Commercial Teacher Selection Instruments: The Validity of Selecting Teachers Through Beliefs, Attitudes, and Values

One influential hypothesis for what makes teachers effective contends that the best teachers share a particular set of values about education, such as commitment, caring, or persistence. To translate affective beliefs, attitudes, and values into practicable teacher selection, many schools have turned to commercial teacher hiring instruments. This article synthesizes 24 studies of the most prominent teacher selection instrument, Gallup’s Teacher Perceiver Interview (TPI). Overall, we find a modest relationship (r̄=.28) between the TPI and some measure of teaching quality. The article explores complications that arise for schools from using beliefs, attitudes, and values to select among teacher candidates and discusses their implications for the educational-values hypothesis.

Assessing The Validity Of The Teacher Perceiver Interview As A Predictor Of Faculty Performance

The Teacher Perceiver Interview (TPI), developed by SRI/Gallup researchers, has been used by over 1000 secondary school districts to identify strengths specific to effective teachers. College administrators have traditionally relied on resumes, letters of recommendation, transcripts and on-campus interviews with no assurance that this process will properly identify a successful classroom teacher. Could the TPI serve as a valid assessment instrument to supplement current hiring processes and provide a quantitative prediction of classroom instructional success while screening out applicants who might not perform to minimum standards? This research correlates TPI scores with other assessment measures to validate the TPI as a predictor of faculty performance.