A Certification for Montessori Teachers

Methods

Summary

Applying credentialing industry best practices for conducting practice analysis studies and following the recommendations set forth in the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, the study methods include three steps: 1) prepare an initial framework and materials that describe the target population and professional role, 2) conduct a 1 day, in-person meeting with a panel of subject matter experts in the profession in order to define the essential tasks of a competent professional, and 3) develop and administer a questionnaire that is intended to survey a representative sample of the profession in order to confirm the work of the panel.

In most practice analysis studies, additional days are spent with experts defining the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary for professionals to competently execute the defined tasks. However, since this is a proof-of-concept study being conducted on a small scale, this work will not be included in the current study.

Challenges

The greatest challenge for this project is recruiting early childhood Montessori teachers who represent the breadth of practice settings in the state of South Carolina and who are willing to volunteer their valuable time. Development of any credentialing tests is a collaboration between measurement experts and the subject matter experts. Both are essential to the development of a quality testing program. Access to teachers is limited, particularly in public schools where permission from the district and school are needed before a researcher may contact the teachers directly.