Measuring the Practices, Philosophies, and Characteristics of Kindergarten Teachers

Laura S. Hamilton, Cassandra M. Guarino

Published Jan 18, 2005

This paper uses data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class 1998-99 (ECLS-K), sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, to explore some of the characteristics, practices, and philosophies of kindergarten teachers and schools. The purpose of these analyses was to create measures of constructs related to teaching and to explore the possible utility of these measures for future research. Exploratory factor analysis was used to examine several categories of variables that would be expected to influence student learning and to inform the development of scales that could be used in subsequent analyses linking teacher and school factors to student achievement growth during the kindergarten year. The categories of variables examined in this study include teachers' instructional practices, teaching philosophies, school climate, and resources.

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Document Details

  • Copyright: RAND Corporation
  • Availability: Web-Only
  • Year: 2005
  • Pages: 59
  • Document Number: WR-199-EDU

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Hamilton, Laura S. and Cassandra M. Guarino, Measuring the Practices, Philosophies, and Characteristics of Kindergarten Teachers. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2005. https://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/WR199.html.
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This work was funded by the National Center for Education Statistics and conducted by RAND Education.

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