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Discrete Choice Modeling in Education: An Innovative Method to Assess Teaching Practices

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Title: Discrete Choice Modeling in Education: An Innovative Method to Assess Teaching Practices
Language: English
Authors: Grammatikopoulos, Vasilis (ORCID 0000-0001-7556-6162), Gregoriadis, Athanasios, Linardakis, Michalis
Source: Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice. Fall 2019 38(3):46-54.
Availability: Wiley-Blackwell. 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148. Tel: 800-835-6770; Tel: 781-388-8598; Fax: 781-388-8232; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 9
Publication Date: 2019
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Education Level: Early Childhood Education
Descriptors: Measurement Techniques, Early Childhood Teachers, Social Desirability, Response Style (Tests), Self Evaluation (Individuals), Questionnaires, Educational Practices, Teacher Evaluation, Foreign Countries
Geographic Terms: Greece
DOI: 10.1111/emip.12255
ISSN: 0731-1745
Abstract: Self-reported measures are an easy, time-efficient, and low-cost way to collect research data compared to other assessment methods. They are, however, characterized by several limitations regarding the quality and the clarity of the data they produce, especially when they are implemented in education. The main purpose of the current study was to use a method called discrete choice modeling (DCM) in education, in order to develop a self-reported instrument that will reduce the bias for socially desirable responses and to assess teachers' practices in physical activity. DCM method has the ability to overcome the respondents' tendency to answer in a socially desirable way. A nationally representative sample of 531 Greek early educators participated in this study and were administered a self-assessment questionnaire based on DCM. Results showed that the DCM based newly developed instrument manages to assess effectively educators' practices and provided evidence of the applicability of the method in education. Further implications and future recommendations regarding the effective application of DCM in education are discussed.
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2019
Accession Number: EJ1227241
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0138456981;ems01sep.19;2019Sep07.02:57;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0138456981-1">Discrete Choice Modeling in Education: An Innovative Method to Assess Teaching Practices </title> <p>Self‐reported measures are an easy, time‐efficient, and low‐cost way to collect research data compared to other assessment methods. They are, however, characterized by several limitations regarding the quality and the clarity of the data they produce, especially when they are implemented in education. The main purpose of the current study was to use a method called discrete choice modeling (DCM) in education, in order to develop a self‐reported instrument that will reduce the bias for socially desirable responses and to assess teachers' practices in physical activity. DCM method has the ability to overcome the respondents' tendency to answer in a socially desirable way. A nationally representative sample of 531 Greek early educators participated in this study and were administered a self‐assessment questionnaire based on DCM. Results showed that the DCM based newly developed instrument manages to assess effectively educators' practices and provided evidence of the applicability of the method in education. Further implications and future recommendations regarding the effective application of DCM in education are discussed.</p> <p>Keywords: assessing teaching practices; discrete choice modeling; early childhood education; self‐assessment</p> <p>There are several methods available for assessing teaching effectiveness in education. Apart from recent holistic and dynamic approaches to assess teaching effectiveness (e.g. Creemers & Kyriakides, [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref1">10</reflink>]), value‐added models, classroom observations, principal evaluations, analysis of classroom artifacts, portfolios, and self‐report measures are acknowledged as common methods to assess teaching effectiveness (Goe, Bell, & Little, [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref2">14</reflink>]; Little, Goe, & Bell, [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref3">27</reflink>]).</p> <p>A "common secret" in the teaching assessment field is that educators in general are reluctant to accept external assessments implemented in their classrooms, even in cases where anonymity is ensured and/or the data collection is being made only for research purposes. However, teachers' self‐reports are fast and easy to implement compared to other time‐ and cost‐consuming methods. However, it is acknowledged that teacher self‐reports are accompanied by several limitations regarding the quality and clarity of the data they collect. Paraphrasing a seminal comment by Nevo ([<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref4">34</reflink>], p. 104), it can be argued that everybody seems to hate external observations, whereas nobody trusts self‐assessment reports.</p> <p>One way to address the credibility gap of the self‐report methods may be to use discrete choice modeling (DCM). The research problem that this study attempts to address is to overcome the social desirability bias of traditional approaches by using a method that seems to be more effective. This method is the discrete choice modeling (DCM) method, a statistical technique under the family of conjoint analysis. DCM has been implemented successfully in various areas such as econometrics, marketing, and management, but its use in education is very scarce.</p> <hd id="AN0138456981-2">DCM in Education</hd> <p>This study attempts to adapt and apply the method of DCM (McFadden, [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref5">31</reflink>]) in education. More specifically, it employs DCM in order to assess early educators' practices in teaching physical activity. DCM is based on the modeling of actual choices in realistic scenarios formed by mutually exclusive alternatives (i.e., teaching practices). It is used to estimate the utility or value the respondent places on attributes when making choices. The methodology and the advantages of using DCM over statistical methods of stated preference data have been thoroughly discussed in the literature (Hensher, Rose, & Greene, [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref6">21</reflink>]; Louviere, Hensher, & Swait, [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref7">28</reflink>]; Louviere & Islam, [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref8">29</reflink>]; Train, [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref9">41</reflink>]). To our knowledge, only a few recent studies in education have employed a similar methodology (Aubusson, Burke, Schuck, Kearney, & Frischknecht, [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref10">1</reflink>]; Cunningham et al., [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref11">12</reflink>]).</p> <p>Let us examine the hypothetical example where a study uses a questionnaire asking teachers to report (e.g., on a Likert scale from 1 to 7) how they implement separately each of the important attributes on teaching physical activity in their daily practice. Important attributes on teaching physical activity could be, for example, "how teachers evaluate children's physical activity" or "how teachers engage in the activities with children." The respondents tend, in that case, to overrate the relative implementation of the attributes, because there is no comparison among them as they are evaluated separately. That research could lead to the conclusion that teachers implement all the attributes in their teaching practices regarding physical activity, and this is the weakest part of the self‐report measures. In contrast, it is expected that the DCM offers a more suitable "environment" for respondents to compare different options and select the one that best fits their physical activity teaching practice than the existing traditional methods that rate each attribute separately. This expectation is strongly supported on previous experience by the application of DCM in various fields like marketing, econometrics, management, and health (e.g., Louviere & Islam, [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref12">29</reflink>]; Yi et al., [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref13">45</reflink>]).</p> <p>The first step for developing a DCM research design is to define all the important attributes for a specific research topic (Kloejgaard, Bech, & Soegaard, [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref14">22</reflink>]; Lancsar & Louviere, [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref15">26</reflink>]). The DCM design of this study includes seven attributes of teaching physical activity which are presented in the first column of Table . The selection of the specific attributes is explained in detail in the Methods section. The next step in DCM is to select the levels of each attribute so as to cover a range from a low to an excellent quality of teaching physical activity. The levels that were chosen are presented in the second column of Table . For example, for the attribute of "evaluation of children's physical activity," the three levels were that a teacher evaluates children's physical activity based on (i) only observations, (ii) observations recorded in portfolios, and (iii) documentation in portfolios (see Table ). One could expect that less competent teachers evaluate children's physical activity only based on their informal observations during the daily schedule and not on documentation in each child's portfolio.</p> <p>Attributes and Their Levels That Were Included in the DCM Design</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead><tr><th>Attributes</th><th>Levels</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>f1: Evaluation of children's physical activity (PA)</td><td><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>Only observations</p></list-item><list-item><p>Observations in portfolio</p></list-item><list-item><p>Documentation in portfolio</p></list-item></list></td></tr><tr><td>f2: Educators' engagement in PA with children</td><td><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>Allows children to play without engaging in their PA</p></list-item><list-item><p>Participates in children's free PA often</p></list-item></list></td></tr><tr><td>f3: Encouraging children to participate to PA</td><td><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>No encouragement</p></list-item><list-item><p>Staff encourage children</p></list-item><list-item><p>Children are encouraged to freely express themselves</p></list-item></list></td></tr><tr><td>f4: Briefing parents about PA of their children</td><td><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>Staff discuss with parents for PA of their children when asked</p></list-item><list-item><p>Staff discuss with parents for PA of their children when it is needed</p></list-item><list-item><p>Staff discuss with parents for PA of their children often</p></list-item></list></td></tr><tr><td>f5: Providing children opportunities to be physically active during the day</td><td><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>Physical activity occur in specific phases of the program</p></list-item><list-item><p>Children are free to engage in physical activity at any time</p></list-item></list></td></tr><tr><td>f6: Organizing and planning PA</td><td><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>No time spent for a written PA weekly plan</p></list-item><list-item><p>There is a weakly written PA plan</p></list-item><list-item><p>There is a written PA plan with individualized activities</p></list-item></list></td></tr><tr><td>f7: How often children engage in PA per week</td><td><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>PA (indoors or outdoors) occur approximately three times per week</p></list-item><list-item><p>PA (indoors or outdoors) occur every day</p></list-item></list></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>DCM is implemented by providing each respondent with a number of cards/scenarios. To avoid respondents' fatigue and careless completion, each respondent is given only a fraction of the overall number of cards that a suitable orthogonal design produces containing pre‐specified alternatives (see, e.g., Table  and for more details the Methods section). In this study, three alternatives A, B, and C were used in each card/scenario. Each alternative is formed as a random combination of specific levels per attribute. For example, alternative A could randomly include one of the first two levels of attribute f1, whereas alternatives B and C could randomly include any of the three levels of the attribute f1. Furthermore, alternative A includes the fixed level 1 of f2, alternative B could randomly include any of the two levels of attribute f2, and alternative C includes the fixed level 2 of f2. The same procedure applies to all seven attributes and their levels. These random values of the levels of all the attributes form alternatives A, B, and C.</p> <p>Example of Two Attributes and Their Levels</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead><tr><th>Attributes</th><th>Alternatives</th></tr><tr><th /><th>Levels for Alternative A</th><th>Levels for Alternative B</th><th>Levels for Alternative C</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>f1: Evaluation of children's physical activity (PA)</td><td>f1_A1 Only observations</td><td>f1_B1 Only observations</td><td>f1_C1 Only observations</td></tr><tr><td /><td>f1_A2 Observations in portfolio</td><td>f1_B2 Observations in portfolio</td><td>f1_C2 Observations in portfolio</td></tr><tr><td /><td /><td>f1_B3 Documentation in portfolio</td><td>f1_C3 Documentation in portfolio</td></tr><tr><td>f2: Educators' engagement in the activities with children</td><td>f2_A Allows children to play without engaging in their PA</td><td>f2_B1 Allows children to play without engaging in their PA</td><td /></tr><tr><td /><td /><td>f2_B2 Participates in children's free PA often</td><td>f2_C Participates in children's free PA often</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>1 <emph>Note</emph>. All attribute levels are of ascending order of quality, meaning the highest alternative (C) is closer to the "ideal" standard of teaching PA.</p> <p>Note that all the attribute levels that are randomly chosen through the orthogonal design are included in each card/scenario. Thus, all the attributes are presented in each alternative through one of their levels. Alternatives A, B, and C presented together form a unique card/scenario. In our study, the orthogonal design generated 16 such card/scenarios. The statistical orthogonal design on the number of attributes and their levels of the current study ensure that 16 cards/scenarios are sufficient for the coefficients' estimation of the model's main effects. An example of a card/scenario is provided in Table , with option 2 showing the specific randomly chosen levels, whereas option 1 alternatively presents these chosen levels combined in text.</p> <p>Alternatives in a Card by Presenting (First Option) Each Attribute Level Combined in a Text and (Second Option) by Presenting Them Separately</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead><tr><th /><th>Alternative A</th><th>Alternative B</th><th>Alternative C</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>First option</td><td>PA takes place only in specific phases of the program (indoors or outdoors) approximately three times per week. Staff doesn't insist that children participate to physical activity (PA), but allows them to play without engaging in their PA. There are no weekly written plans of PA available, and staff discusses, when asked, with parents about PA with evidence based on their observations that are recorded in child's portfolio.</td><td>Staff encourages children to participate in PA and joins them often in their PA. PA takes place only in specific phases of the program (indoors or outdoors) approximately three times per week. There are no weekly written plans of PA available, and staff discusses, when needed, with parents about PA with evidence based on their observations.</td><td>Children are encouraged to participate in PA that takes place every day (indoors or outdoors). PA takes place at any time of the day the children choose, and staff joins them often in their PA. Staff keeps an individualized weekly written plan of PA and discusses, when needed, with parents about PA with evidence, which is documented in child's portfolio.</td></tr><tr><td>Second option</td><td><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>Observations in portfolio</p></list-item><list-item><p>Allows children to play without engaging in their PA</p></list-item><list-item><p>Staff does not insist that children participate to PA</p></list-item><list-item><p>Staff discuss with parents for PA when asked</p></list-item><list-item><p>PA in specific phases of the program</p></list-item><list-item><p>No written weekly plan available</p></list-item><list-item><p>PA (indoors or outdoors) occur approximately three times per week</p></list-item></list></td><td><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>Only observations</p></list-item><list-item><p>Participates in children's PA often</p></list-item><list-item><p>Children are encouraged to participate in PA</p></list-item><list-item><p>Staff discuss with parents for PA when needed</p></list-item><list-item><p>PA in specific phases of the program</p></list-item><list-item><p>No written weekly plan available</p></list-item><list-item><p>PA (indoors or outdoors) occur approximately three times per week</p></list-item></list></td><td><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>Documentation in Portfolio</p></list-item><list-item><p>Participates in children's PA often</p></list-item><list-item><p>Children are encouraged to participate in PA</p></list-item><list-item><p>Staff discuss with parents for PA when needed</p></list-item><list-item><p>Free to engage in PA at any time</p></list-item><list-item><p>Weekly written plan with individualized PA</p></list-item><list-item><p>PA (indoors or outdoors) occur every day</p></list-item></list></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>The alternatives presented in each scenario/card are actual educational practices being used in schools, so that each scenario/card "narrates" a different combination of practices. This way, the respondent cannot tell whether a specific alternative is a more "correct" or more desirable answer (see Table ). Thus, for each scenario/card, the respondent chooses from the available alternatives the one that is closer to his/her actual teaching practices. To do so, the respondents form a utility for each alternative (in this study, a "similarity" to what they actually do while teaching physical activity) and select the one that maximizes this utility. By selecting from a set of scenarios the alternative that is closest to their practice, DCM can accurately estimate the relative importance of each attribute for the respondents (for a detailed description, see McFadden, [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref16">31</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref17">32</reflink>]; Hensher et al., [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref18">21</reflink>]).</p> <p>The value and contribution of DCM lie in that it is considered very effective in overcoming the problem of biases due to variations in response, style, and cognitive effort that other item rating scales have (Louviere & Islam, [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref19">29</reflink>]). This study adopted a self‐assessment procedure asking early educators to assess their practices in the classroom. Most traditional procedures usually adopt the implementation of external observations by trained assessors (time‐consuming and expensive) or case studies with limited generalizability. In contrast, the DCM design allows its implementation in large samples in an easy and low‐cost way.</p> <hd id="AN0138456981-3">Attributes and Levels in DCM for Teaching Practices in Physical Activity</hd> <p>One condition for discrete choice experiments is to cover the full range of attributes that may affect the choices of the respondents. However, a study may not include all the attributes, because of the complexity of the concepts under investigation. So, the next best goal is, in most occasions, to include the most important attributes in order to ensure that the respondents will not be able to speculate about excluded attributes (Kloejgaard et al., [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref20">22</reflink>]; Lancsar & Louviere, [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref21">26</reflink>]).</p> <p>Coe, Aloisi, Higgins, and Major ([<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref22">9</reflink>]) argued that two factors of teaching effectiveness are more important for their impact on children progress: the pedagogical content knowledge and teaching practices. The attributes chosen in this study reflect a wide range of dimensions like teacher engagement, children's encouragement, children's access to physical activity, the frequency of the offered gross motor activities, program planning, children's evaluation, and parents' briefing. These attributes that were all included in DCM model reflect the most important dimensions of physical activity teaching practices in early childhood education (ECE). Attributes concerning the pedagogical content of physical activity were intentionally left out.</p> <p>The decision not to include the dimension "pedagogical content knowledge of physical activity" was mainly based on the fact that the addition of this dimension's attributes and levels would result in a much larger number of scenarios/cards and more text in each scenario. The expected unrealistic number of scenarios/cards and the dense text in each scenario would make the proposed instrument more difficult to complete. Yi et al. ([<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref23">45</reflink>]) argued that it is important to keep the questionnaire at a manageable level for the respondents. Like any part of the educational procedure, teaching effectiveness involves multiple and complicated factors in contrast with topics where DCM is usually applied (e.g., travel vehicles selection or food consumption preferences), where the dimensions of the concept under investigation are more apparent. Thus, when selecting attributes for a topic, the focal point is not trying to include all of them in the experiment, but to decide which can be more easily omitted without influencing the effectiveness of DCM. The seven selected attributes and their levels allowed us to maintain a reasonable number of scenarios/cards, and thus, a manageable questionnaire for the proposed DCM model.</p> <p>Apart from some sporadic studies, few published discrete choice experiments thoroughly describe how attributes and levels are determined (e.g., Mangham, [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref24">30</reflink>]; Yi et al., [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref25">45</reflink>]). The reasons for this could be attributed either to the little importance they give to this procedure or the lack of a structured method to do so (Kloejgaard et al., [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref26">22</reflink>]). As a result, researchers stressed the necessity for a better description of the attributes' selection procedure (Coast & Horrocks [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref27">8</reflink>]; Lancsar & Louviere [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref28">26</reflink>]; Coast et al., [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref29">7</reflink>]). To ensure in this study that the selected attributes covered the range of the physical activity teaching practices in ECE, a structured qualitative procedure was followed (Kloejgaard et al., [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref30">22</reflink>]; Mangham, [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref31">30</reflink>]; Yi et al., [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref32">45</reflink>]). The detailed process of selecting the attributes and their levels is presented in the Methods section.</p> <hd id="AN0138456981-4">Physical Activity in Early Childhood</hd> <p>Physical activity is different than "exercise" and "physical education," as these are parts of physical activity and characterized by structured design and focus on the improvement of several aspects of physical condition or skills. However, physical activity includes gross motor activities that require energy expenditure like playing, recreational activities, but also chores, and so on. Physical activity is considered an integral part of normal growth and development of all children (Byrne & Hills, [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref33">6</reflink>]; Sutterby, [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref34">40</reflink>]). Educators have to consider that children's development is a holistic procedure and physical activity makes a vital contribution to this development (Grammatikopoulos, Gregoriadis, & Zachopoulou, [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref35">15</reflink>]). Early learning relies on motor development, and physical activity is a preferred and dominant mode of learning in early childhood (Promislow, [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref36">35</reflink>]).</p> <p>In early childhood, physical activity is widely acknowledged for its positive role towards the prevention of obesity, promoting better psychological health, and improving skeletal development and strength (Byrne & Hills, 2007). Yet, the national curriculum of ECE in Greece pays little attention to physical activity (MoE/PI, [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref37">33</reflink>]). Important elements of a child's overall development and physical health are missing, and physical education is not considered an autonomous domain (Konstantinou, Zachopoulou, & Kioumourtzoglou, [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref38">23</reflink>]). From an infrastructure perspective, most preschool centers are not highly equipped when it comes to outdoor and indoor spaces or resources for physical education (Botsoglou, Hrysikou, & Kakana, [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref39">5</reflink>]). Another factor that contributes to limited focus on physical activity in preschool centers is the parental pressure on educators for less and not so vigorous outdoor activities. Several parents appear to be extremely overprotective due to their impression that their children's health is at risk when exposed to cold during winter or to heat during summer (Tzavara, Tzetzis, & Pavlidou, [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref40">44</reflink>]). In general, most Greek educators in ECE are reluctant to expand physical activity beyond the usual outdoor break that is scheduled every day (Kosmidou & Pavlidou, [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref41">24</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0138456981-5">The Purpose of the Study</hd> <p>The purpose of this study was twofold: first, to develop and test a DCM‐based measure by examining whether its application in education can have the same beneficial results with the application of the method in other fields. This would include examining whether it can contribute to educational studies by overcoming the bias of respondents when completing self‐reported questionnaires, especially when they self‐assess their practices. The second purpose is to record the attention early educators pay to the attributes that constitute physical activity teaching practices in ECE.</p> <hd id="AN0138456981-6">Methods</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0138456981-7">Participants</hd> <p>For the collection of representative data at a national level, a multistage sampling technique was applied at three stages (educational districts level, municipalities level, preschool centers level). A total of 531 Greek early educators (mean age = 43.06 years) were selected and participated in the study. They were provided with the cards developed based on the DCM method, which they completed and returned in a period of 1 week.</p> <hd id="AN0138456981-8">DCM Questionnaire Development</hd> <p>To create the cards/scenarios for the DCM method, the researchers included a combination of the attributes and their levels that effectively describe the physical activity teaching practices in ECE. In this study, the identification of the attributes and their levels was based on systematic qualitative work, which has been acknowledged as a valid and reliable procedure for discrete choice experiments (Coast & Horrocks, [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref42">8</reflink>]; Coast et al., [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref43">7</reflink>]; Hensher et al., [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref44">21</reflink>]; Kloejgaard et al., [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref45">22</reflink>]).</p> <p>First, the relevant literature was thoroughly reviewed, and the attributes and their levels covering the field of physical activity teaching practices in ECE were identified. Then, this set was presented to academic experts in physical activity for this age group. These experts reviewed the proposed attributes and their levels and decided to keep seven attributes with three levels each, apart from three attributes with two levels (an example of attribute levels is presented in Table ). The seven attributes finally selected were (a) f1: how educators evaluate children's physical activity; (b) f2: how educators engage in physical activity with children; (c) f3: how educators encourage children to participate in physical activity; (d) f4: how educators brief parents about their children's physical activity; (e) f5: how often educators provide children with opportunities to be physically active during the day; (f) f6: how educators organize and plan physical activity; and (g) f7: how often children engage in physical activity per week. In the context of this study, all the attributes were viewed as categorical variables.</p> <p>Next, an appropriate orthogonal design was applied on the full set of the attributes and their levels, providing all the necessary combinations that form different cards/scenarios. This procedure resulted in 16 cards/scenarios. For each card/scenario, a participant had to choose among the three alternatives A, B, or C of teaching quality, representing "minimal," "good," and "excellent" level of teaching, respectively. The questionnaire was then administered to 12 early educators, who commented on the content and conceptual meaning of the attributes and their levels answering open‐ended questions. Minor modifications to the attribute and level definitions were made based on the educators' comments, and then the final cards/scenarios of this study were developed.</p> <p>Based on the suggestions of other relevant studies (Ryan & Gerard, [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref46">36</reflink>]; Yi et al., [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref47">45</reflink>]), administering to each participant all 16 cards/scenarios could make the completion task more demanding and less user‐friendly than desired. Therefore, a block design (Yi et al., [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref48">45</reflink>]) was adopted using two blocks of eight cards/scenarios, and two versions were produced. The respondents were randomly allocated to one of the two versions when given the questionnaire. It is also important to notice that for each questionnaire of the two blocks, the order of the alternatives was changed randomly for all 16 scenarios/cards.</p> <p>An additional innovation was that this study employed a different strategy to present the scenarios to the respondents. The other two studies using discrete choice experiments in education (Aubusson et al., [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref49">1</reflink>]; Cunningham et al., [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref50">12</reflink>]) presented the attribute levels in each scenario separately, in noncontinuous text (the common approach used in all other fields using DCM). In this study, the attribute levels were presented as continuous text for each alternative (Table ). The rationale behind this decision was that educators perceive/read each alternative as a whole and not as distinct and different attribute levels that have been just placed together in a single card. An assumption was that this approach would prevent participants from easily detecting the different levels of the attributes among the different alternatives. The proposed presentation of the cards (first option in Table ) aspired to make "high quality" alternatives less evident to the respondents.</p> <p>Additionally, this study examined the role of two control variables representing structural elements of physical activity quality. These variables were the educators' years of experience and the extra training they might have in teaching physical activity in ECE. The discussion about whether structural elements weigh significantly on the provided quality in ECE is still active, even if there seems to be acknowledgement of the more vital impact that process quality elements have (Barros & Aguiar, [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref51">2</reflink>]; Grammatikopoulos, Gregoriadis, & Zachopoulou, [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref52">16</reflink>]; Gregoriadis, Tsigilis, Grammatikopoulos, & Kouli, [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref53">19</reflink>]; Sabol, Soliday Hong, Pianta, & Burchinal, [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref54">37</reflink>]). However, there are some indicators, such as the two above selected variables, that appear to have a stronger impact on ECE quality than others (Bigras et al., [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref55">3</reflink>]; Saracho & Spodek, [<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref56">38</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref57">39</reflink>]), and that was the reason they were taken into consideration in this study.</p> <hd id="AN0138456981-9">Statistical Analyses</hd> <p>For the analysis of the data collected by the DCM method, the multinomial logit model through the "maxLik" package of R was used (Henningsen & Toomet, [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref58">20</reflink>]). The multinomial logit models have long been used in statistics (especially in econometrics), and are suitable for discrete choices, that is choices of one among several alternatives (Croissant, [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref59">11</reflink>]; Train, [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref60">41</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0138456981-10">Results</hd> <p>The analysis of Greek early childhood teachers' responses revealed that only one out of the seven attributes selected (f6; how educators organize and plan physical activity) was found to be not significant. This result indicated that the existence or absence of a written plan of how educators organize and plan their physical activity teaching practices does not influence their decisions. In Table , the results of the "maxLik" package analysis are presented.</p> <p>Coefficients of the Attributes Based on DCM</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead><tr><th>Attributes</th><th>Coefficients</th><th><italic>p</italic></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>f1: How educators evaluate children's physical activity (PA)</td><td align="char" char=".">−0.1589943</td><td align="char" char="."><.001</td></tr><tr><td>f2: How educators engage in the activities with children</td><td align="char" char=".">0.4974621</td><td align="char" char="."><.001</td></tr><tr><td>f3: How educators encourage children to participate to PA</td><td align="char" char=".">−0.2643666</td><td align="char" char="."><.01</td></tr><tr><td>f4: How educators brief parents about PA of their children</td><td align="char" char=".">0.2828869</td><td align="char" char="."><.001</td></tr><tr><td>f5: How often educators provide children opportunities to be physically active during the day</td><td align="char" char=".">−0.3531333</td><td align="char" char="."><.001</td></tr><tr><td>f6: How educators organize and plan PA</td><td align="char" char=".">−0.0299727</td><td align="char" char=".">0.617</td></tr><tr><td>f7: How often per week children engage to PA</td><td align="char" char=".">0.3813645</td><td align="char" char="."><.001</td></tr><tr><td><bold>Control variables</bold></td></tr><tr><td>Educator experience</td><td align="char" char=".">0.0018154</td><td align="char" char=".">0.764</td></tr><tr><td>Educator training in PA</td><td align="char" char=".">0.4253588</td><td align="char" char="."><.001</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>All other attributes were significant, with three out of six showing negative estimates (f1: how educators evaluate children's physical activity, f3: how educators encourage children to participate in physical activity, f5: how often educators provide children with opportunities to be physically active during the day), meaning that the higher the level of the attributes, the less likely it was that educators would choose this alternative. The other three attribute estimates were positive (f2: how educators engage in the activities with children, f4: how educators brief parents about physical activity of their children, f7: how often per week children engage to physical activity), meaning that the higher the level of the attributes, the more likely it was that educators would select this alternative.</p> <p>Afterwards, the study investigated the role of the two control variables in the respondents' choices. These control variables were (a) educators' experience and (b) educators' extra training in teaching physical activity. The results revealed nonsignificant values regarding educators' experience, whereas educators' training in teaching physical activity was significant. The positive values of the variables indicated that Greek educators' extra training in teaching physical activity was positively associated with the choices of higher alternatives (Table ).</p> <hd id="AN0138456981-11">Discussion</hd> <p>The main goal of this study was to develop an effective self‐reported instrument for assessing Greek early childhood educators' practices by using the DCM method. In a very rare attempt in the educational context, the DCM method was employed to overcome the disadvantages that the majority of the self‐reported instruments display. It was hypothesized that an instrument based on DCM can reduce the educators' tendency to favorably assess themselves (Louviere & Islam, [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref61">29</reflink>]). This assumption is based on the fact that in DCM methods a respondent has to trade off attribute levels rather than select among different levels of a single attribute. Regarding this goal, the results of this study are promising, and the instrument developed seems to have fulfilled these expectations.</p> <p>The only attribute that yielded nonsignificant values was f6: how educators organize and plan physical activity. It seems that this attribute is almost nonexistent in the Greek early educators' practices. A possible interpretation could be that early educators do not consider preparing a written plan about physical activity as important. This finding could also be reflecting the relatively flexible or loose regulations regarding the preparation of written plans for all subjects in the Greek ECE (Botsoglou et al., [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref62">5</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0138456981-12">Interpreting Associations of Choices With Structural Elements</hd> <p>The control variable "additional training in teaching physical activity" was positively associated with educators' choices of higher attribute levels. It is reasonable for educators who received additional training to teach physical activity to display a higher quality of teaching practices than those who had not. This differentiation between the two groups of educators (trained to teach physical activity vs. nontrained ones) supports the assumption that a self‐report questionnaire based on the DCM method can be efficiently adopted for self‐assessment in education.</p> <p>The other control variable, educators' years of experience, did not show any significant relation with the respondents' choices. It could be that experience might not add any additional knowledge for teaching a specific subject when the educator does not have adequate training in this subject. Experience could be an inhibiting factor for mind‐shifting and changing usual practices; this issue is further supported by the relative lack of official professional development procedures in Greek ECE.</p> <p>In conclusion, as the discussion about the potential impact of structural elements on educators' competencies has not reached any firm conclusions yet, future research efforts should continue to investigate the role of several structural elements on teacher practices (Barros & Aguiar, [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref63">2</reflink>]; Grammatikopoulos et al., [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref64">16</reflink>]; Sabol et al., [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref65">37</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0138456981-13">Interpreting Negative Associations of Educators' Choices of the Alternatives</hd> <p>Greek educators are not adequately trained in terms of teaching physical activity in ECE, because the majority of ECE departments do not focus a lot on training their students towards the teaching of this subject (Kosmidou & Pavlidou, [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref66">24</reflink>]). A possible reason could be that physical activity is not considered equally important as elements of the learning process such as literacy or numeracy. Specific training for enhancing children's physical activity is rarely included in teacher training programs for in‐service educators in ECE. Hence, early educators do not usually invest time or acknowledge physical activity as an important and salient topic of their teaching agenda (Botsoglou et al., [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref67">5</reflink>]). Additionally, they cope with parental requests and overreactions, as most parents fear that their children might injure themselves or get sick by being engaged in vigorous outdoor physical activity (Tzavara et al., [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref68">44</reflink>]). Therefore, it was reasonable to find negative association between actual choices and the higher levels of the attributes f3: how educators encourage children to participate in physical activity and f5; how often educators provide children opportunities to be physically active during the day.</p> <p>The attribute f1: how educators evaluate children's physical activity was negatively associated with educators' selection of higher levels of this attribute, indicating that it was unlikely for educators to base their evaluations on portfolios. This finding is considered also a relatively expected outcome, as the Greek curriculum does not require that educators use students' portfolios. Even if some use them, they prefer to include descriptions about children's progress in literacy and numeracy than in physical activity (Birbili & Kamperi, [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref69">4</reflink>]). In addition, educators seem to "adapt" the content of the feedback they provide to parents according to parents' expectations, which focus mainly on children's progress in literacy and numeracy. The finding that educators were less likely to choose alternatives containing higher levels of this attribute constitutes a solid indicator that DCM managed to extract truer and less biased responses.</p> <hd id="AN0138456981-14">Interpreting Positive Associations of Educators' Choices of the Alternatives</hd> <p>The attribute f2: how educators engage in the activities with children appeared to be positively associated with respondents' choices of higher levels. This attribute is conceptually connected with educators' close relation and engagement with their children during the implementation of the daily schedule. Previous studies have shown that Greek early educators focus on the quality of their relationships with children, welcome warm and even dependent interactions with them, and thus, they directly engage in activities with their students (e.g., Gregoriadis & Grammatikopoulos, [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref70">17</reflink>]; Gregoriadis & Tsigilis, [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref71">18</reflink>]; Tsigilis & Gregoriadis, [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref72">43</reflink>]). Early educators in Greece are likely to interact, play, sing, and spend ample time with their students during the day. This reveals that the positive relation detected by DCM with the higher alternatives of this attribute was an anticipated outcome.</p> <p>The attribute f4: how educators brief parents about physical activity of their children also had positive associations with the selection of higher levels of this attribute. In general, Greek early educators appear to have warm relationships with their students' parents. This is probably a sociocultural trait, as Greeks in general tend to be very open in communicating and developing bonds with other people. Therefore, the selection of alternatives representing higher levels of this attribute was an expected outcome.</p> <p>Finally, the positive association of educators' selection of higher levels of the attribute f7: how often per week children engage to physical activity might be considered controversial, as it was argued that Greek early educators do not often promote physical activity. A possible cause for this outcome can be attributed to the wording of the specific item and the possible misinterpretation of its content. Educators probably estimated the scheduled daily breaks as a provision of opportunity for their students to engage in physical activity. Yet, the content of this attribute was supposed to reveal if and at what level the minimum time recommendations of engaging in moderate or vigorous physical activity daily are met (Dinkel et al., [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref73">13</reflink>]; Troiano et al., [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref74">42</reflink>]). Based on these results, slightly rephrasing the text of this attribute levels seems necessary in future efforts, so that the real meaning of the attribute becomes more apparent.</p> <p>Based on the findings of this study, the use of DCM manages to examine and effectively map early educators' practices on teaching physical activity. It seems that through this self‐assessment procedure, the DCM method managed to avoid overrated responses and to overcome traditional limitations that self‐report methods have. The findings of this study are in accordance with other studies (Aubusson et al., [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref75">1</reflink>]; Cunningham et al., [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref76">12</reflink>]), revealing the efficiency of DCM application in education. Yet, as these studies are the first steps of applying the DCM method in the educational context, further research is considered essential.</p> <hd id="AN0138456981-15">Limitations</hd> <p>Although this study's sampling method was based on probability sampling and extended previous studies using DCM in education (Aubusson et al., [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref77">1</reflink>]; Cunningham et al., [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref78">12</reflink>]), it is not without limitations. First, this study was conducted in Greece, thus, the findings also require replication in different cultural settings as well. Second, we did not examine attributes involving educator pedagogical content knowledge regarding physical activity. When complicated concepts like assessing teaching effectiveness or other educational procedures are the subject of interest, then it is not so realistic that a single measure will cover the whole concept (Kloejgaard et al., [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref79">22</reflink>]; Lancsar & Louviere, [[<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref80">25</reflink>]]; Yi et al., [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref81">45</reflink>]). The teaching assessment field is not as limited as other fields (e.g., consumer preferences of a product in marketing or transportation), thus, the inclusion of the full range of the attributes would produce an excessive number of scenarios/cards. This is certainly a limitation of the current study, and a wider approach or further studies should also incorporate the pedagogical content concept in order to capture the whole range of the physical activity field.</p> <hd id="AN0138456981-16">Conclusions</hd> <p>From a methodological point of view, apart from the main innovation of applying a discrete choice experiment in education, this study also employed another novelty. The levels of the attributes were presented in the form of continuous text and were not presented separately as is the standard procedure when using discrete choice experiments. In this way, the participants could not easily detect the different quality levels, a fact that may have prevented them from responding by overrating themselves. It is our opinion that the integration of the cards/scenarios in the form of continuous text makes the proposed DCM questionnaire more efficient in overcoming biased responses. Future efforts should test the proposed structure of the alternatives for verifying the present outcome. Additionally, if we wanted to directly compare DCM with plain questionnaires, for example Likert type, then we should provide the two kinds of questionnaires to respondents and then compare their answers in order to detect any differences.</p> <p>At an educational level, this study's outcomes could provide valuable insight in understanding how Greek early educators organize physical activity and implement their teaching practices, and the relative importance of the attributes which comprise the field of physical activity. Based on the above, specific guidelines could be provided and procedures could be undertaken for the improvement of teaching practices in Greek ECE.</p> <p>At a broader level, this study emphasizes the potential value of the DCM method in education when self‐assessment is used. By providing the field with valid and reliable self‐reported assessments of teaching practices, all the advantages of self‐assessment can be utilized (e.g., a convenient, fast and easy‐to‐implement procedure; focus on broad and overarching aspects, on specific areas, and on different techniques; provide insights that an external assessor may not recognize). In this respect, the proposed DCM method aspires to bring new insights to the value and use of self‐assessment measures by enhancing their validity, which, so far, is considered the weakest part of these tools.</p> <ref id="AN0138456981-17"> <title> Footnotes </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref10" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> Vasilis Grammatikopoulos, University of Crete, Greece; gramvas@bc.teithe.gr. Athanasios Gregoriadis, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. 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  Label: Title
  Group: Ti
  Data: Discrete Choice Modeling in Education: An Innovative Method to Assess Teaching Practices
– Name: Language
  Label: Language
  Group: Lang
  Data: English
– Name: Author
  Label: Authors
  Group: Au
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Grammatikopoulos%2C+Vasilis%22">Grammatikopoulos, Vasilis</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7556-6162">0000-0001-7556-6162</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Gregoriadis%2C+Athanasios%22">Gregoriadis, Athanasios</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Linardakis%2C+Michalis%22">Linardakis, Michalis</searchLink>
– Name: TitleSource
  Label: Source
  Group: Src
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Educational+Measurement%3A+Issues+and+Practice%22"><i>Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice</i></searchLink>. Fall 2019 38(3):46-54.
– Name: Avail
  Label: Availability
  Group: Avail
  Data: Wiley-Blackwell. 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148. Tel: 800-835-6770; Tel: 781-388-8598; Fax: 781-388-8232; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA
– Name: PeerReviewed
  Label: Peer Reviewed
  Group: SrcInfo
  Data: Y
– Name: Pages
  Label: Page Count
  Group: Src
  Data: 9
– Name: DatePubCY
  Label: Publication Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2019
– Name: TypeDocument
  Label: Document Type
  Group: TypDoc
  Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Research
– Name: Audience
  Label: Education Level
  Group: Audnce
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Early+Childhood+Education%22">Early Childhood Education</searchLink>
– Name: Subject
  Label: Descriptors
  Group: Su
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Measurement+Techniques%22">Measurement Techniques</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Early+Childhood+Teachers%22">Early Childhood Teachers</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Social+Desirability%22">Social Desirability</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Response+Style+%28Tests%29%22">Response Style (Tests)</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Self+Evaluation+%28Individuals%29%22">Self Evaluation (Individuals)</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Questionnaires%22">Questionnaires</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Educational+Practices%22">Educational Practices</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Teacher+Evaluation%22">Teacher Evaluation</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Foreign+Countries%22">Foreign Countries</searchLink>
– Name: Subject
  Label: Geographic Terms
  Group: Su
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Greece%22">Greece</searchLink>
– Name: DOI
  Label: DOI
  Group: ID
  Data: 10.1111/emip.12255
– Name: ISSN
  Label: ISSN
  Group: ISSN
  Data: 0731-1745
– Name: Abstract
  Label: Abstract
  Group: Ab
  Data: Self-reported measures are an easy, time-efficient, and low-cost way to collect research data compared to other assessment methods. They are, however, characterized by several limitations regarding the quality and the clarity of the data they produce, especially when they are implemented in education. The main purpose of the current study was to use a method called discrete choice modeling (DCM) in education, in order to develop a self-reported instrument that will reduce the bias for socially desirable responses and to assess teachers' practices in physical activity. DCM method has the ability to overcome the respondents' tendency to answer in a socially desirable way. A nationally representative sample of 531 Greek early educators participated in this study and were administered a self-assessment questionnaire based on DCM. Results showed that the DCM based newly developed instrument manages to assess effectively educators' practices and provided evidence of the applicability of the method in education. Further implications and future recommendations regarding the effective application of DCM in education are discussed.
– Name: AbstractInfo
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  Data: As Provided
– Name: DateEntry
  Label: Entry Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2019
– Name: AN
  Label: Accession Number
  Group: ID
  Data: EJ1227241
PLink https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=eric&AN=EJ1227241
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        Value: 10.1111/emip.12255
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      – Text: English
    PhysicalDescription:
      Pagination:
        PageCount: 9
        StartPage: 46
    Subjects:
      – SubjectFull: Measurement Techniques
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Early Childhood Teachers
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      – SubjectFull: Social Desirability
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      – SubjectFull: Response Style (Tests)
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      – SubjectFull: Self Evaluation (Individuals)
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      – SubjectFull: Questionnaires
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      – SubjectFull: Educational Practices
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      – SubjectFull: Teacher Evaluation
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      – SubjectFull: Foreign Countries
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      – SubjectFull: Greece
        Type: general
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      – TitleFull: Discrete Choice Modeling in Education: An Innovative Method to Assess Teaching Practices
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            NameFull: Grammatikopoulos, Vasilis
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            NameFull: Gregoriadis, Athanasios
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            NameFull: Linardakis, Michalis
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            – TitleFull: Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice
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