DFI - Employer Survey
The Employer Survey is a slightly modified version of the 2017 Massachusetts Hiring Principal Survey. The survey was developed by the state of Massachusetts, where it is administered annually to all principals who hired a teacher candidate. For the CIS Network, stakeholders made slight changes to language and survey administration logic, and removed the Massachusetts-specific questions. The resulting survey has seven items on which employers are asked to reflect on the quality of the program graduate, such as “Relative to all other teachers (both novice and experienced) you’ve worked with, please indicate the extent to which this teacher’s performance is significantly above or below average.” In the CIS Network, the survey is administered, at a minimum, to employers of recent program graduates who themselves received the Beginning Teacher Survey.
Evidence Base
Like most employer surveys, the Employer Survey has a limited research base, but the existing research provides promising evidence to support the survey’s value for informing educator-preparation program improvement. Evaluations of the survey by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education suggest that the employer survey has sufficient validity evidence to support its use (Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, 2017). The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is currently studying the predictive validity of the Employer Survey, which could yield more information about the value of the survey for informing program improvement.
Relevant Descriptive and Validity Research
Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. (2017). Educator Preparation Surveys: Technical Report. Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education: Malden, MA