Jaap de Brouwer, Saxion University of Applied Sciences and Thomas More University of Applied Sciences, Vivian Morssink-Santing and Symen van der Zee, Saxion University of Applied Science

Validation of the teacher questionnaire of Montessori practice for early childhood in the Dutch context

As an AMI Montessori teacher trainer one of the most common questions I am asked is – how do you know that Montessori works – this question is problematic on many levels – not least is the fact that many people’s idea of what works is based on traditionally held views of education – as we know, the Montessori approach is much more expansive than this – it cannot be evaluated according to the same parameters as mainstream approaches. That said, research can certainly help us to account for the value of the Montessori approach on a multitude of levels. However, research efforts are often muddied by the fact that Montessori implementation can vary greatly and is dependent on many things - such as where and how someone trained, local government rules and restrictions and the personality and understanding of the teacher. This recently published paper from the lab of Jaap De Brower follows up on the work of Angela Murray at the University of Kansas to try and find an easy-to-use tool to evaluate the fidelity of the implementation of Montessori programmes. The authors acknowledge that the tool is just a start, and it needs validation in different contexts and cultures in order to be refined and developed further – so this is a shout out to all of you, who may be interested in collecting data in your own community, please reach out to us at the Global Research Group ([email protected]) and we will connect you to further details and how you can get involved.  

Louise Livingston, AMI Global Research Committee