Abstract
This research proposal is going to con duct a study aimed at developing reliable and valid ways of assessing teachers’ effectiveness.
This study is influenced by the fact that currently effective methods of assessing teacher performance are still missing in the United States. Most states are using classroom observations and test scores, which are still unreliable.
Introduction
Increasingly, efforts aimed at understanding why some teacher’s impact on students more than others, is on the rise. Determining what is effective teaching and how it can be evaluated is now a concern for educational policy makers.
On the whole, proper teaching is directly related to performance of students. Regardless of this consensus, there is still a wide conflict on the effective strategies and design to assessing teacher’s effectiveness and how such should be used to advance learning.
Therefore, this research paper aims to illuminate on the most effective methods to evaluate teacher’s effectiveness and performance (Butler, 2007)
Problem Statement
The formula for measuring teachers’ effectiveness has predominantly proved elusive over the years. Only traditional methods such as ability and educational qualifications have been considered in teacher selection, ignoring other important aspects.
This is perhaps the reasons why the current educational curriculum has been producing half-baked graduates.
Study Hypothesis
The hypothesis of this study is: Traditional methods of assessing teacher effectiveness are likely to give inaccurate results.
Study Goals
The overall objective of this study is reinforcing other non-traditional methods to evaluate teacher’s effectiveness with a view to influencing policy directions.
Significance of the Study
The study is significant as it outlines the existing gap in determine teacher effectiveness. In the end it will help in streamline policy intervention measures to choosing effective teachers able to prepare students for career and college education.
Literature Review
This section sets the theoretical framework upon which the study is grounded. It relates to the conceptual theoretical scheme within which to derive the studies literature gap. Various ontological issues have been discussed.
On the whole, the tenets described offered the studies assumption that non-traditional methods in testing teachers effectiveness have not been adhered to.
Teacher Performance and Sensitivity to the Market Place
In recent times, issues regarding education in colleges and high school have attracted considerable debate in education policy agenda with regard to the market place (Mills, 2010).
This has followed the realization by various national governments, particularly the United States that the states have been insufficiently preparing students and vulnerable/marginalized ones are bearing the greatest brunt.
The preparations have been cited devoid of the necessary skills to choose a college discipline in this century. Butler (2007) notes that the concerns of long term socioeconomic as well as political implications that such portend have driven the debates in regard to teachers’ performance.
He associates these to technology becoming a crucial component in education in the American schools. Thus performance improvement focusing on some schools not having the capacity to exploit or posses is a major issue.
This is more ingrained in the aims for the citizens to be able to maximize personal accomplishment, that is to say governments are now more focused in development of educational trainers who are more focused on promoting ‘‘socially cohesive democratic communities’’ that respond to the local and globally defined economic demands (Baker, 2000).
Moreover, governmental schooling reforms are today largely geared towards gratifying the needs of the universal marketplace (Mills, 2010).
Regardless of these noble aims and assertions including opportunity to share technology, the challenge is that the methods that have been proposed or should be applied are either not well construed or half-baked when it comes to practical implementation on measuring teacher’s effectiveness (Butler, 2007).
Besides a number of legislations including the reauthorized Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) have been formulated to address teacher effectiveness. Sunderman (2010) notes that the act was proposed with the view to critically assessing high school crisis so that systems and structures are put in place to enable students graduating from high schools to be adequately ready to take on professional disciplines in colleges.
Broadly therefore, a number of federal policies are seen to play important role to ensure that policies are congruent with the changes and ‘‘common standards initiative’ to take the leading roles and facilitation of partnership with other players in the education sector.
This promotes teacher effectiveness (Gay et al. 2000).
Breakthrough and Its Role in Developing Effective Teachers
While there is no one-stop formula to measure the effectiveness of teachers, there is a growing consensus among educational stakeholders that there are skills and attributes which are common to efficient teachers.
These include ability, perseverance, critical thinking, responsibility, motivational skills, and organizational competence.
Apart from the traditional features of a teacher like education, certification and experience, the issue of non-traditional teacher-traits have been explored in evaluating teachers’ effectiveness (Butler, 2007).
These include leadership, perseverance and the level of teachers’ consciousness as well as student achievement. These traits improve students’ performance. For instance, Mills (2010) notes that a teacher who is conscientious will likely be a context teacher when it comes to learning.
He believes that many graduates are succeeding between the classroom lessons and the careers they need to pursue as an interest area in their careers because of large disobedience to contextual learning.
In this regard, many schools across the United States, for instance, are now training teachers and principals to be more concerned in counseling and teaching students in a more career oriented approach and adoption on integrative approaches to teach (Mills, 2010).
The more contextual a teacher is the better the students’ performance. This entails dedicating themselves to introducing avenues and opportunities that respond to contextual learning and seeking to ensure that appropriate ways that ensure that things change are adopted (Mills, 2010).
Moreover, many leaders in the education sector are of the belief that many low achieving students are to mainly get benefits from instruction mixed ability groups–where performance in terms of expectations are often more demanding and in this case, students who perform better academically can aid the others and serve positively as role models (Fazalet al 2005, Mok, 2006).
Predicting Teachers Effectiveness
Mills (2010) reckons that in recent times, there has been a lot of enormous research on the predictability of teachers’ effectiveness. Some have been asking which appropriate certificates and academic groups would be relevant to teacher enrollment in colleges and hiring into the classroom.
Appallingly, researchers have recently found out that some factors associated with a teacher’s knowledge and expertise, are not necessarily relevant to his/her performance. The only exception to this rule is Mathematics and Science subjects.
For instance, teachers who have advanced degrees in Mathematics are likely to perform better in class, and therefore improve student performance (Mills, 2010). Such teachers are often able to tune students to career orientation.
Education, which was career focused, became a base for education reforms endeavors in what was dubbed ‘School to Work Opportunities Act in the Year 1994 (Hudis, 2001).
This was followed by a number of high schools in the entire United States of America retooling their curriculum to suit in or at least incorporating some hybrid form with regard to students’ career interests.
Other Schools adopted Career Majors to this regard. The reasons for a career focused education are many and can be broadly summarized as enhancing academic achievements of Students in the market place, both locally and internationally (Dicken, 2007).
The techniques used in evaluating effectiveness of teachers have changed over time together with the definition of effective teaching. These changes have been brought by increased federal and state supervision of accountability of teachers both in schools and in class.
Most researchers concede that good teaching is crucial and a key factor in improving students performance. However, researchers have not agreed on the best way of measuring teachers’ effectiveness, because there is no consensus on what constitutes an effective tutor.
Some of the traditional methods that have been employed in measuring teachers’ effectiveness include classroom observations meant to compare tutoring practices against certain standard measures (Gay, Mills & Airasian, 2009).
Researchers in education have proposed an integrated approach that measures teachers’ effectiveness from three related angles. Under this model, a teacher’s effectiveness is assessed by measuring inputs, output, and processes.
Inputs refer to the individual factors a teacher possesses, and they are measured with respect to his/her background, expectations, belief, content knowledge, experience, educational achievement, and licensure and certification (Strong, 2009).
These factors are sometimes popularly referred to as teachers’ qualities especially in the ‘No Child Left Behind Program’ that demanded high credentials and qualifications among teachers in the United States.
The process is a measure of assessing teachers’ effectiveness, and it concentrates on the interaction between students and instructors in a classroom set up.
Output on the other hand, refers to the outcomes of classroom processes like graduation rates, students’ attitudes as well as their achievements and behaviors (Gay, Mills & Airasian, 2009).
A report daubed “The Widget Effect” released in 2009 examined the effectiveness of teachers in fourteen American school districts.
This report concluded that the system that is used in evaluating the effectiveness of teachers provides meager information on how performance varies from one tutor to another.
The most significant finding in this report was that ninety eight percent of American teachers were ranked as satisfactory in term of their effectiveness.
This saw education analysts conclude that assessing effectiveness of teachers solely based on classroom observation is a flawed approach (Castle & Shaklee, 2006).
States and school districts in the United States have created databases that enable the tracking of performance of students from one year to another.
A careful examination of these databases confirmed the doubts in the mind of many parents, students, teachers, and policymakers that such an assessment approach is faulty.
This data revealed that the ability of teachers to enhance student growth and achievement varied significantly (Killen, 2006).
In trying to develop a comprehensive system, some school districts in Denver, New York, Washington DC, and Houston have started using the students’ annual test score method as a measure of evaluating teachers’ effectiveness (Wilkerson & Lang, 2007).
However, many policy makers have maintained that the use of test scores in evaluating the effectiveness of teachers has several limitations. One of the shortcomings of this approach is that the scores are obtained from few subjects, which have mandatory annual testing.
This type of evaluation has also been criticized for failing to provide indicators that can be used to improve teachers’ training.
Use of test scores as a method of evaluating teachers’ effectiveness only determines whether or not a particular teacher is effective, but it does not reveal the techniques he uses to improve student performance.
Another shortcoming of using test scores to assess teachers’ effectiveness is that this method can lead to a situation whereby the tutors focus on test skills at the expense of crucial academic content (Campbell, 2004).
The increasing consideration accorded to test scores as a method of assessing teachers’ effectiveness is due to lack of comprehensive alternative ways that can provide valid and reliable information (Mohan & Hull, 2005).
Currently, direct observation still remains the most established method of assessing teachers’ effectiveness in a classroom set up, despite the fact that various reports have indicated that this method of evaluation is flawed (Evers & Walberg, 2004).
An effective teacher has been defined based on four aspects: firstly, an effective teacher is supposed to expect high performance among students.
Secondly, an effective instructor inculcates positive attitude oriented, social and academic outcomes for all students. An effective educator is also supposed to create an environment that encourages participative learning.
Finally, an effective tutor works in partnership with other teachers. Although the attributes of an effective teacher have been well defined, reliable and valid methods that can be use to assess these qualities still lack (Seldin, 2009).
Currently, classroom observation and test scores are the most frequently used methods in evaluating the performance of students in the United States.
Both of these methods have their shortcomings, and this has made some researchers to recommend an integrated approach that uses output, input, and process to evaluate teachers.
However, more research is still needed in this area in order to generate a reliable and valid method of assessing teachers’ effectiveness (Ingvarson & Hattie, 2008).
Research design
Sampling Technique
This research will seek to collect data from students, teachers and states’ departments of education. Data related to student and teachers will be collected from two high schools in a given district. Purposive sampling will be used to select teachers and students who will participate in the study.
Participants
Ten teachers and forty students will be included in the survey from both schools. Five teachers with classes registering good performance in their subjects will be selected, while the other five will be tutors with students registering poor performance in their subject.
Twenty students from both schools who have performed well in the past one year will be included in the study, while the other twenty will be learners who have performed poorly. The learners included in this research will be senor high school students.
Data Collection Method
The research design shall employ qualitative data collection and analysis approach as the most appropriate way to determine high school teacher’s effectiveness.
This will be the most valuable way to responding to and giving the best answers to the questions that seek to determine the relationship that exists in the criteria to be used in choosing teachers and establishing their effectiveness through the performance of their learners.
This method enables respondents to give information freely and with ease since it is very comfortable to undertake. On choosing the best design, several factors will be considered like the availability of resources such as finances and time.
An evaluative case study approach will be carried out in this research. Quantitative approaches to descriptive and non-experimental research methods will be used. Questionnaires designed and used to collect data on different personal views on various learning and teaching techniques will apply.
A respondent’s name will not be requested and so they will be able to give independent thoughts and observations regarding the various methods of determining teachers’ performance and credibility measures.
Data Collection Instrument
The main data collection instrument that will be used in this study will be closed ended questionnaires. Additional secondary data will also be obtained from the state’s department of education records.
Different closed ended questionnaires will be administered to both teachers and students.
The questionnaires administered to students will capture the perception they have about the teaching styles used by their teachers, learners’ attitudes toward their instructors, and students’ levels of satisfaction.
Those administered to tutors will seek to determine the factors blamed for the poor or good performance by their students. The secondary data will be obtained by examining the records of teachers’ evaluation related to these two schools in the last one year.
Questionnaires often provide a chance for collection of quantitative data due to their nature of asking close-ended questions, which normally consist of numerical data (Niglas, 2000). Questionnaires also provide an avenue for testing and proving the hypothesis for the research.
They will also investigate satisfaction levels of the respondents and find the possible preferences that can make teachers more effective in the current educational setting. Brief questions will be utilized to boost the confidence of respondents and add value to their accuracy.
These will be simpler and specific to the particular matters being addressed. Such specificity ensures that more accurate and precise answers are given, thus avoiding the wastage of resources such as time and energy.
Data from this study involving the two schools will then be analyzed and comparisons made.
Data Analysis
The grounded theory or constant comparison will be used as the main method of data analysis, where the data collected will be placed into different categories. These categories will then be analyzed to generate patterns and trends, which will be presented in a tabular format.
Research Procedure
This research is expected to last for a period of three months. In the first step participants to be included in the research will be identified through purposive sampling. The questionnaires will be administered at the end of the first, second, and third month of research.
Possible Constraints
The most notable possible constrain will be in data collection sample. The research will predominantly focus on teachers, some of whom might not be comfortable to give information on what constitute effective teachers especially if they are not effective themselves.
References
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