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Abstract
EMPATHY (Emphasizing More Personalized Attitudes Toward Helping Youth) is a structured interview instrument used in teacher selection. The purpose of this study was to determine and interpret the correlations of scores for a group of subjects when one score (pretest) was obtained during a pilot study completed during the 1973-1974 school year and the other (posttest) was obtained five years later.
Three validated instruments developed as part of Project EMPATHY were used to evaluate data collected. Fifteen research questions were constructed to ascertain whether paired pretest and posttest scores would result in positive and significant correlations. The scores and their rank orders were tested for correlation with the Spearman Rank-Order Correlation Coefficient and the Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient.
In a review of related literature, structured interview techniques and means of assessing teacher competence were examined and the historical development of EMPATHY was described.
Five of the fifteen research questions were answered in the affirmative when paired variables were found to have positive and significant correlations at the .05 alpha level. Correlations between EMPATHY pretests, pretest student ratings, and EMPATHY posttests were found to be positive and significant as were correlations between pretest student ratings, EMPATHY posttests, and student posttest ratings. Relationships between EMPATHY posttest scores and posttest student ratings were also found to be positively and significantly correlated. The remaining sets of paired variables did not generate findings considered significant for the purposes of this study.
Student ratings were found to be more consistent than were other measures of perceived teacher competence. Positive and significant relationships existed between student pretest and posttest ratings and performance on the EMPATHY posttest. In addition, correlations between student pretest and posttest ratings and EMPATHY pretest and posttest ratings were both positive and significant. These findings represent a useful addition to existing data on the evaluation of teacher competence, but more research is needed before the EMPATHY interview can be reliably used for individual teacher selection.
