The Impact of Teacher's Professional Development on the Results of Pupils at National Assessment of Knowledge

Abstract

The main and most important purpose of education at all levels is a high quality of teaching and learning process. Achievements of students have become one of the most important criteria for determining the quality of education systems in Europe and worldwide. In Slovenia, the results of pupils at National Assessment of Knowledge have two meanings: they provide teachers with additional information about the knowledge of pupils, and they are feedback about the quality of the work at a school. Since the results of Slovenian pupils at National Assessment of Knowledge in statistical regions of the country are very different and decline at the national level from year to year, we are interested in finding out what is going on with the quality of teaching in our schools, what the role of school policy in teachers’ professional development is, what attitudes teachers have towards their own professional development and what kind of competencies teachers develop through their professional development. Our survey wants to determine whether there are links between teachers’ professional development and achievements of pupils at National Assessment of Knowledge in Mathematics and Mother tongue, and which variables of the teachers’ professional development are determined the most by this indicator. Regarding the fact that many researches confirm the impact of teachers’ professional development on the results at National Assessment of Knowledge we expect to find out that teachers’ professional development is an important factor of pupils’ success at National Assessment of Knowledge. We expect to find out that the management approach to the teachers’ professional development in schools with the best results at National Assessment of Knowledge importantly differs from the management approach in schools with poorer results at National Assessment of Knowledge. We believe that teachers in schools with high results at National Assessment of Knowledge express more positive attitudes towards professional development and estimate their own competence development higher than teachers in schools with poorer results at National Assessment of Knowledge.