Modeling latent true scores to determine the utility of aggregate student perceptions as classroom indicators in HLM: The case of classroom goal structures

Measures of classroom climate such as classroom goal structures are often assessed through students’ perceptions; the aggregated means within classrooms are then sometimes labeled as “classroom characteristics.” The validity of these constructs is limited by the reliability of the measure at both the student and classroom level; yet, few studies accurately assess reliability when multilevel models are used. We demonstrate the use of a three-level hierarchical linear model to estimate latent true score measures of students’ perceptions of goal structures, appropriately adjusted for their nested structure. To investigate the distinctiveness of goal structures from teacher characteristics, we examined the inter-correlations among the student and classroom level variables, and predictors of each.