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- Title
VALIDATING ASPIRE: AN INSTRUMENT FOR GAUGING THE PROBABILITY THAT REFORM EFFORTS WILL SUCCEED.
- Authors
Tieso, Carol L.; Hutcheson, Virginia H.
- Abstract
The authors of this article review the development and discuss potential uses for a new instrument that evolved from follow-up research conducted after completion of a five-year study of innovative curricular and instructional practices. The instrument is A Stakeholder's Perceptions of Innovative Reform Efforts (ASPIRE). The primary purpose of this article is to suggest the usefulness and dimensionality of the new instrument through reviewing the research on which the instrument was based as well as presenting the steps in its development. A total of 346 classroom teachers, coordinators of gifted and talented programs, and administrators completed the survey designed to assess their perceptions of district and school-wide factors that support or inhibit sustaining reform efforts. Factor analytic procedures yielded seven meaningful factors for the survey with estimates of internal consistency ranging from .61 to .85. The analyses allowed examination of the construct validity of scores on the instrument while providing insight that the derived factors were not conceptually identical to the constructs envisioned based on findings from qualitative data. Use of ASPIRE within a district would enable reflection on important questions about school reform: When politicians and educators speak of education reform today, what do they really mean? What happens within school districts after the reformers have taken their funds and gone home? What do educators believe are the factors that affect whether or not the reform remains when the funds have dried up?
- Subjects
EDUCATIONAL change research; SCHOOL district management; SCHOOL administration research; EDUCATORS; POLITICIANS
- Publication
Planning & Changing, 2014, Vol 45, Issue 1/2, p138
- ISSN
0032-0684
- Publication type
Article