Constructing a Teaching-Ability Evaluation System for Chinese Student Teachers using Delphi and Analytical Hierarchical Process Methods

Abstract

With the deepening of teacher educational reforms, increasing focus has been placed on the importance of evaluating student teachers’ teaching abilities in Chinese universities. The Delphi method and an Analytic Hierarchical Process were used to construct an evaluation system for student teachers’ teaching abilities. Delphi specialists included administrators, teachers and teacher educators working in primary, secondary and tertiary education. The evaluation items consisted of four dimensions, namely teacher ethics, teaching skills, educational ability, and developmental ability and a total of 31 indicators. Teaching skills were ranked highest, followed by teacher ethics, educational ability and developmental ability. The overall mean of the dimensions and components was rated as very important to important after three rounds of the Delphi process. Overall, the evaluation system demonstrated high reliability and validity; its’ entries were reasonably distributed indicating its evaluation potential and its’ weighting system denotes priorities for student teachers’ competencies’ evaluation.The evaluation system could help teachers identify key capacities in teacher training ,guide the development of talent nurturing programs, and provide developmental feedback for student teachers.