DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF A TEACHER EDUCATION CENTER EVALUATION INSTRUMENT

The purpose of this study was the development of a teacher
education center evaluation instrument. Items for the instrument
were drawn from the literature related to effective inservice education.
This item pool was refined and validated using two sequential
juries of experts consisting of Florida teacher education center directors,
university contact persons, Florida Department of Education
personnel and members of the State Council for Teacher Education
Centers. The evaluation instrument was designed using a four point
Likert type rating scale. The instrument was distributed to 500
school personnel in three Florida county school districts by the
On-Site Review of Master Inservice Plan Visiting Teams. The three
counties were selected to provide a cross section of teacher education
center counties in Florida. There were 335 respondents, or a
67 percent return. The following conclusions were based upon the analysis of
data:
1. The teacher education center evaluation instrument proved
to be reliable, the alpha coefficients for the field testing being
acceptable
2. The teacher education center evaluation instrument proved
to have construct validity, the components being easily interpreted
using the principal components evaluation
3. The teacher education center evaluation instrument proved
to have content validity, having a positive judgmental rating by the
respondents
4. The four major components of teacher education center
evaluation--decision-making, relationship to the program of the
school, commitment to teacher education, resources--proved to be
easily interpreted in each county of the field testing.
In summary, this study provided statistical data which indicated
that the teacher education center evaluation instrument
developed was reliable, as noted within the limitations of the study,
and that it had content and construct validity. Possibilities for
future research were outlined.