Measurement of Equitable Classroom Practices in PreK-3: The Assessing Classroom Sociocultural Equity Scale (ACSES) and its Psychometric Properties

Molly J. Goldberg, Dalhia Lloyd Author

04/03/2021 Added

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This study examined the psychometric properties of an observational measure of equitable sociocultural interactions in Pre-K through Grade 3 classrooms.

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[00:00:00.060]Okay.
[00:00:05.090]Hi, I'm Molly Goldberg and I'm Dahlia Lloyd.
[00:00:08.600]We are both graduate students in the department of Child, Youth
[00:00:11.390]and Family studies at UNL and employees at the Buffett Early Childhood Institute.
[00:00:15.980]The title of our talk is Measurement of Equitable Classroom Practices in Pre-K
[00:00:20.120]to Grade 3: the Assessing Classroom Sociocultural Equity Scale (ACSES)
[00:00:23.840]and its Psychometric Properties. Picture a second grade classroom.
[00:00:28.670]After reading a book about Shirley Chisholm,
[00:00:30.560]the first black woman elected to United States Congress,
[00:00:33.650]the children are working in small groups,
[00:00:35.330]drawing pictures and discussing leaders in their community.
[00:00:38.300]One group reflects on a recent class visitor,
[00:00:41.540]Latino grandmother who organized a clothing drive in the community. The teacher
[00:00:45.750]circles around the classroom,
[00:00:47.510]encouraging conversations about social justice, equity, and fairness.
[00:00:51.830]In contrast, in the third grade classroom down the hall,
[00:00:54.740]The teacher is trying to get the attention of the class,
[00:00:56.990]but abruptly stops and glares over at a racially minoritized learner (RML) who is
[00:01:00.800]laughing and talking with another student. She yells, "Chris, you never listen!"
[00:01:05.480]"Your eyes should be up here." She points to the student desk that's next to her desk.
[00:01:09.350]"Grab your pencil and paper and sit here." Chris's experience is not unique.
[00:01:13.760]In fact,
[00:01:14.240]researchers have found that racially minoritized learners (RMLs), or Black, Latinx, Asian,
[00:01:18.560]Pacific Islanders and Native American children, are more likely to be suspended
[00:01:22.670]or expelled and less likely to be referred to gifted and talented programs.
[00:01:27.530]Scholars such as Dr. Ladson-Billings
[00:01:28.670]would argue that the second grade classroom classroom is an
[00:01:32.240]example of a culturally responsive and anti-biased classroom. However, Dr.
[00:01:36.470]Curenton et al. at all has challenged the field to also think about the interactions
[00:01:40.340]between Chris and his teacher and how social justice inequalities such as
[00:01:44.030]institutional racism or educational disparities show up in classrooms.
[00:01:53.210]The initial ACSES validity study supported the five factor structure of the
[00:01:57.050]measure in a sample of pre-K classrooms.
[00:01:59.750]Since the initial validity study was published,
[00:02:02.180]the measurement developers have made changes to the measure. Items were added,
[00:02:06.560]the wording has changed on several items and some items were changed from one
[00:02:10.310]dimension to a different dimension. However,
[00:02:12.800]no study to date has examined the psychometric properties of the measure in K
[00:02:16.730]through three classrooms.
[00:02:18.350]The aim of the current study was to confirm a six factor structure of the ACSES
[00:02:22.190]tool using the revised 40 item scale and to determine the internal consistency
[00:02:26.600]of the measure in a sample of pre-K through third grade classrooms,
[00:02:31.310]We conducted a secondary analysis of video recorded teacher instruction from
[00:02:35.750]school year 2015 to 2019 across four school districts.
[00:02:39.950]The videos were approximately 15 minutes.
[00:02:42.590]Three CITI-trained graduate student coders attended a two day virtual training.
[00:02:46.820]For our study,
[00:02:47.360]247 videos were coded. Inter-rater reliability had a mean of
[00:02:51.890]87.5%. The ACSES was used to measure social.
[00:02:56.420]The ACSES was used to measure equitable sociocultural interactions.
[00:03:00.850]Videos were scored on a five-point Likert scale.
[00:03:03.730]The ACSES dimensions are listed here. ACSES measures,
[00:03:07.300]how RMLs experience experiences the classroom in terms of teacher, child,
[00:03:12.160]and peer-to-peer interactions,
[00:03:14.140]discipline, opportunities to talk about their various identities, and instruction
[00:03:18.670]that reflects and affirms minoritized cultures.
[00:03:21.610]High scores indicated higher levels of equitable social cultural interactions,
[00:03:25.690]except in the inequitable discipline dimension where high scores indicated
[00:03:29.770]higher levels of inequitable discipline.
[00:03:33.580]Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling confirmatory factor
[00:03:38.200]analysis
[00:03:42.070]Items for the Challenging Status Quo (CSQK) dimension measures,
[00:03:45.160]whether instruction intentionally challenges,
[00:03:47.620]male dominated Euro-centric history.
[00:03:51.760]It's important to note that Challenging Status Quo Knowledge (CSQK) items measure the whole class
[00:03:55.960]and all of the teacher actions,
[00:03:58.180]a score of one indicates the teacher never exhibited the behavior measured for
[00:04:02.470]that item.
[00:04:03.520]Almost all of the videos coded received a score of one for every item in this
[00:04:07.600]dimension.
[00:04:08.770]This suggests that justice oriented themes were nearly non-existent in the
[00:04:13.660]videos coded.
[00:04:16.330]The low variance and negative skew for items and the Challenging Status Quo Knowledge (CSQK)
[00:04:20.200]dimension presented challenges statistically for the CFA model,
[00:04:24.520]given the lack of variance, we had to drop this dimension from our CFA,
[00:04:30.190]The Equitable Learning Opportunities (ELO) dimension,
[00:04:32.410]specifically focused on RMLs. The dimension measured
[00:04:36.580]how teachers communicated to RMLs
[00:04:38.380]that they believe in their capability to succeed by fostering the critical
[00:04:41.920]thinking skills and that they are interested in the students' emotions and
[00:04:46.060]ideas. We found that teachers asked a lot of questions,
[00:04:49.270]but provided little guidance. It should be noted that for item six,
[00:04:52.660]questions can be directed to any student in the class.
[00:04:55.840]As such, RMLs were often provided opportunities to have an active voice in the
[00:04:59.920]classroom when teachers ask questions of the entire group. However,
[00:05:03.910]teachers sometimes listened and responded
[00:05:05.230]to RMLs, rarely provided guidance or scaffolding, and hardly
[00:05:09.910]ever provided RMLs the opportunity to answer open ended, higher order,
[00:05:13.990]critical thinking questions.
[00:05:17.260]The Inequitable Discipline (ID) dimension measures,
[00:05:19.540]whether teachers expectations for behavior
[00:05:22.290]are developmentally appropriate and that they employ equitable
[00:05:26.470]discipline. Items 14 and 15 apply to all children.
[00:05:30.190]Whereas, item 16 through 20 apply only to the RMLs in the classroom.
[00:05:34.870]There were some indication of unfair, biased, or harsh discipline.
[00:05:38.560]We found that sometimes teachers interrupted their instruction to reprimand or
[00:05:41.860]criticize the child in front of the class.
[00:05:43.690]And RML boys were singled out more than RML girls.
[00:05:47.410]From our data, we gleaned at RML children experience discipline,
[00:05:50.650]such as teachers use of harsh tone or branding a child as the troublemaker by
[00:05:54.790]consistently calling out their name.
[00:05:58.640]The results from the confirmatory factor analysis model suggests that the five
[00:06:02.270]factor model yielded borderline global fit. The RMSEA
[00:06:07.220]and SRMR indicate okay model fit,
[00:06:10.280]and the comparative fit index (CFI) indicates somewhat poor local component fit.
[00:06:15.170]In conclusion,
[00:06:17.810]our preliminary ACSES data showed some indication that a five factor solution
[00:06:22.490]fit the data. The five supported factors are here in a black box.
[00:06:27.410]All of the items on the Challenging Status Quo Knowledge (CSQK) dimension were removed from the
[00:06:31.310]model.
[00:06:33.590]We're still
[00:06:34.100]at the beginning stages of testing the psychometric properties of this measure
[00:06:38.150]and our preliminary data suggest it is not ready for large scale use.
[00:06:42.410]An important limitation is that the CFA model was based on a relatively small
[00:06:46.490]sample of videos, 247. And we had many parameters in the model.
[00:06:51.440]We are still coding videos, and we will continue to test various models.
[00:06:57.470]Future work should also investigate the convergent and divergent validity of
[00:07:00.920]ACSES with other measures of classroom quality.
[00:07:05.390]This study revealed that teachers may benefit from strategies that ensure that
[00:07:09.200]they are asking higher order questions of RMLs.
[00:07:12.500]Doing so may result in an increase in RMLs engagement in the classroom.
[00:07:16.100]Few early childhood teachers encourage conversations about fairness and
[00:07:19.190]justice in their classrooms,
[00:07:20.910]Future training should prioritize culturally responsive teaching and equitable,
[00:07:24.650]equitable disciplinary practices and, in doing so,
[00:07:27.410]every child may have the experience of those in our imagined second grade
[00:07:30.860]classroom.
[00:07:40.390]Okay.

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Measurement of Equitable Classroom Practices in PreK-3: The Assessing Classroom Sociocultural Equity Scale (ACSES) and its Psychometric Properties

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