Alignment as a Teacher Variable

Abstract With the exception of the procedures developed by Porter and colleagues (Porter, 2002 Porter, A. C. 2002, October. Measuring the content of instruction: Uses in research and practice. Educational Researcher, 31(7): 3–14. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), other methods of defining and measuring alignment are essentially limited to alignment between tests and standards. Porter's procedures have been generalized to investigating the alignment between content standards, tests, textbooks, and even classroom instruction as experienced by teachers and students. They have also led to the development of tools that hold promise for innovative uses in both research and the improvement of education practice. The purpose here is to define and illustrate innovative uses of two of the tools from Porter's work, content maps and a quantitative index of the degree of alignment. The intention is to put these tools in the hands of education researchers.