This was a study that focused on the development of a quantitative instrument that measures the dispositions of teacher education candidates as articulated by the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (1991). To examine reliability, the statistical analysis included intraclass correlation coefficient and Cronbach's alpha correlation coefficient estimates. Validity evidence based on test content and internal structure was examined. The subject pool for each pilot test was formed from matched pairs of student teachers and their assigned college or university supervisors. The matched pairs attended a private, Christian liberal arts college located in central Illinois or public university located in southern Illinois. The student teachers were senior level undergraduate or graduate college students seeking Illinois teaching certification. The pilot test of the instrument included 23 student teacher candidates and their assigned college or university supervisors. The data collection phase of the study included 103 student teacher candidates and their assigned college or university supervisors. The following findings resulted from the study: 1. It is possible to develop a quantitative instrument that effectively and efficiently measures the construct of professional dispositions of teacher candidates. 2. The instrument developed produced reliable scores. 3. Validity evidence based on instrument content and internal structure supported the intended interpretations of the instrument scores.

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / The principal aim of this study is to contribute to the debate on effective teaching and learning by investigating the role of dispositions in differentiating between 12 teachers nominated by their school principals as being ‘exceptional teachers’. The thesis is premised on the importance of human dispositions for high quality teaching and learning. A conceptual framework is developed as a guide to structure the investigation that is set in the context of classroom teaching in primary and secondary schools selected from an opportunity sample of independent schools in New South Wales, Australia. The study proposes that it is possible to examine and gain insight into the nexus between pedagogic and dispositional variables when considering what it means to be an ‘exceptional teacher’. From an extensive review of the literature a conceptual model, the Dispositional Cluster Model (DCM), is developed from five complementary fields of research literature, namely: effective teachers and effective teaching, giftedness and talent, intelligence, creativity, and dispositions. The case study involves the application of four instruments that are used to examine pedagogic variables, and teacher values and beliefs. In addition, the Interview Analysis Framework (IAF) has been designed to analyse case study interviews. NVivo analysis has also been applied to the interviews. The results from the case study provide a rich array of data for differentiating between the case study teachers. The major outcome of this research was the development of the IAF as an instrument that proved to be a useful and credible tool for analysing the case study interviews. It is proposed that the IAF and the DCM have strong potential for implementation in the areas of teacher education, teachers’ professional development, and teacher evaluation. The IAF may prove to be a useful device for school principals to use for analysing teacher interviews, providing teacher support, and for assessing teachers.

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / The principal aim of this study is to contribute to the debate on effective teaching and learning by investigating the role of dispositions in differentiating between 12 teachers nominated by their school principals as being ‘exceptional teachers’. The thesis is premised on the importance of human dispositions for high quality teaching and learning. A conceptual framework is developed as a guide to structure the investigation that is set in the context of classroom teaching in primary and secondary schools selected from an opportunity sample of independent schools in New South Wales, Australia. The study proposes that it is possible to examine and gain insight into the nexus between pedagogic and dispositional variables when considering what it means to be an ‘exceptional teacher’. From an extensive review of the literature a conceptual model, the Dispositional Cluster Model (DCM), is developed from five complementary fields of research literature, namely: effective teachers and effective teaching, giftedness and talent, intelligence, creativity, and dispositions. The case study involves the application of four instruments that are used to examine pedagogic variables, and teacher values and beliefs. In addition, the Interview Analysis Framework (IAF) has been designed to analyse case study interviews. NVivo analysis has also been applied to the interviews. The results from the case study provide a rich array of data for differentiating between the case study teachers. The major outcome of this research was the development of the IAF as an instrument that proved to be a useful and credible tool for analysing the case study interviews. It is proposed that the IAF and the DCM have strong potential for implementation in the areas of teacher education, teachers’ professional development, and teacher evaluation. The IAF may prove to be a useful device for school principals to use for analysing teacher interviews, providing teacher support, and for assessing teachers.

Many new teachers will be hired in the decades to come. A school administrator screening candidates for teaching positions is faced with a decision that can have long-term consequences for a community, a school, and thousands of children. Finding the best candidates for teaching positions has never been more important. A variety of questions centering on prior experience, knowledge, or expertise may be asked by those responsible for screening candidates, yet there is another area of importance to be considered in the process, that of dispositions. The Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation [CAEP], formerly known as the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education [NCATE] (2008), and the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium [INTASC] (2010) have emphasized the need to identify dispositions in addition to the knowledge and skills that have historically received emphasis by school districts seeking candidates and institutions preparing them. In response to this emphasis, administrators may benefit from a greater understanding of dispositions when interviewing and making hiring decisions. Administrators will also benefit by greater knowledge of the questions asked to determine if a candidate possessed a particular disposition. The research procedure uses a focus group format to conduct a multi-round survey/discussion to obtain input and consensus on two asked of school administrators: (1)'What do administrators believe are the critical dispositions a teacher candidate must possess?' and (2) 'Do administrators believe that a person can ask candidates questions to determine if they possess those dispositions? If so, what are the questions administrators can ask to determine if the candidates possess those dispositions?' Recommendations on dispositions that should be assessed and questions that may be used in the assessment of those dispositions will be developed from the results of the study. The focus group identified 19 dispositions and 74 interview questions within 5 theme groupings. These groupings included: beliefs about children, attitudes/beliefs – willingness to act, job-related skill, structure, and other personal attributes/traits. / Ed. D.

The importance of teacher dispositions has quickly become commonplace in the preparation of teachers. Unlike other well-established domains of teacher education, like knowledge and skills, the evolving concept continues to challenge those mandated to identify, nurture, and assess the dispositions of teachers. The purpose of this study was to expand the conversation on teacher dispositions by examining connections between perceived dispositions and dispositions-in-action using Argyris and Schön’s (1974) theory of action framework. Case studies of two experienced elementary classroom teachers working in high-needs urban schools provided information on how teachers perceive their teaching dispositions compared with dispositions evidenced in their classroom practices. Data for this multiple case study included a validated self-assessment disposition instrument, the Diversity Disposition Index, semi-structured interviews, and classroom observations. The study found evidence of congruence and incongruity between the participants’ perceived and observed teaching dispositions. While both teachers shared similar self-reported teaching dispositions, such an enthusiasm for content, importance of classroom management, and attention to expectations for students, their enactment of those teaching dispositions varied greatly in their classrooms despite similarities in context. Implications are provided for teachers working in high-needs urban schools who face unique challenges and for teacher education programs designed to prepare and support new urban educators.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Curriculum and Instruction / Gail Shroyer / Research regarding dispositions dates back seven decades; but because of challenges in measuring, identifying and monitoring dispositions, teacher education programs have only recently developed procedures to document and assess candidates’ dispositions (Albee, & Piveral, 2003). The question remains, are teacher educators prepared for this challenge? Dispositions can be difficult to identify and measure and teacher educators are not necessarily trained in the development of assessments. By using data gathered at an NCATE accredited teacher education institution, the researcher hoped to examine one institution’s approach to assessing dispositions as part of an overall system to assess successful teaching. The purpose of this study was to determine if there was a relationship between the results of disposition assessments completed by university supervisors at the end of Block 2 and the results of final student teacher assessments completed by university supervisors at the end of Block 3. Scores from the Block 2 Coordinator’s Evaluation of Intern form and the final University Supervisor Assessment of Student Teacher/Intern form were collected and correlated using the Spearman’s Rho. The resulting scores were analyzed to determine if there was a statistically significant relationship. It was concluded that there was no significant relationship between the Block 2 Coordinator’s Evaluation of Intern form score and the final University Supervisor Assessment of Student Teacher/Intern form score. This study underscores the difficulty of assessing dispositions, and shows that teacher education programs need to establish reliability and validity on forms used to assess candidates’ dispositions.

Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / Michael Perl / The National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) standards adopted in 2000 mandated the assessment of teacher dispositions. However, the lack of specificity of the construct has led to an environment where many institutions struggle to develop high-quality disposition assessments. The result is a hodgepodge of constructs and systems; some that work, some that do not. This quantitative study used a modified version of the Teacher Disposition Index (TDI) to identify the extent to which first-year teachers’ self-reported exhibiting the dispositions and whether they perceived they were taught the dispositions by the teacher education programs from which they graduated. Responses to the TDI were compared based on type of college or university from which they graduated, gender and age. The TDI, a 45 item, Likert-type survey, is aligned with the INTASC standards. Data were analyzed using frequency distributions, analysis of variance, and chi square tests. An aggregate review of all 45 dispositions shows 93.6% of responses were positive for “agree” or “strongly agree” that they exhibit the identified dispositions and 88.51% of responses were positive for perceiving they were taught the dispositions. Overall, there was no significant difference identified between any groups (by school type, gender, or age) except for in exhibited dispositions compared by gender (p< .05). When drilling down to specific dispositions, an occasional significant difference was identified. In general, the respondents in this state report they exhibit the identified dispositions at a high rate and they report the teacher education programs are teaching these dispositions. The following recommendations are made based on the results of this study. First, colleges and universities can teach more interpersonal communications skills as part of the required curriculum. More overt instruction of dispositions, especially at smaller institutions, is needed. Teacher education programs could place more emphasis on the development of dispositions of male teacher education candidates. Novice teachers could benefit from more instruction of informal assessment skills and flexibility in instruction.

A l’intersection d’une sociologie de la socialisation professionnelle et de la sociologie du genre, la thèse se propose d’étudier la population des femmes exerçant en chirurgie digestive. L’enquête s’appuie sur des entretiens menés avec des chirurgiens (une quarantaine de femmes et une quinzaine d’hommes) ainsi que sur du matériau ethnographique issu de stages d’observation. Le fait de restreindre l’analyse aux seules exceptions statistiques que représentent les femmes en chirurgie partait de l’hypothèse que les processus de socialisation professionnelle et les produits de cette socialisation seraient plus visibles – parce que plus problématiques, moins « naturels » – qu’en étudiant leurs homologues masculins. Mais parce que les dispositions professionnelles en chirurgie sont inextricablement construites et perçues comme « masculines », l’analyse s’est aussi attachée à la construction sociale du « féminin » ou du « masculin » chez les enquêtées exerçant ce métier. Nous étudions dans une première partie analytique comment les enquêtées qui choisissent la chirurgie s’accommodent de ce qui est rédhibitoire pour d’autres étudiantes ayant écarté la spécialité de leur choix à l’internat, à savoir la grande disponibilité temporelle exigée par le métier, l’humour grivois des opérateurs et le faible relationnel avec le patient. Dans la seconde partie des résultats, nous montrons que les femmes qui choisissent la chirurgie ont pour la plupart un patrimoine dispositionnel perçu comme « masculin » et que cette intériorisation de dispositions socialement construites comme masculines s’est faite dans le cadre de la profession, mais déjà en amont dans le cadre des socialisations antérieures (familiales, amicales…). Quelques cas d’enquêtées « féminines » sont étudiés en contrepoint. Enfin, un dernier chapitre souligne la pluralité dispositionnelle diachronique (avec une tendance à la masculinisation en début de carrière professionnelle) ainsi que la pluralité dispositionnelle synchronique (« masculines » avec les chirurgiens, elles se comporteraient de manière plus « féminine » avec les infirmières). / At the crossing of sociology of professional socialization and sociology of gender, this PdD research studies the population of women general surgeons. It is based on interviews with surgeons (about forty interviews with female surgeons and fifteen with male surgeons) and ethnographic data collected through observation. The study of the statistical exception that are female surgeons is based on the hypothesis that the process of professional socialization and its outcomes would be more visible – because more problematic, less “natural” – than through the study of male surgeons. But, because professional dispositions in surgery are inextricably built and perceived as “masculine”, the research also analyses the social construction of “feminity” and “masculinity” of women surgeons.The first part is devoted to the study of how women who choose surgery put up with some aspects of the profession that make other student avoid it. These aspects are: the business of timetable required by surgery, the lack of inter-personal relations with the patient and the coarse humour of male surgeons. The second part demonstrates that the women who choose surgery have, most of the time, a dispositional heritage perceived as “masculine” and that this incorporation of dispositions socially constructed as masculine occurred in the professional context but also, earlier on, in the context of prior socializations (familial socialization, friend socialisation…). Some “feminine” women surgeons are studied as counterpoint. Finally, the last chapter underlies diachronic dispositional plurality (with a tendency to masculinization at the beginning of the career) and synchronic dispositional plurality (“masculine” with male surgeons, they behave in a more “feminine” way with nurses).

Contemporary emotion research typically takes the phenomenon of emotion to be exhausted by a class of mental events that are intentional, conscious, and related to certain sorts of behaviour. Moreover, other affective phenomena, such as moods, are also considered to be relatively short-term, episodic, or occurrent states of the subject undergoing them. Emotions, and other putative emotional phenomena that common-sense takes as long-lasting, non-episodic, or dispositional are things that both philosophers and scientists sometimes recognise, but that are relatively neglected in comparison to emotional episodes. This thesis aims at showing that this neglect is unjustified. I will argue that there is a class of entities, 'sentiments'—broadly characterised as dispositions to undergo emotional episodes—that (1) are irreducible to emotional episodes or collections thereof and (2) have properties that make them a suitable target of study by the emotion researcher. In the first chapter, I argue that an analysis of caring (and related phenomena, such as love) as a pattern of emotional episodes, while more plausible than alternative, non-emotional accounts, faces a number of counterexamples that motivate the search for an account of caring as related in a certain way to emotions but as irreducible to them. I argue that a dispositional account, according to which dispositions are conceived as distinct from their manifestations, is an account for which a strong case can be made. The second chapter is dedicated to defending a modest form of realism about dispositions in general and psychological dispositions in particular. According to realism, dispositions are genuine properties that, although perhaps reducible to non-dispositional properties, cannot be re-described in terms of events (including behaviour) only. In the third chapter, I show in what ways emotional dispositions (or sentiments) can positively contribute to the explanation of the occurrence (or non-occurrence) of emotional episodes. In the fourth chapter, I argue that caring, understood as a species of sentiment, is not to be construed as a mere disposition to produce certain events; rather, we should allow that certain dispositions are genuinely mental or psychological. Assuming realism about the mental, I argue that some dispositions are mental in a way that others (such as fragility) are not. I suggest that being intentional is the property that makes psychological dispositions genuinely mental. I end the chapter by drawing a connection between caring and the notion of character. On my view, caring is at least a necessary ingredient of certain character traits, in particular the virtues. In chapter five, I tackle a recent form of empirically informed scepticism about character and argue, on the basis of general considerations about psychological dispositions, that the sceptic’s case is not as strong as she makes out. Finally, in chapter six, I argue that at least certain forms of sentiment, for example romantic love, can be genuinely supported by reasons, thereby suggesting a way they can contribute to the value of our lives. Overall, the aim of this thesis is to establish the respectability of sentiments in a sophisticated account of the mind.

School superintendents have been thrust into the complex world of technology leadership often armed with little technology related training or expertise. District and school leaders are often faced with purchase decisions of costly equipment and software with minimum knowledge of what impact it will have on their organization or specific knowledge of how it will be used to meet curriculum goals. With continued local, state, and federal support and rapid advances in technology, school superintendents are expected to provide leadership in this fast-changing arena. The purpose of this study was to define the role of the school superintendent as an effective technology leader in terms of knowledge, performances, and dispositions. The research questions guiding this study were: • What does a superintendent need to know about technology to be an effective technology leader? • What actions should be performed by a superintendent to be an effective technology leader? • What are indicators of a superintendent's disposition as an effective technology leader? The study was conducted using a three-round Delphi with an expert panel composed of 29 stakeholders with diverse perspectives in the area of school technology leadership. The findings in this study showed a group consensus on 27 knowledge items, 27 performance actions, and 35 dispositional indicators of school superintendents as effective technology leaders. The study contains criteria that may be useful in the development of technology related preparation practices for school superintendents. The findings may also be of interest to those concerned with professional development for superintendents or to those involved in the selection of superintendents for technology leadership positions. / Ed. D.