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Measures of instruction sometimes fail to meet discrete tests of validity. But UW-Madison education professor Eric Camburn and colleague Carol A. Barnes found that triangulation strategies provide a more holistic understanding of the validity of teachers' reports of instruction than past validity studies. They used a triangulation strategy to investigate teachers' and observers' reports on a daily language arts log, employing multiple methods, data sources, and researchers. Data came from a pilot study of the log conducted in 8 urban public elementary schools. Statistical results increased researchers' confidence in the log's ability to measure instruction at grosser levels of detail, instructional activities that occurred more frequently, and word analysis instruction. Some qualitative evidence gave researchers greater confidence in some parts of the instrument while illustrating dilemmas inherent in measuring instruction.

For more about Camburn's work, see http://www.education.wisc.edu/elpa/people/faculty/camburn.html.