DOI

https://doi.org/10.25772/B710-HB76

Defense Date

2022

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Education

First Advisor

Michael D. Broda

Abstract

This exploratory study developed and validated a Volunteer Adult Literacy Tutor Perception Feedback Scale (VALTPFS). The VALTPFS is a self-report questionnaire that measures the perceptions of one-on-one adult literacy tutors about their values, knowledge sharing, and satisfaction. This instrument is designed to assess the perceptions of adults who volunteer to provide literacy instruction to tutees who are U.S. born native English language speaking adults. The theoretical framework used to inform the development of the VALTPFS is the community of practice (CoP). The CoP framework was used to identify subscales from instruments with established psychometric credentials to operationalize the VALTPFS. As such, the VALTPFS should facilitate the generation of actionable information to inform the management of a volunteer tutor program and eventually establish a volunteer tutor CoP. The development and validation of the VALTPFS instrument involved pretesting by 15 adult literacy practitioners, item analysis conducted by seven subject matter experts, a pilot study (251 responses), and a full study (228 responses). This process resulted in a 14-item questionnaire consisting of three subscales – values, knowledge sharing, and satisfaction. The subscale alphas ranged from 0.88 to 0.94, thus establishing reliability evidence. Exploratory factor analysis identified three factors accounting for 74 percent of the variance. The factor rotations resulted in a simple structure with all items loading on only one of three factors, thus providing evidence for construct validity based upon internal structure. Additional evidence for construct validity was obtained from relationships to other variables. The resulting questionnaire provides the empirical foundation upon which future studies can build upon to furnish more evidence for the questionnaire’s construct validity.

Rights

© The Author

Is Part Of

VCU University Archives

Is Part Of

VCU Theses and Dissertations

Date of Submission

5-2-2022

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