John D. Napier

Development and Initial Validation of an Instrument To Measure Political Attitudes

The Opinionnaire on Political Institutions and Participation (OPIP) was designed to measure six dimensions of the overall con struct of political attitude. Three studies were conducted to deter mine the validity and reliability of the instrument. Validation and cross-validation studies indicated that the instrument was construct valid for measuring political attitudes. The reliability study revealed that the overall test-retest correlation was moderately high. Reliabil ity correlations for the six subtests ranged from moderate to moder ately low. Thus the OPIP was found to be a valid and reliable in strument for research and evaluation using multi-subject designs.

Patterns of Student Attitudes toward Political Institutions and Participation

Abstract The purpose of this study was to replicate earlier research into the development of student political attitudes by examining the patterns of attitudes which emerged at the third, eighth, and twelfth grades, including comparisons by gender and race. Their attitudes were conceptualized as having 3 dimensions–-attitudes towards political institutions, public political participation, and school participation. A 48-item attitude instrument was used to collect data in two large surveys. Overall results support earlier research which indicated that student political attitudes are shaped by cognitive capacity interacting with social-political environmental factors. Subtest data reveal details about the development of political attitudes, including a self-other dichotomy in some attitude dimensions. Differences by race and gender provide new insights into how social factors affect political attitudes.

Evaluation of a Local Improvement-Oriented Project for Citizenship Education.

AbstractThis article reports the evaluation of a four-year ESEA Title IV political/citizenship education improvement project conducted in elementary and secondary schools of a large, southern metropolitan school system. The project designed and tested an educational improvement model which conceptualized the school as a system with interrelated components which influence student learning. The model focused on classroom teachers as change agents and provided them with five types of support channeled through other parts of the system. The model was first found effective for secondary grades and later for elementary grades. Both process and product were monitored to provide research data on the model. The results, implications and limitations are discussed.

The Validity of Preservice Teacher Use of Kohlberg's Issue Stage Scoring System.

Abstract Twenty-two preservice social studies teachers were given background information on Kohlbergs theory of and education program for moral development. Next, the preservice teachers were trained to use one of the rater guides (Heinz Dilemma) in Kohlbergs new Issue Stage Scoring system. Afterwards, the preservice teachers intuitively stage scored 40 moral thought statements and then rater guide stage scored the same 40 moral thought statements. Results of analysis of variance tests indicated no overall differences between intuitive and rater guide stage scoring. These analyses also indicated, however, that the preservice teachers were invalidly stage scoring on the basis of content rather than structure of moral thought. Finally, neither logical nor moral reasoning ability correlated with either intuitive or rater guide stage scoring ability. The major implication of the findings is that teachers should not try to stage score moral thought statements because training programs, scoring systems, and r...

An Analysis of Instructional Planning Skills of Social Studies Teacher Trainees

Abstract Data were collected from trainees of teacher education institutions with programs designed to instruct trainees to plan to achieve higher level cognitive and affective objectives, use a variety of activities, and develop valid criterion measures. Sixty trainees submitted planned instructional units. Objectives and questions on the criterion measures were classified as belonging to cognitive or affective domain and level within each domain. Activities were classified using a modification of Dales “Cone of Experiences.” In most instances, trainees planned for low level cognitive objectives to be achieved by group verbal activities. Also, the criterion measures were not related to the planned objectives, and therefore, not valid. Plausible explanations of why the programs of the teacher education institutions had little effect on the instructional planning skills of their trainees were presented.

Experiments in the Validity of Preservice Teacher Stage Scoring of Moral Thought Statements

Two experiments were conducted to replicate earlier studies of teacher stage scoring ability. In the first experiment the 2 original rater guides created by Kohlberg were compared. In the second experiment the 2 original Kohlberg rater guides were combined and compared to the Porter and Taylor rater guide. In both experiments there was no significant difference between rater guide treatments. Teachers could correctly stage score only 51% of the moral thought statements in experiment 1 and only 44% in experiment 2. Further analyses indicated that teachers were being influenced by the content of moral thought while stage scoring. Therefore, until research indicates what factors cause successful use of Kohlbergs stage scoring system, teachers should refrain from stage scoring because the validity of their stage scoring is open to serious question.

Evaluation of a Second Generation Dissemination of a Local Improvement Project: Implications for Theory and Procedures.

Abstract The article reports three second generation dissemination evaluation studies of the secondary component of a locally developed improvement project. The evaluations focused on whether a change model validated in the originating school system could be successfully disseminated. Results indicate successful adoption was possible when adopting school systems patterned their implementation of the change model after the originating school system implementation. The results also helped clarify what causes both cognitive and affective changes in students. Finally, the study exemplifies methods of conducting second generation evaluations and discusses ways to improve the models used.