Psychometric Validation and Comparison of the Team Development Measure and Learning Community Concepts among High School Professional Learning Community Teams

This study combined the existing Team Development Measure (TDM) and Learning Community Concepts (LCC) assessments, as the TDLCC, to assess and measure high school professional learning communities progress as teams. Additionally, this study applied Rasch modeling techniques to describe and assess the qualities of the TDLCC instrument as a tool for measuring the levels of team development within a particular set of high school PLC teams as well as the measurement of related characteristics of PLC teams. The TDLCC was administered to 52 high school teachers in 12 PLC teams. Analysis of the content validity and convergent validity of the TDLCC instrument resulted in statistically significant correlations between the TDM and LCC by utilizing average scores and Rasch methodology. Moreover, Rasch model analysis also provided insight into specific team attributes present in PLC teams. The findings suggested that teacher PLC teams in the participating school were in the early (i.e., second) stage of team development, with attributes evidenced that of building cohesiveness and communication skills. The study’s results provide initial evidence of a psychometrically valid instrument for measuring teamness and learning community concepts of high school teacher PLCs.