DaQS

DaQS is a database of and for quantitative empirical educational research that has been developed at the DIPF | Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education. Within the scope of this service instruments for the collection of school and instruction quality are documented and edited on the basis of surveys and scale handbooks. This allows differentiated insights into the design of the documented studies as well as comparisons of the used instruments and scales through established statistical values. DaQS is in the public domain and free of charge.

Objective

Basic goal of the ‘construct validator’ as part of DaQS is, on the one hand, to further develop existing construct schemes and, on the other hand, the examination of existing relations from scales to constructs in the database for the quality of schools. 
The construct validator is used in teaching and in preparation of the documentation process of survey scales in DaQS. Therefore, the construct validator offers the possibility to choose a selection of scales from a certain study that belongs to one of four super-ordinated areas. The filtered amount of scales is then available for the assignment to the user. In a next step every scale is assigned to one or more constructs.  Either an existing assignment is confirmed in this process, a different assignment to existing constructs established or an assignment to a construct is suggested that has to be newly defined. Therefore, the construct validator opens up the possibility to a user related validation of constructs as well as the validation of existing assignments of scales to constructs.
Moreover, elements of the construct validator have been integrated in the web interface of the database DaQS. In the detail view of scales one can use the construct validator to work on existing construct assignments. With only a few mouse clicks new suggestions for an adaption as well as an expansion of schemes with new constructs can be made easily.

Method

The task of TBA in this context was to develop a software application for a user oriented validation of the DaQS-construct schemes, the construct validator. The construct scheme forms the theoretical backbone of the data base DaQS. Every survey scale is assigned to one or more constructs of school and teaching quality. Therefore, the user gains the possibility of a theory based access to - besides a search function - the survey scales documented in DaQS. The construct scheme is based on a classical education production model (input-process-output) with the four super-ordinated areas, ‘individual and institutional background’ (input), ‘processes on school level’ (process), ‘teaching and learning arrangements’ (process) and ‘academic effects’ (output). Moreover, below these areas there are up to two subordinated levels with constructs of school and teaching quality. The assignment of a scale to a construct is always carried out on the hierarchical lowest construct level.

Examples from DaQs

In the following, you can see how the user interface looks like:

 

Status: completed

Project management: Dr. Marius Gerecht (Coordination DaQS); Thorsten Busert (TBA)

Contact: Thorsten Busert

Links: DaQS (DIPF)