Measuring Teacher Educators’ Researcherly Disposition: Item Development and Scale Construction

This study reports on the development of a self-reported measurement instrument – The Teacher Educators’ Researcherly Disposition Scale (TERDS) – to improve understanding of teacher educators’ researcherly disposition. Teacher educators’ researcherly disposition refers to the habit of mind to engage with research – both as consumers and producers – to improve their practice and contribute to the knowledge base on teacher education. Taking into account the shortcomings of the emerging field of teacher educator professional development research (which is largely confined to small-scale, qualitative studies), a large-scale quantitative survey study (n?=?944) was conducted. The first part of the article reports the results of factor analysis (EFA and CFA), which suggest a four-factor structure of teacher educators’ researcherly disposition: (1) ‘valuing research’ (α?=?.86), (2) ‘being a smart consumer of research’ (α?=?.89), (3) ‘being able to conduct research’ (α?=?.82), and (4) ‘conducting research’ (α?=?.87). Goodness of fit estimates were calculated, indicating good fit. The second part of the article explores differences in teacher educators’ researcherly disposition across several subgroups of teacher educators using the developed instrument. Results indicate that having research experience leads to significantly higher scores on each of the subscales. Furthermore, significantly higher scores were found for those with more than 3 years’ experience as a teacher educator, as well as for those without (prior) teaching experience in compulsory education. To conclude, the implications for further research and practices related to teacher educators’ professional development are discussed.     

Effects of antibullying programs on teachers’ interventions in bullying situations. A meta‐analysis

Even though teachers are key figures of a program's effectiveness, most intervention studies have not focused explicitly on the effects of antibullying programs at teacher level. We conducted a meta‐analysis into the effects of school‐based antibullying programs on determinants of teacher intervention, including teachers’ attitudes towards bullying, their self‐efficacy and knowledge regarding intervention strategies, and the effects on teachers’ bullying intervention itself. Following the PRISMA guidelines, 13 peer‐reviewed papers were retrieved that reported outcomes on teachers, staff, and students (N = 948, 2,471, and 138,311, respectively). Antibullying programs had a significant moderate effect on determinants of teacher intervention (g = 0.531) and a significant small to moderate effect on teacher intervention in bullying situations (g = 0.390). Results of the meta‐analysis indicate that the effectiveness of antibullying programs may increase when components are included to reinforce teachers’ attitudes, subjective norms, self‐efficacy, knowledge, and skills towards reducing bullying in the school.     

A measurement of student teachers’ parent–teacher communication competences: the design of a video-based instrument

Abstract

This study reports on the design of a video-based instrument to assess student teachers’ parent–teacher communication competences (PTCC) in a reliable and valid way. PTCC refer to the competences needed to communicate successfully with parents during conversations such as parent–teacher conferences. Taking into account both conceptual and methodological challenges regarding the measurement of competences, several methodological steps were followed to design a video-based instrument focusing on the assessment of student teachers’ perception, interpretation and decision-making skills (PID skills) regarding parent–teacher communication: designing video vignettes presenting realistic job situations regarding parent–teacher communication; developing instructions to elicit student teachers’ PID skills; designing a coding scheme to analyse student teachers’ responses; and implementing the instrument (n = 269) to test and refine it. This ultimately resulted in an instrument consisting of (1) three video vignettes, (2) a series of open-ended questions eliciting student teachers’ PID skills, and (3) three coding schemes to develop a perception score, an interpretation score and a decision-making score for PTCC. The (4) implementation of the instrument confirmed that this innovative video-based tool might be a promising approach to assess student teachers’ PTCC. To conclude, the quality and contribution of the measurement instrument and the implications for further research are discussed.     

Episodic Future Thinking Is Related to Impulsive Decision Making in Healthy Adolescents

Delay discounting is a stable trait measure of impulsivity. Engaging in episodic future thinking (EFT) can reduce discounting, but whether individual differences in discounting are associated with differences in future thinking remains unclear. Here, this association was tested in healthy adolescents (n = 49, age range = 12–16 years, fluent German speakers, from a large German city). Data collection was between December 2011 and December 2012. Vividness of EFT (assessed via the Autobiographical Memory Interview) was negatively correlated with discounting (r = ?.41, 95% CI [?.63, ?.13], r² = .17). Regression analyses confirmed that this association was stable when controlling for additional variables, including hormonal measures of pubertal maturation and intelligence. EFT may attenuate impulsivity in young people at risk of engaging in problematic behavior.     

Young people’s knowledge and understanding of health,fitness and physical activity: issues,divides and dilemmas

Critical discourse analysis was used to explore and discuss data on young people’s knowledge and understanding of health, fitness and physical activity, selected from a wider study which focused on the role of secondary schools in effectively promoting physical activity. A mixed methods approach was utilised, involving an online survey to teachers in all state secondary schools in the UK (n?=?603 responding schools) and case studies centred on eight randomly selected state secondary schools from nine Government regions across England. Within each case study school, teacher interviews and pupil focus groups were conducted involving 17 teachers and 132 children aged 12–15 years, respectively. The healthism discourse was evident in the way young people talked about health, fitness and physical activity and two key themes emerged, these being: (i) issues with young people’s knowledge and understanding of health, fitness and physical activity in the form of reductive, limited and limiting conceptions; conceptual confusion; a preoccupation with appearance, weight, fat, shape and size; limited progression in learning; and complexities in understandings; and (ii) divides between young people’s health knowledge and health behaviour, and dilemmas underpinning these divides. Improved understanding of issues with young people’s knowledge and understanding of health, fitness and physical activity and of divides and dilemmas regarding associated behaviours should assist in developing critical pedagogies which challenge the dominance and stability of the healthism discourse and more effectively promote healthy, active lifestyles amongst young people.     

Measuring the Interactive Skills of Caregivers in Child Care Centers: Development and Validation of the Caregiver Interaction Profile Scales

Research Findings: High-quality caregiver–child interactions constitute the core of high-quality child care for young children. This article describes the background and development of the Caregiver Interaction Profile (CIP) scales to rate 6 key skills of caregivers for interacting with 0- to 4-year-old children in child care centers: sensitive responsiveness, respect for autonomy, structuring and limit setting, verbal communication, developmental stimulation, and fostering positive peer interactions. Each interactive skill is rated on a 7-point scale based on observation of video-recorded caregiver–child interactions. Together, the 6 scale scores constitute an Interaction Profile for individual caregivers that may serve as a starting point for education and training to improve the quality of caregiver–child interactions. This article also presents the results of a 1st study with the CIP scales, in a sample of 145 caregivers from 75 child care groups in 47 child care centers in The Netherlands. Practice or Policy: Results provide promising preliminary evidence supporting the reliability and validity of the CIP scales.     

The importance of having a flexible scope ISO 15189 accreditation and quality specifications based on biological variation – the case of validation of the biochemistry analyzer Dimension Vista

Introduction

Technological innovation requires the laboratories to ensure that modifications or incorporations of new techniques do not alter the quality of their results. In an ISO 15189 accredited laboratory, flexible scope accreditation facilitates the inclusion of these changes prior to accreditation body evaluation. A strategy to perform the validation of a biochemistry analyzer in an accredited laboratory having a flexible scope is shown.

Materials and methods:

A validation procedure including the evaluation of imprecision and bias of two Dimension Vista analysers 1500 was conducted. Comparability of patient results between one of them and the lately replaced Dimension RxL Max was evaluated. All studies followed the respective Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) protocols. 30 chemistry assays were studied. Coefficients of variation, percent bias and total error were calculated for all tests and biological variation was considered as acceptance criteria. Quality control material and patient samples were used as test materials. Interchangeability of the results was established by processing forty patients’ samples in both devices.

Results:

27 of the 30 studied parameters met allowable performance criteria. Sodium, chloride and magnesium did not fulfil acceptance criteria. Evidence of interchangeability of patient results was obtained for all parameters except magnesium, NT-proBNP, cTroponin I and C-reactive protein.

Conclusions:

A laboratory having a well structured and documented validation procedure can opt to get a flexible scope of accreditation. In addition, performing these activities prior to use on patient samples may evidence technical issues which must be corrected to minimize their impact on patient results.