Measurement of Instructional Background Indicators: Cognitive Laboratory Investigations of the Responses of Fourth and Eighth Grade Students and Teachers to Questionnaire Items

摘要

Cognitive interviews were conducted with teachers and their students to learn how to improve National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) questionnaire items asking about instructional practices and teacher professional development experiences. Items were purposively selected from those used in the 1996 and 1998 NAEP student and teacher background questionnaires in fourth grade reading, mathematics, and science, and eighth grade mathematics and science. NAEP items that were administered in analogous forms to teachers and their students were chosen, to facilitate validation. Additionally, items known or felt to be problematic were selected. Cognitive interviewing protocols were developed and administered to teachers in their classrooms. After the interviews were completed, their responses to instructional practice items were validated. Additional items were administered, to enable subsequent validation of their students responses. Then, cognitive interviewing protocols were administered to these teachers students. Students responses were compared to those provided by their teachers. When student and teacher responses were discrepant, further probing could be triggered. This ensured an understanding of the etiology of response discrepancies.