James B. Carroll

Career Paths of Department Chairs: A National Perspective.

Department chairs in 101 Carnegie Council Research I and II and Doctorate-Granting I and II institutions were surveyed to describe their career movements prior to becoming chair, and the length of tenure as chair and the movement from the chair position that their two predecessors in the position of chair had made. Additional variables addressed were discipline, department size, chairs age and gender, the nature of departmental hiring practices, and whether chairs had previous administrative experience. The Biglan model of discipline classification was used to differentiate among disciplines. Sixty-five percent of chairs return to faculty status after their tenure as chair. However, gender, departmental hiring practices, and discipline all have significant effects on the likelihood that a chair will return to faculty status or go on to further administrative service.

Concurrent Validity of Standards-Based Assessments of Teacher Candidate Readiness for Licensure:

This study examined the concurrent validity of assessments based on a prescribed set of preparation standards of teacher candidate competency. Participants were 94 candidates from a small, comprehensive liberal arts university in the northwest. Teacher candidate performance measures included a Summary Student Teaching Evaluation, an evaluation of a Teacher Work Sample (TWS), learning gain scores from P-12 students during a unit of instruction completed as part of the TWS, and State licensure content area tests. Measures of student teaching showed strong correlations internally and moderate correlations with the TWS evaluation. Measures of the TWS showed moderate correlations internally. Learning gain scores and content area test scores were weakly correlated with all other measures of candidate performance. The absence of moderate or strong correlations among different assessments suggests they are measuring different constructs supporting the use of a comprehensive set of standards-based assessments to determine candidates’ readiness for licensure.