Use of Student Achievement Scores as Basis for Assessing Teachers’ Instructional Effectiveness: Issues and Research Results

Abstract

Assessment is very important in the learning and instructional processes. Equally important is the use to which assessment results are put. Use of student achievement scores (SAS) as a basis for assessing the teacher's instructional compet ence or effectiveness is one of the controversial approaches to teacher evaluation. This paper examined the issues characterizing th e use of SAS as a basis of teacher assessment, and presents research results from Nigeria and abroad on the attitude of teachers to t his approach of assessing teachers. The research findings from abroad were extracted from the literature. The research in Nigeria sampled 480 secondary school teachers in Akwa Ibom State using stratified random sampling technique. The instrument for data collection was a questionnaire with a reliability estimate of .94. Three hypotheses were tested. The results showed that second ary school teachers displayed a significantly negative attitude to this teacher assessment approach; that this attitude was not sig nificantly influenced by the professional status of the teachers; and that this attitude, when the purpose of teacher assessment is summat ive, is significantly more negative than the attitude when the purpose of teacher assessment is formative. It was concluded that Nig erian teachers are not different from their counterparts abroad in their showing disdain or condemnation to the use of student achiev ement scores as indicators of teacher's competence, performance or effectiveness. Therefore, great care is required in the use of ass essment results in our schools, especially in attempts to blame teachers for poor academic performance of learners.