The Assessment of Learner-Centered Practices surveys: An English case study

Abstract

This study describes the implementation of the Assessment of Learner-Centered Practices (ALCP) surveys in 4 English schools, 3 primary schools and 1 secondary school during the academic year 2002 – 2003. The ALCP teacher and student surveys for grades kindergarten through 12 were developed and validated with over 25,000 students and their teachers in the United States. The theoretical basis for the ALCP surveys is the American Psychological Association's Learner-Centered Psychological Principles. This paper firstly describes the knowledge base underpinning the ALCP surveys, then describes their implementation in the UK. Although the ALCP surveys have been extensively validated in the US, this study is the first attempt to trial them in the UK as a teacher development tool. Given the cultural similarities between the US and UK, as well as the presumed generalizability of the Learner-Centered Psychological Principles, establishing the psychometric qualities of the ALCP surveys with English teachers extends the cross-cultural usefulness of these surveys. The study found that the ALCP surveys demonstrated comparable reliability and validity as U.S. data and their usefulness in practice were confirmed via teacher evaluations.