MEASUREMENT VALIDATION AND EXPLORATORY RESEARCH: MEASURING TEACHERS’ CODE KNOWLEDGE AND ITS ASSOCIATION WITH DYSLEXIA THERAPY CLINICAL HOURS AND CONFIDENCE TO TEACH LITERACY

Abstract

In an effort to provide free and appropriate education for students, 42 states have passed laws regarding dyslexia, many of which address the instructional requirements of reading intervention. Programs were developed to train teachers in dyslexia specific instruction. However, there is limited research examining the efficacy of this training. In order to explore this area, psychometrically validated measures are essential. However, no measure was located with equal distribution of items across the basic elements of English language (phonological sensitivity, phonemic awareness, decoding, encoding, and morphology) so that categories could be compared. Therefore, it was necessary to draft and psychometrically validate such measure, including assessing the reliability of the measure to discriminate between teachers with two years of dyslexia therapy training and those with no training. Three hundred and eighty-eight educators participated in the psychometric validation and the discriminant analysis. Then to explore the instrument’s research potential, 382 K-12 certified teachers’ calibrated scores were used to investigate the impact of the interaction between knowledge and clinical hours teaching struggling readers on teachers’ confidence to teach literacy. The validated measure demonstrated that distinguishes differences in knowledge between those teachers who have completed two years of dyslexia therapy training and those who have no training. Additionally, the instrument proved successful in a moderation regression analysis that examined the effect of knowledge of the basic elements of English language on clinical hours impact on confidence. Laws may designate what teachers are required to teach, but laws in and of themselves do not change people. Training is an integral element to informing teachers of new information, but training alone does not readily transfer to effective classroom instruction. Therefore, it is important to continue to examine teacher knowledge and experiences working with struggling readers as but one aspect of impacting students’ academic achievement.