professional practice, polychomous Rasch model
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