2/1/2019 – 6/30/2024
$27,046
Initial results suggest that the Measure of Montessori Implementation – Early Childhood (MMI-EC) holds promise for reliably measuring Montessori practices. We found the strongest internal reliability consistency with the Teacher Activity (real time documentation of teacher behaviors) particularly negative actions. Positive Teacher activity produced a reasonable level for coefficient alpha but was weaker than the negative behaviors. The Material Snapshot scale (an inventory of Montessori materials available in the classroom) is extensive with many of the items not contributing to internal consistency. A reduced scale after removing items with low item total correlation produced a reasonable degree of internal consistency. The Engaged Materials (work children are doing) and Classroom Index (features of classroom) scales were less consistent and require additional scrutiny. We will continue our analysis by further refining the scales and looking at cross-scale correlations within the MMI-EC, interrater reliability, and correlations with the Teacher Questionnaire of Montessori Practices and an expert assessment of classroom quality rubric completed by Montessori mentors. This analysis will be completed as part of our efforts to disseminate the results from our study. While work remains to refine the instrument and optimize the internal scales’ psychometric properties, our analysis thus far indicates that the MMI-EC appears to yield reliable scales (A paper submitted to AERA is attached as an appendix to provide more information about our study design, data collection, and results.)