Richard R. Sudweeks

Animating equity in teaching and learning depends on teacher dispositionsorientations to self, others, and society that underlie how we think and act. Teacher dispositions are virtues or qualities of moral character that modify the ways we interact with students and educator colleagues. Although interest in measuring to improve teaching and teacher education has grown recently, most measures lack validity evidence for practical usefulness. Integrating Messicks unified validity framework with Janssen et al.s notion of practicality (as face validity), we find through an iterative, mixed-methods analysis of interviews with equitable educators and survey responses from teacher candidates that incorporating recognizability, relevance, and feasibility concerns of equity disposition concepts (i.e., Social Awareness, Meekness, Advocacy for Students) within survey items enhances item-to-factor structure of a self-report measure. We discuss implications (a) to develop and appraise formative measures and (b) to support teacher learning and development to become equitable educators.

Social validity focuses on a program's goals, procedures, and outcome, which helps determine if an intervention is socially acceptable and valued. This study represents a conceptual replication of the investigation by Lane and colleagues (2009) regarding the psychometric properties of the Primary Intervention Rating Scale (PIRS), a teacher survey designed to measure social validity of positive behavior support. Lane and colleagues' results indicated the PIRS was a one-factor measure with strong reliability and structural validity. To substantiate these findings, we distributed an adapted version of the PIRS to teachers from a school district in the Mountain West region. We collected data from 153 elementary and middle school teachers and computed results with a series of statistical analyses including confirmatory factor analyses as well as Cronbach's alpha and Raykov's rho. We affirmed the findings of the PIRS as a one-factor measure with strong internal consistency and no significant differences in scores based on the school level. Study limitations and implications are addressed.

Value-added estimates of teacher quality are attempts to determine to what degree a teacher theoretically would contribute, on average, to the test score gains of any student in the accountability population (i.e., district or state). The authors suggest an alternative statistical methodology, propensity score matching, which allows estimation of how well a teacher performed relative only to the students similar to those actually assigned to that teacher. This approach more closely fits the appropriate role of an accountability systemto estimate how well an employee performed in the job actually assigned. It also has the benefit of requiring fewer statistical assumptionsassumptions that are frequently violated in value-added modeling.

The professional literature provides ample evidence that individuals with autism exhibit a myriad of unusual social, communication, and behavioral patterns of interactions that present challenges to their families and service providers. However, there is a dearth of quality works on multicultural issues regarding autistic spectrum disorders. In this article, we explore issues surrounding autism and multiculturalism, with the intent not to provide answers but to raise questions for further examination. We focus our discussions on two primary issues: autism within cultural groups and multicultural family adaptation based on the framework of pluralistic societies in which some cultural groups are a minority within the dominant culture. We found differences in prevalence rates across races for autism and little information regarding how multicultural families adapt to raising a child with autism. Further, students with multicultural backgrounds and autism are challenged on at least four dimensions: communication, social skills, behavioral repertoires, and culture. Future research in these areas is clearly warranted.

There has been an increasing emphasis on multicultural issues as they relate to service and education provided to those with developmental disabilities such as autism. Research is just beginning to be conducted and disseminated on prevalence variability. The current study reports trends in the educational classification for multicultural students with autism. Results indicate that identification rates have increased for all racial/ethnic categories except for those who are Hispanic.

This study investigates how the culminating teacher preparation program (TPP) experience (either student teaching assignment
or internship) influences the perceptions teachers report about their ability to perform instructional tasks required of
teachers. A multivariate ANOVA test (N = 502) was conducted to compare perceptions of student teachers (those who
taught 15 weeks) and interns (those who taught a full academic year) at two points in timeonce at the conclusion of their
TPP and again after their first year of teaching. Results indicate that overall, student teachers report higher perceptions
of their ability to perform instructional tasks than interns do at both the preservice and inservice teacher stages. Interns
reported higher scores at the inservice stage on only the mathematics subscale, suggesting that there is some change in self-efficacy
as teachers gain teaching experience. Findings suggest that the student teaching context provides more modeling and
verbal support and produces teachers with higher perceptions of teaching ability than those who complete an internship.

Using structural equation modeling, we explored the relationship between practicing 5^th and 6^th grade elementary teachers subject matter knowledge (SMK) of the science topics they are responsible for teaching and other factors, including teaching experience (number of years teaching current grade level), science teaching self-efficacy, formal science-related professional development opportunities, college science coursework, and instructional time devoted to science. Results indicate that teaching experience and science teaching self-efficacy were predictive of participants science SMK; other factors only indirectly influenced science SMK through teachers science teaching self-efficacy. Potential reasons and implications are discussed.