LMT Library

Assessing Elemental and Structural Validity: Data from teachers, non-teachers and mathematicians

Abstract

"Validation efforts typically focus around what, exactly, is measured by an instrument(s), and whether what is measured corresponds to the theoretical domain(s) originally specified. In this paper, we conduct a first analysis into these issues. Our goal is building instruments focused around measuring the mathematical knowledge used in teaching: not only the content that teachers teach to students directly, but also the professional knowledge that helps support the teaching of that content. Following Kane (2001; 2004a) and as reported in Schilling & Hill (this issue), we developed two assumptions and related inferences to represent this thinking, Elemental assumption and Structural assumption. In this paper we describe and address the Elemental assumption of the LMT measures."