Validation of an Instrument for Assessing Elementary-Grade Educators' Knowledge to Teach Reading

Area of Science:

• Education
• Psychology
• Linguistics

Background:

• Teacher knowledge is crucial for effective reading instruction and student outcomes.
• Existing surveys primarily focus on word reading knowledge, neglecting broader literacy domains.
• A comprehensive assessment of teacher knowledge in both word reading and language comprehension is needed.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate the Teacher Understanding of Literacy Constructs and Evidence-Based Instructional Practices (TULIP) survey.
• To assess teacher knowledge across five key literacy domains: phonological awareness, phonics/decoding/encoding, reading fluency, oral language, and reading comprehension.

Main Methods:

• Iterative survey development: systematic literature review, expert review, field testing, pilot study.
• Validation study with 313 in-service elementary reading teachers.
• Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to evaluate survey structure and reliability analyses.

Main Results:

• The TULIP survey demonstrated acceptable fit for both one-factor and five-factor models.
• The overall TULIP scale and its subscales exhibited good to acceptable reliability.
• Teachers answered approximately 50% of the survey items correctly on average.

Conclusions:

• The TULIP survey is a reliable and valid measure of teacher knowledge in comprehensive literacy instruction.
• Teacher knowledge in literacy is related to educational attainment, with higher education correlating with greater knowledge.
• Findings highlight a need for professional development to enhance teacher understanding of evidence-based literacy practices.