Measuring Teacher Certainty

Abstract

The concept of teacher certainty and one means of measuring this is presented and critically assessed in the following article. In this study teacher certainty has been operationalized as a second order latent variable with three first order latent variables consisting of four observed items each. The first order latent variables measure a teacher's perceived didactic certainty, practical certainty and relational certainty. A clustered, yet random representative sample of 1153 Norwegian teachers in elementary and junior high schools took part in this study in spring 1998. The theoretical and empirical framework for analyses and discussion are confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and generalizability theory (GT). This combination is not usual, but is found to be fruitful. GT focuses on both the theoretical and empirical domain, making it necessary for the researcher to contemplate questions of substance in addition to statistical calculations. The measurement model described above is therefore arrived at through a theoretical and empirical review and reasoning and is then tested in LISREL. Results indicate a good model fit. GT provides additional information by estimating how well the scores can be generalized to the defined universe. In this article a major question is whether the design specified for the generalizability study should be mixed or random. The two possibilities are explored and, in this case, both g coefficients computed are regarded as good.