Abstract
In this overview piece, we document the six student perception surveys (SPSs) currently available for state, district, and school consumption and use, given SPSs are increasingly becoming one of the more popular “multiple measures” being used to evaluate teacher qualities. We present descriptive information about each of these SPSs, including information related to cost(s), constructs or domains assessed, number of items, response option types, grade level(s) in which the SPS can be administered, etc. Given this information, we also present implications for practice, as well as calls for future research into each SPS individually and writ large, given SPSs’ increasing popularity post the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), and also given what consumers might need to know before SPS purchase or use.
Highlights
Since the 1990s, federal education accountability policies have outlined multiple reforms to improve the state of public education in the U.S a national movement incorporating standards-based reforms and a culture of testing students stemmed from the A Nation at Risk report (National Commission on Excellence in Education [NCEE], 1983), after which federal and statewide education policies focused on accountability measures as related to student achievement and teacher quality arose
It has only been of late that student perception surveys (SPSs) have been used in more formative or summative ways as integral parts of states’ and districts’ formal teacher evaluation systems as based upon “multiple measures” (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, n.d.; Chester, 2003; Darling-Hammond, 2012; The New Teacher Project, 2011; U.S Department of Education, 2009). Such systems as based upon “multiple measures” are to permit more facets of teaching to be evaluated as part of the whole, all the while helping to, at least theoretically, alleviate some of the concerns associated with using each individual measure in isolation
Results indicated that the Tripod—the SPS used as a part of the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) studies—was a valid and reliable way to measure teacher effectiveness, and potentially more so than classroom observation measures (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, 2012)
Summary
Since the 1990s, federal education accountability policies have outlined multiple reforms to improve the state of public education in the U.S a national movement incorporating standards-based reforms and a culture of testing students stemmed from the A Nation at Risk report (National Commission on Excellence in Education [NCEE], 1983), after which federal and statewide education policies focused on accountability measures as related to student achievement and teacher quality arose. It should be noted that while the SPSs discussed indicated in their marketing materials that they were developed per prior research, it was not possible to verify to what extent this was the case due to a lack of technical documents and details (discussed in more depth, below) This shortage of evidence is not necessarily uncommon for teacher evaluation measures, as classroom observation frameworks are notably lacking in such detail as well. Our survey of these surveys provides such a review and synthesis of the six SPSs listed prior
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