Development and evaluation of a rating scale to assess the quality of individualized education plans

Individualized education plans (IEPs) are widely used in educational settings, particularly in schools, to guide education for students with special educational needs. These plans aim to tailor instruction to students' individual needs ensuring that they receive appropriate support in general or special education classrooms. Their quality seems to be linked to outcomes of instruction, but systematic research on the quality of individualized education plans is lacking. Hence, the aim of this study was to develop and evaluate a rating scale to assess the quality of IEPs that can be used in future research. The resulting R-IEP-scale assesses the quality of IEP parts as well as their coherence. To analyze the psychometric properties of this scale, we used ratings by six raters of N = 99 IEPs. The analysis focused on an exploratory factor analysis, item analyses and the analysis of inter-rater reliability. Results indicated that a one-dimensional structure of the R-IEP-scale showed good internal consistency (Cronbach's α = .95) as well as appropriate item means (.47–.57) and homogeneity (.69). The inter-rater reliability of the scale was adequate [ r WG = .60–.68; ICC(2) = .74–.85], so that the R-IEP-scale can be considered as being valid and reliable. Implications and limitations of the study are discussed.