Teaching Beliefs and Mindsets Survey
The Teaching Beliefs and Mindset Survey integrates the short forms from the Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale and Grit Scale, along with items from the Culturally Responsive Teaching Self-Efficacy Scale.
- The Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale assesses the extent to which teachers believe they can influence student engagement, instructional practice, and classroom management. Respondents rate themselves from 1 (nothing) to 9 (a great deal) on 12 statements, such as, “How much can you use a variety of assessment strategies?” (Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001).
- The Short Grit Scale assesses an individual’s tendency to persist towards long-term goals. Using a 1-5 scale, a respondent rates a series of eight statements, for example, “Setbacks don’t discourage me” (Duckworth & Quinn, 2009).
- The Culturally Responsive Teaching Self-Efficacy Scale assesses how confident teacher-candidates are in their abilities to enact culturally responsive teaching practices. Candidates record a number from 0 (no confidence at all) to 100 (completely confident) in response to 26 statements, for instance, “Establish positive home-school relations” (Siawatu, 2007).
In the Common Indicator System(CIS)CIS Network, the survey is administered online to teacher-candidates at the start of their preparation program, and then again at the start and end of their clinical experiences.
Beginning Teacher Survey
The Beginning Teacher Survey is based on the New Teacher Preparation Survey (NTPS) developed by researchers at the University of North Carolina’s Education Policy Initiative for use with graduates of the system’s teacher-education programs. The NTPS captures graduates’ perceptions of their preparation experience in five areas: academic background and teaching preparation, teacher preparation quality, teacher preparation program components, current teaching practices, and job satisfaction. CIS Network stakeholders modified the NTPS for CIS use by adding an introduction explaining the survey's purpose, revising the language to ensure the survey could be implemented successfully across diverse contexts, and eliminating some questions to focus the survey on key areas and ease the respondent's workload. The resulting Beginning Teacher Survey captures graduates’ perceptions of their preparation experience across the five core areas using 26-36 items depending on the graduates’ preparation pathway. CIS Network members administer the survey to program graduates in early spring during their first year of full-time classroom teaching.
Employer Survey
The Employer Survey is a slightly modified version of the 2017 Massachusetts Hiring Principal Survey. The survey was developed by the state of Massachusetts, where it is administered annually to all principals who hired a teacher candidate. For the CIS Network, stakeholders made slight changes to language and survey administration logic and removed the Massachusetts-specific questions. The resulting survey has seven items on which employers are asked to reflect on the quality of the program graduate, such as “Relative to all other teachers (both novice and experienced) you’ve worked with, please indicate the extent to which this teacher’s performance is significantly above or below average.” In the CIS Network, the survey is administered, at a minimum, to employers of recent program graduates who themselves received the Beginning Teacher Survey.
Relevant Descriptive and Validity Research
Bastian, K.C., Sun, M., Lynn, H. (2017). What do graduate surveys tell us about teacher preparation quality? Education Policy Initiative at Carolina. Chapel Hill, NC.
Duckworth, A.L., Peterson, C., Matthews, M.D., & Kelly, D.R. (2007). Grit: Perseverance and passion for long-term goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 9, 1087-1101.
Duckworth, A.L, & Quinn, P.D. (2009). Development and validation of the Short Grit Scale (Grit-S).
Journal of Personality Assessment, 91, 166-174.
Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. (2017). Educator Preparation Surveys: Technical Report. Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education: Malden, MA
Tschannen-Moran, M., & Woolfolk Hoy, A. (2001). Teacher efficacy: Capturing an elusive construct. Teaching and Teacher Education, 17, 783-805.
Siawatu, K. O. (2007). Preservice teachers’ culturally responsive teaching self-efficacy and outcome expectancy beliefs. Teaching and Teacher Education, 23, 7, 1086-1101.