ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we present instruments which have been developed for measuring the quality of teaching and the school level factors. These instruments have been used in different studies testing the dynamic model (for a detailed review see Chapter 2) and in improvement projects presented in the second part of the book. Beyond presenting the instruments and their properties, guidelines on how to use them for collecting data are also provided. Moreover, different ways for analysing the data in the context of an improvement project (single or multiple cases) are illustrated. We also give examples of analysing data collected through these instruments and interpreting the results of the analysis for school improvement purposes. Obviously, schools have to adopt these instruments to their context and make use of the expertise of the Advisory and Research Team (A&R Team) in developing their own instruments to measure classroom and school factors. For example, in the project on using DASI to face and reduce bullying (Kyriakides, Charalambous, Kaloyirou, & Creemers, 2011) the teacher questionnaire had to be adopted in the context of the five participating countries. A typical example is the fact that in some countries (e.g., Cyprus and Greece) bullying incidents occurred during the visit of students to the school canteen. Relevant items were therefore included in the teacher questionnaire. However, in other countries (e.g., Belgium/Flanders and the Netherlands), small primary schools do not have a school canteen. Therefore these items were not included in the teacher questionnaire of these countries.
