A Teacher Self-Assessment of Culturally Relevant Practice to Inform Educator Professional Development Decisions in MTSS Contexts

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Aran

When students require support to improve outcomes in a variety of domains, educators provide school-based intervention; when teachers need support to strengthen professional practice, leaders and specialists provide professional development, consultation, and coaching. This multi-study article presents the Assessment of Culturally and Contextually Relevant Supports (ACCReS) and its development as an assessment tool that drives intervention to promote culturally responsive practice. Expert and practitioner panels generated items; exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses supported a three-subscale structure, with preliminary evidence of convergent validity with teacher self-efficacy measures.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages13

Reading Time33 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Keywords

Culture in the Classroom

Culturally Responsive Practice

Links to Student Outcomes

A Teacher Self-Assessment of Culturally Relevant Practice to Inform Educator Professional Development Decisions in MTSS Contexts Assessment for Effective Intervention 2023, Vol. 48(2) 100–112 © Hammill Institute on Disabilities 2022 Article reuse guidelines: [sagepub.com/journals-permissions](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)[ ](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)[DOI: 10.1177/15345084221111338](DOI: 10.1177/15345084221111338)[ ](DOI: 10.1177/15345084221111338)[aei.sagepub.com](aei.sagepub.com) Lindsay M. Fallon, PhD, BCBA-D 1, Sadie C. Cathcart, MEd 1, Austin H. Johnson, PhD, BCBA2, Takuya Minami, PhD 1, Breda V. O’Keeffe, PhD3, Emily R. DeFouw, MEd, BCBA4, and George Sugai, PhD5 Abstract When students require support to improve outcomes in a variety of domains, educators provide youth with schoolbased intervention. When educators require support to improve their professional practice, school leaders and support personnel (e.g., school psychologists) provide teachers with professional development (PD), consultation, and coaching. This multi-study article describes how the Assessment of Culturally and Contextually Relevant Supports (ACCReS) was developed with the purpose of assessment driving intervention for teachers in need of support to engage in culturally responsive practice. Items for the ACCReS were created via a multi-step process including review by both expert and practitioner panels. Then, results of an exploratory factor analysis with a national sample of U.S. teachers (N = 500) in Study 1 yielded three subscales. A confirmatory factor analysis conducted with a separate sample of teachers (N = 400) in Study 2 produced adequate model fit. In Study 3, analyses with another final sample of teachers (N = 99) indicated preliminary evidence of convergent validity between the ACCReS and two measures of teacher self-efficacy of culturally responsive practice. Data from the ACCReS can shape the content of educator intervention (e.g., PD) and promote more equitable student outcomes for youth. Keywords professional development, culturally responsive practice, instrument development In the United States, it is projected that over the next decade, racially and ethnically minoritized youth (Proctor & Owens, 2019) will account for 56% of students enrolled in public elementary and secondary schools (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2019a) while the teaching field remains predominately White and female (Hussar et al., 2020) . This racial/ethnic “mismatch” can affect how teachers evaluate their students’ abilities and behaviors, ultimately affecting students’ experiences in school (La Salle et al., 2020) . Teachers report graduating from their preservice training programs underprepared (Milner, 2017) and needing support in the classroom (Gregory et al., 2016) to bridge the long-standing opportunity (Bohrnstedt et al., 2015) and discipline gaps (Gopalan & Nelson, 2019) that affect Black, Latinx, and Native American students most acutely (e.g., Gage et al., 2019; Skiba et al., 2016) . Furthermore, teachers often enter the field without a firm understanding of their own biases and the impact students’culture has on their learning (Howard & Navarro, 2016; Peters et al., 2016) . For teachers to be responsive to students’ culture and foster an effective educational environment, intervention in the form of high-quality teacher professional development (PD), consultation, or coaching is critical (Ellerbrock et al., 2016) . For intervention to be effective, assessment data reflecting teachers’ perceptions of their use of culturally and culturally relevant classroom 1 University of Massachusetts Boston, USA 2University of California, Riverside, USA 3The University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA 4The University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg 5University of Connecticut, Storrs, USA Corresponding Author: Lindsay M. Fallon, Department of Counseling and School Psychology, University of Massachusetts

FAQs

What is the ACCReS assessment designed to do?

ACCReS was developed to provide assessment data that can drive educator intervention—such as professional development—and support culturally responsive practice in teachers.

How was ACCReS developed and evaluated?

Items were created through a multi-step process including review by expert and practitioner panels. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis tested the instrument’s subscale structure using multiple teacher samples.

What does the article report about validity?

Study 3 provides preliminary evidence of convergent validity between ACCReS and two measures of teacher self-efficacy for culturally responsive practice.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Aran