Becoming an Excellent Teacher: Suggestions From International Research Using the Teacher Behavior Checklist

L'auteur souhaite faire un bilan des methodes de collectes des donnees en education comparee. Ce bilan permet de repondre a cinq questions : La methodologie de recherche fait-elle partie des discussions dans ce champs de recherche? Quelles sont les strategies de recherche de ceux qui publient actuellement en education comparee? La variete des strategies de recherche est-elle reduite dans ce domaine? Les zones geographiques concernees par les travaux se sont-elles elargies? De la recherche qualitative ou de la recherche quantitative, laquelle tient le plus de place? Les sources de l'auteur pour realiser cette synthese sont essentiellement les periodiques specialises : Comparative education review, Comparative education et International Journal of educational development. L'auteur definit une typologie des recherches et procede a l'analyse de contenu des publications du point de vue des strategies de recherche de 1960 a 1995.

Basee sur une enquete d'envergure mondiale, cette etude delimite les orientations des travaux en education comparee, en tâchant de regrouper les tendances actuelles majeures afin d'isoler des domaines d'application futures de cette discipline.

Discerning Trends, Contours, and Boundaries in Comparative Education: A Survey of Comparativists and Their Literature

L'auteur se livre ici a une reflexion personnelle sur les institutions de l'education et sur ce que peut et devrait etre le champ qui mene a l'etude de l'education contemporaine, mais revient aussi sur son experience et ses rencontres personnelles avant de se lancer dans un historique comparatif.

"The Door Opens and the Tiger Leaps": Theories and Reflexivities of Comparative Education for a Global Millennium

Changing modalities in international development and research in education: Conceptual and ethical issues

Social and Educational Change: Conceptual Frameworks

From the foreword: This book is a major contribution to the field of comparative and international education. It has been co-authored by two distinguished figures, who write with authority and clarity, and who present conceptual insights which add creative and intellectual vitality to the field at a time of major change and development.Changing geopolitical relations, the acceleration of globalisation and major advances in information and communication technology have all transformed and revitalised international and comparative research in education. This multidisciplinary book critically examines the implications of this change for those engaged in such work worldwide. Groundbreaking and insightful, it draws on the latest research and developments in the field to give a comprehensive overview and analysis of the contemporary condition of this valuable form of research.Drawing upon the authors' extensive international experience, the text:* Re-assesses the diverse and multidisciplinary origins of this field of study:* Documents the increased orientation towards research;* Explores the changing nature of the problems and issues faced by both new and experienced researchers;* Puts forward a coherent and well-informed case for a thorough reconceptualisation of the field as a whole.The book argues eloquently for increased cultural and contextual sensitivity in educational research and development in order that the field might make a more effective contribution to educational theory, policy and practice. This multidisciplinary work will be welcomed by a wide range of theorists and researchers in education and the social sciences, as well as teachers, policymakers and anyone concerned with improving dialogue and understanding across cultures and nations.

The Teacher Behavior Checklist (TBC) consists of 28 items mainly used to measure college teachers’ performance or to investigate the primary qualities of good teachers. Psychometric studies using the TBC have presented evidence of its validity and reliability in different cultures. However, TBC content validity is exclusively based on self-reported measurements, which presents limitations that are widely discussed in the literature. Our study sought to investigate an alternative measurement for TBC content validity using a latency-based task, namely the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP). The main objective was to assess the strength of the relationship between the concept of “Good Teacher” and “Bad Teacher” and six positive and negative features derived from TBC items using an IRAP preparation. The second objective was to investigate the correlation between IRAP and TBC scores. The participants were 64 undergraduate students (M = 21; F = 43), aged 16 to 36. The IRAP trials included six target stimuli selected from the TBC that could be either “Good Teacher” or “Bad Teacher,” and six labels that could be either positive or negative features. The IRAP revealed that the “Good Teacher” is “Positive,” not “Negative.” On the other hand, the “Bad Teacher” is “Negative,” but participants could not deny that this teacher has “Positive” features. Only one statistically significant correlation was found between the Good Teacher-Negative IRAP trial type and the TBC score. Future studies should expand the use of implicit measurements in psychometric studies using the TBC.

Mapping Comparative Education after Postmodernity

This research, divided into two studies, expanded the content validity examination of the Teacher Behavior Checklist (TBC). In Study 1, the objective was to identify the degree of relevance attributed by teachers and undergraduates to the 28 TBC items, based on what they consider to characterize an effective teacher. The participants of Study 1 were 85 teachers and 91 students from different Brazilian universities. They assessed the TBC items on a seven-point scale (ranging from “1 = totally irrelevant” to “7 = totally relevant”). Students (Mean = 5.7) and teachers (6.1) considered the TBC items to be relevant. Study 2 sought to identify the 10 most important TBC qualities based on student perceptions. The participants of Study 2 were 995 undergraduates whose choices of items corroborated results from previous TBC studies. These data encourage the use of TBC in teacher formative assessment and research on effective teaching.

Comparative Education: From Theory to Practice, or Are You A: \neo.* or B:\*. ist?

The last Special Number of Comparative Education devoted to the field's 'present state and future prospects' was published in 1977, in what Nigel Grant, the then Editor, noted to be the 13th birthday and 'adolescence' of the journal. Now in its 36th year, and at the turn of the millennium, we devote a second issue to a reflective and forward-looking analysis-recognising the contemporary revitalisation of comparative and international research in education, and anticipating the emergence of new challenges and developments for the 21st century. This Special Number seeks to raise fundamental questions about the nature of comparative and international studies in the light of the implications of contemporary socio-political changes, the dramatic acceleration of globalisation, related theoretical and epistemological challenges and current developments in the theory, policy and practice of education. The issue also acknowledges the achievements of the field and the maturity of the journal itself, both of which are most appropriately represented in the contributions by Edmund King and Patricia Broadfoot. The significance of continuity with the past emerges as a core theme in the collective articles and many contributions echo a number of still fundamental issues raised previously in 1977. Most notably these include: the multi-disciplinary and applied strengths of the field; 'the complexities of this kind of study'; the dangers of the 'misapplication of findings'; the importance of theoretical analysis and methodological rigour; the (often unrealised and misunderstood) policy-oriented potential; and the enduring centrality of the concepts of cultural context and educational transfer for the field as a whole (see Grant, 1977). On the other hand, the world has changed rapidly since 1977 and there is much to set the current analysis apart from that of the past. Firstly, most contributors see the future of the field in a more optimistic but problematic light than was the case in 1977. This is attributed, across the various articles, to a combination of factors. These prioritise the exponential growth and widening of interest in international comparative research, the impact of computerised communications and information technologies, increased recognition of the cultural dimension of education, and the influence of the intensification of globalisation upon all dimensions of society and social policy world-wide. Such factors draw attention to the nature of contemporary changes and developments within the field-and to the very real challenges that need to be faced at the outset of the 21st century. Michael Crossley's article, for example, calls for a fundamental reconceptualisation of comparative and international research, but one that builds cumulatively upon the positive traditions embedded in past experience. Contemporary challenges to the field are reflected in, for example, the new priorities and

the 1950s. In artistic circles, particularly in architecture and literary criticism, the discussion of a shift from aesthetic modernism to postmodernism has been continuous and sustained,' while in the social sciences postmodernism has gone through two phases. The first was rather disparate, and, in fact, various labels were invented to describe it, such as "postindustrialism," the "information society," or the "technetronic society."2 In the 1970s the discussion of postmodernism all but disappeared from social science literature;3 however, in the past decade social scientists again discussed it, and by the mid-1980s postmodernism had left the ghetto of esoteric debates and had entered the mainstream of intellectual and public discourse.4 The term "postmodernism" now refers to a discussion involving not only social scientists but also three other strands of influence more closely connected with artistic modernism.

Performance evaluations help university teachers to improve teaching, especially when based on internationally recognized criteria. This study aimed to carry out a cross-cultural adaptation of the Teacher Behavior Checklist (TBC) for Brazilian students to evaluate their teachers (Study 1) and investigate its psychometric evidence (Study 2). In Study 1, evidence was favorable to the use of TBC for teacher evaluation by the student. In Study 2, 714 public university students participated (Average age = 24.3 years; SD = 6.85), 57.2% women. The TBC was applied collectively in the classroom. The results corroborated the two-factor model according to the instrument’s original version, demonstrating an evidence of validity. Evidence of reliability has been documented (alpha = 0.92; Test-Retest = 0.75). This study presented an adequate instrument for the teacher formative evaluation and expanded Brazil’s insertion in international research on effective teaching.