The Development of the Dealing with Challenging Interaction (DCI) Method to Evaluate Teachers’ Social Interaction Skills

Abstract

The Dealing with Challenging Interaction (DCI) method was developed to measure social interaction skills of teacher study groups. The participants were 70 teachers from three schools. The inter-rater agreement, Cohen's kappa, varied between 0.57-1.00. The discriminant validity was supported by a cluster analysis differentiating between the skilful and less skilful teachers. The results of the supplementary instrument were equivalent to the cluster analysis maintaining criterion oriented validity of the method developed. The DCI appeared to be a reliable and valid tool for measuring teachers’ social interaction skills.