Teacher Quality Index Interview (TQI)[1] is built upon both the effective teacher and interviewing research literature. There are two interview formats offered. The screening interview is designed to be conducted by human resources personnel in about fifteen minutes and a longer building level interview for principals and their interview teams to use. The instruments designed for the protocol includes many characteristics that the interview research base supports as good practice. Four interviewing best practices used in the protocol are:

• Behavior-based interviewing questions that are designed to get applicants to talk about their experiences and practices as a good indicator of future performance is past performance. Additionally, each question aligns with a quality of effective teachers so instructional leaders ask about teacher practices related to planning, instructional delivery, monitoring of student potential and progress, classroom management, and how the teacher interacts with students as individual

• Sample quality indicators are provided as examples of appropriate responses to the question. The indicators are not all inclusive, but offer some guidance as to what one could expect to hear.

• Note-taking sections as interviewing research indicates that having the opportunity to take notes increases the interviewer’s recall of applicant specific information.

• Behaviorally-anchored rubric to score the response to the interview question. A national study was conducted to validate the rubric portion of the interview protocol to ensure alignment between teacher quality research findings and instructional leaders’ perceptions. By using a rubric grounded in the effective teacher research literature, administrators have a tool to focus their evaluation of applicants’ responses on qualities that have been empirically linked to higher levels of student achievement.

dditionally, Teacher Quality Resources, LLC has a credential review protocol to evaluate teacher applications in a value-added manner prior to using the TQI screening and building level interview protocols.

[1]Teacher Quality Resources, LLC anticipates the publication of the Teacher Quality Index Interview (TQI) by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development in Summer 2005. TQI was developed and field-tested by Teacher Quality Resources partners, Jennifer Hindman, Ph.D. and James Stronge, Ph.D.