Indicators Of Teachers Research Articles

Testing the Consensus Model: relationships among physics teachers’ professional knowledge, interconnectedness of content structure and student achievement

ABSTRACTThe structure and definition of professional knowledge is a continuing focus of science education research. In 2012, a pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) summit was held and it suggested a model of professional knowledge and skill including PCK, which was later often called the Consensus Model (Gess-Newsome, 2015. A model of teacher professional knowledge and skill including PCK: Results of the thinking from the PCK summit. In A. Berry, P. J. Friedrichsen, & J. Loughran (Eds.), Teaching and learning in science series. Re-examining pedagogical content knowledge in science education (1st ed., pp. 28–42). New York, NY: Routledge). The Consensus Model proposes a potential powerful framework for the relations among teachers’ different professional knowledge bases, but to date it has neither been investigated empirically nor systematically. In this study, we investigated the relationships suggested by the Consensus Model among different aspects of teachers’ knowledge and skill. A sample of 35 physics teachers and their classes participated in the investigation; both teachers and their students in these classes took paper-and-pencil tests. Furthermore, a lesson taught by each of the teachers was videotaped and analysed. The video analysis focused on the interconnectedness of the content structure of the lesson as representation of the in-class actions of the teachers. The interconnectedness is understood as a direct result of the application of professional knowledge of the teachers to their teaching. The teachers’ knowledge showed no significant influence on the interconnectedness of the lesson content structure. However, the results confirmed the influence of interconnectedness and certain aspects of professional knowledge on students’ outcomes. Therefore, interconnectedness of content structure could be verified as one indicator of teachers’ instructional quality.

Selection and Empirical Analysis of Key Indicators of Teachers’ Professional Ability and Discipline Comprehensive Evaluation

Selection and Empirical Analysis of Key Indicators of Teachers’ Professional Ability and Discipline Comprehensive Evaluation

Students’ Perceptions of Their Teachers’ Performance in Teaching Engineering Drawing in Nigerian Tertiary Institutions

There have been concerns about the performance of Nigerian school teachers’ in delivering occupational related courses. However, there are currently limited empirical data on this phenomenon – in particular with respect to the teaching of engineering drawing – to justify further actions from educational managers and policy makers. The aim of this study was to assess teachers’ performance in teaching engineering drawing using students’ perception as indicator of teachers’ performance. The study utilized a cross-sectional research design method with the target population of technical education students drawn from four (4) Federal Colleges of education (Technical) in Northern Nigeria. Stratified proportionate sampling technique was used to arrive at the study sample of 253 technical education students. A specifically designed instrument, the Students’ Perceptions of Teachers’ Performance Scales (SPTPS) was used to gather data on the three performance dimensions namely contextual, task and adaptability performance. The exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis methods were conducted to validate the performance constructs. The instrument has a high reliability of 0.90 based on the Cronbach Alpha method. The result of the analysis using estimation method indicates that students perceive their teachers’ performance to be at a slightly above average level (M= 3.51 ± 0.05 at the 95% confidence level). The teachers’ task performance, in particular, is found to be the least developed among the three dimension of performance while their adaptability performance is the highest while still being less than excellent. The data support the conclusion that there are aspects of teachers’ performance in teaching engineering drawing that is less than excellent and in need of further enhancements.

The relationship between teachers’ evidence-based actions and communication, cooperation, and participation structures at schools

In Germany, the school sector is being re-organized to feature more output orientation at schools in accordance with the new governance model (NGM), following the new public management paradigm. Newly implemented measures, such as learning standards and school inspections, are generating new evaluation data. However, school improvement can ensue only if findings from evaluations are considered in school and classroom practice. There is little research on how teachers’ orientation towards and use of empirical evidence is related to the changes in school structural conditions under the NGM as seen from the teachers’ perspective. In this article, we analyze how teachers’ orientation towards empirical data from internal and external sources, which is considered an indicator of teachers’ evidence-based actions, is related to school structures such as communication and information retrieval, internal and external cooperation, and participation. The analyses were based on a survey of 1,387 teachers from 124 schools conducted in the project Evidence-based actions within the multilevel system of schools (EviS) in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. We analyzed the data using structural equation models considering the nested data structure. We show that communication and information retrieval, internal and external cooperation, and participation structures explain up to 55 % of the variance of teachers’ internal evidence orientation.

Work Environment Characteristics and Teacher Well-Being: The Mediation of Emotion Regulation Strategies.

Based on an adjusted Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model that considers the mediation of personal resources, this study examined the relationships between two characteristics of teachers’ work environment (i.e., emotional job demands and trust in colleagues) and two indicators of teachers’ well-being (i.e., teaching satisfaction and emotional exhaustion). In particular, the study focused on how emotion regulation strategies (i.e., reappraisal and suppression) mediate these relationships. Data collected from a questionnaire survey of 1115 primary school teachers in Hong Kong was analyzed to test the hypothesized relationships. The results of structural equation modeling indicated that: (1) the emotional job demands of teaching were detrimental to teacher well-being, whereas trust in colleagues was beneficial; (2) both emotion regulation strategies mediated the relationships between both emotional job demands and trust in colleagues and teacher well-being; and (3) teachers who tend to use more reappraisal may be psychologically healthier than those tend to adopt more suppression. These findings support the applicability of the JD-R model to school settings and highlight the role of teachers’ emotion regulation in teachers’ well-being. Implications for the improvement of school environments and teachers’ well-being are identified.

The development of university teachers’ professional identity: a dialogical study

This study investigated whether changes can occur on indicators of teachers’ professional identity (TPI) when teachers and students share representations about what happens in class during an academic term. TPI is a process of constant negotiation between the different I-positions of teachers at the personal, social and cultural levels. The main indicators underlying this identity are: teachers’ representations and perceptions of their own academic roles; their concepts of what it means to teach, learn and assess the courses they teach at university; and the feelings they associate with their duties. Teachers’ education based on critical incidents could be appropriate to analyse teachers’ self-positions, reflect about them and evaluate the possibility of changing any indicators of a TPI. The participants of this study were four university teachers and their students. Data were constructed employing electronic media. Questionnaires were created essentially using open questions. The findings have indicated that the methodology of shared reports was an effective educational tool that can foster changes in teaching and classroom management strategies and has the potential to foster the development of TPI. For further studies, in addition to a longitudinal project, it is also necessary to implement the method herein employed using a broader sample.

Relationship between Teachers’ Job Satisfaction and Students’ Academic Performance

Problem Statement : An extensive literature on Job satisfaction has shown, teachers who are satisfied with their jobs perform better. Along with various indicators of teachers’ job satisfaction, variables such as organizational justice (Nojani, Arjmandnia, Afrooz, & Rajabi, 2012), organizational culture (Hosseinkhanzadeh, Hosseinkhanzadeh, & Yeganeh, 2013), and administrators’ decision-making styles (Olcum & Titrek, 2015) also relate to their job satisfaction. Purpose of the Study : We aimed to investigate the relationship between teachers’ job satisfaction and student’s academic performance in secondary schools. Method : Our sample consisted of 322 secondary-school teachers in Faisalabad, Pakistan, who completed the Job Satisfaction Scale for Teachers that we developed to gather data about teachers’ job satisfaction. Meanwhile, we gauged students’ performance according to the results of students declared by the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education [BISE] Faisalabad in 9th and 10th grades. We calculated means and standard deviations for descriptive purposes and applied Pearson’s r to explore the relationship between 9th- and 10th-grade students’ achievement scores and teachers’ job satisfaction. Results and Findings : Results revealed a strong, positive, and significant correlation between the tests. However, students’ performance showed no significant correlation with teachers’ job satisfaction. Nevertheless, all aspects of job satisfaction demonstrated significant positive correlations with the others, except for pay and supervision. Moreover, teachers’ professional experience exhibited a significant correlation with 9th-grade students’ performance. Conclusions and Recommendation : Work had positive and moderate correlation with promotion, colleagues, working conditions, and supervision. Colleagues had also positive and moderate correlation with working conditions and supervision. Researchers should develop criteria for the selection and recruitment of teachers, and schools should host refresher courses in order to retain teachers.

Elementary mathematics teachers’ judgment accuracy and calibration accuracy: Do they predict students’ mathematics achievement outcomes?

In this study we investigated whether elementary mathematics teachers’ knowledge of their students, as reflected in both the accuracy and confidence with which they are able to estimate their students’ task-specific performance on sets of mathematics problems, predicted students’ overall mathematics achievement. Thirty-nine teachers made predictions about the performance of a random sample of target students (n = 150) in their classrooms on sets of “easy” and “difficult” multiplication and division problems. Teachers also provided confidence ratings for those judgments. From these data, indicators of teachers’ judgment accuracy, judgment confidence and calibration accuracy (a measure of metacognitive monitoring) were then related to all of their students’ (n = 834) performance on year-end standardized mathematics achievement tests. Multilevel analyses indicate that teachers’ calibration accuracy, but not their task-specific judgment accuracy, significantly predicted students’ mathematics achievement. Implications for future research on teacher knowledge as well as professional development programs are discussed.

Quem tem mais interesse pelo uso da informática na educação? Os professores mais jovens ou os mais velhos? – Um estudo correlacional

Currently, generations of people who differ due to the use of technology are living in the society. Based on the ease with which dominate the media, a first observation about these generations may suggest a radical break between the younger and the older, but this perspective is flawed. Studies show that does not exist a class of older people resistant to computers and that the younger generation should not be seen as homogeneous [3, 5, 16]. This applies to the educational context, that includes teachers from different generations. Thus, given the interest that teachers have on the use of computers in education, would be the level of this interest related to the age of the teacher? If yes, who has more interest? The younger or older teachers? This is an important aspect to be considered in the characterization of the user profile in the development of educational software, as well as in the identification of the target audience for teacher training courses that approach issues related to technology. So, based on a study of correlation between the ages and indicators of teachers' interest that participated of an extension course at distance for the production of learning objects, this paper aims to answer these questions and discusses ways of generalization of its results.

Teacher Stress in Primary Schools in One Education District in Trinidad and Tobago

The study explored teachers’ perceptions of the most common indicators of teachers’ stress in primary schools in the St. George East Education Division of Trinidad and Tobago. It sought, also, to develop separate teacher stress categories and make comparisons among schools. The sample consisted of randomly selected 219 teachers from a sample of government and government -assisted schools primary schools from the St. George Education taking into account variables such as size, school type, location, sex and years of teaching experience. The study examined the relationship between the school-level teacher stress factors as well as the predictive power of each independent factor on overall teachers’ stress. The study employed a quantitative method using a cross-sectional design. The data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS-SPG2). T-tests and ANOVA were used to examine teachers’ stress based on school type, location, sex and years of teaching experience. Correlation and regression analysis were employed to examine the relationship between each of the stress factors as well as their influence on the overall dependent teacher stress. The findings suggested that there were no significant differences in teacher stress based on school type and location, However, there were some significant differences in teachers stress based on age, sex and years of teaching experience on some stress factors Also, there was a high to moderate inter-correlation of the school level stress factors. Teacher workload and student behavior had the strongest relationship to overall teacher stress.

Cross-Regional Differences in Meeting the Challenge of Teacher Salary Increase

This paper presents an overview of studies on the correlations of teacher pay to regional economics and to regional factors affecting the size of teacher salaries. It describes the basic pay indicators for teachers in the regions: absolute salary, teacher pay level as compared to the average regional salary, and ratio of salary to the cost of a fixed set of goods and services and to the per capita gross regional product. Based on calculations that used open government databases, a classification of regions by teacher pay level was developed. Regions of the country turned out to belong to seven different clusters. Recommendations on teacher remuneration were developed for each of these clusters and common risks and challenges were identified.

Curso de Pedagogia presencial e a distância: uma análise sobre a formação e a atuação de egressos

Current paper provides the results of a postdoctoral research that investigated the similarities and/or differences in the training of ex-undergraduates in classroom Pedagogy Courses and in the Distance Education modality of the same Course. The analysis gives a brief history of Pedagogy Courses and criticisms with regard to distance training in the wake of the crisis of teachers´ formation courses in Brazil. The former undergraduates under analysis graduated in Pedagogy and are currently teaching children in elementary schools or in the first stages of government-run schools in São Paulo, São Paulo State, Brazil. Our results show that, regardless of the educational modality (classroom or distance learning) and in spite of criticisms in choosing Pedagogy as a career course, either type is acceptable provided that it offers sound education and prepares the professionals for the teaching practice. Other issues such as maturity, right choice of profession and involvement with school daily life and with their pupils are indicators of teacher’s professionality.

The Use of Cartoons as a Tool to Support Teacher Ownership of Mathematics Curriculum Change

In South Africa teachers are faced with the introduction of yet another revised curriculum. Higher education institutes are developing programmes to help teachers through the transition. This article describes such an intervention. The research addresses the question: how could mathematical reasoning cartoons be used as a tool to support teacher ownership of curriculum change? The article reports on three action research iterations in which qualified and experienced mathematics teachers are introduced to the use of reasoning cartoons during a short learning programme targeting the development of teachers’ ownership of curriculum change. Rainer and Matthews's ownership of learning framework is adapted and used as a theoretical lens to provide indicators of teachers’ ownership of curriculum change. Data were collected from audio-taped discussions in groups and teachers’ written reflections concerning the introduction of reasoning cartoons, using the tenets of exploratory talk, into their classes. The results indicate that, after the first iteration, where cartoons developed commercially in the UK were introduced, teachers demonstrated that they could move from a didactic to a dialogic environment where spaces were created for all participants to speak and to listen. When cartoon content was drawn from the current South African curriculum, the teachers were able to introduce a largely teacher-centred approach to implementing the curriculum. However, it was only when the teachers took ownership of their own cartoon construction that they manifested the majority of indicators of ownership of curriculum change. The research suggests that teachers can use a mediating artefact to enable them to embrace curriculum changes imposed from the top down.

Administrator Insights, Evaluation, and Support of New Teacher Use of Educational Technology

Since the advent of educational technology educators have been faced with the challenge of transforming instruction with the goal of providing significant experiences that match 21 st century learner needs. While training and professional development have been offered to help prepare teachers, research suggests the continued existence of a digital divide even among new teachers who move from the pre-service stage into the classroom. This is a cause for concern. The question is what are administrators’ thoughts on this issue and what types of educational resources and support are provided to help new teachers in order to help them feel more ready to integrate technology in their teaching when they enter into school employment? The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore principals’ insights on new teacher preparedness to integrate technology and examine the ways in which schools are providing support to help novice instructors meet the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) and Performance Indicators for Teachers. The results of this study have implications for the training of teachers, and the development and implementation of school and district-wide technology initiatives that promote and support teacher use of educational technology in teaching and learning.

The Relationship between Personal Mastery and Teachers’ Competencies at Schools in Indonesia

The purpose of the present research is to study the relationships between indicators of personal mastery and indicators of teachers’ competencies at Junior Secondary State Bone district in Indonesia. The respondents of the research consists of all the Junior Secondary State teachers of the Bone district including 200 teachers (80 males 120 females). The obtained data was analyzed by Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The results have indicated that there exists a significant correlation between personal mastery and teachers’ competencies at the 0.05 significance level. Further, a significant positive correlation was observed between the indicators of personal mastery (personal vision, creative tension, commitment, trust, and consciousness) and indicators of teachers’ competencies (pedagogic, professional, personality, and social).

Factors and Indicators of Teachers’ Roles that Promote Lifelong Learning Skills of Students at the Basic Education Level

The objectives of this research were to analyze factors and indicators for teachers’ roles to promote lifelong learning skills of students at the basic education level in Thailand, to analyze the relational model of factors and indicators, and to validate the consistency of model with empirical data. This study used Two-Stage Sampling for selecting teachers who got Teacher Awards 2011. The first group was 550 sample teachers for Exploratory Factor Analysis. The second group was 550 sample teachers for testing the relational model analysis and the validity of model consistency through LISREL. The research instruments included the questionnaire about factors and indicators for teachers’ roles to promote lifelong learning skills. The findings of this study showed that there were five factors and 40 indicators: instruction consisted of 11 indicators; support & reinforcement for active learning had 11 indicators, teacher attributes had 9 indicators; monitoring, inspection and assessment had 5 indicators; and classroom management consisted of 4 indicators. All factors could explain 58.38% of the variance in observed variables. The relational model was consistent with empirical data. Instruction was factors directly influencing lifelong learning skills. Support & reinforcement for active learning, teacher attributes, monitoring, inspection and assessment and class management were factors indirectly influencing lifelong learning skills. Keywords: factors and indicators of teacher’s roles, promote lifelong learning skills, basic education level in Thailand

Gestión didáctica en clases y su relación con las decisiones del profesor: el caso del teorema de pitágoras en séptimo grado

Este artículo presenta el análisis de la gestión didáctica de dos profesoras de matemáticas en Chile, a partir de la observación directa de sus clases de geometría del teorema de Pitágoras, en el grado 7 y alumnos de 12 a 13 años. El objetivo del estudio consiste en detectar, en la gestión de la clase, los índices de las decisiones didácticas que toman las docentes sobre el tema, y verificar si sus gestiones siguen algún modelo didáctico de la acción pedagógica. Este estudio se centra en el análisis de episodios seleccionados de las clases, el cual se inscribe en una perspectiva constructivista del aprendizaje y de la enseñanza de la matemática, basado en ideas claves de la teoría de situaciones didácticas de Brousseau. La gestión de los profesores conduce a un modelo de transmisión de conocimientos que dificultan el desarrollo de las matemáticas y el protagonismo del estudiante.

Problem Solving Concretely with the Word like

While the average teenager’s conversation may seem inundated with the word like, in the mathematics classroom, teenagers use it with purpose. Linguists study the word like to understand and categorize comparative statements. By overlapping linguistics and mathematics education within the frame of cognitive science, this study found that high school students do not use the word like arbitrarily. Its use within conceptual-metaphor analysis (Lakoff, & Johnson, 2003; 1980) suggests a specific purpose within mathematical problem solving. This interdisciplinary study identifies distinctions in high school students’ use of the word like. Specifically, students predominantly used the word like in a concrete manner to aid in conceptualization. This article offers practical indicators for teachers to improve students’ ability to solve mathematics problems.

Professional language use by pre-service English as a foreign language teachers in a teaching certificate program

Since the language used by people has the potential to signal a membership in a discourse community, it is significant that prospective teachers speak the appropriate social language to be able to claim a strong membership in the community of teachers. This qualitative study explores a group of pre-service teachers’ professional language use and their claims for membership in the teaching profession. In this study, a scrutiny of the meanings reflected by 21 pre-service teachers during their one-semester internship is provided to illustrate the extent to which their classroom practice brings about a change in both their professional language use and their recognition of themselves as valid members of the specific discourse community of English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers in Turkey. The methods of data collection in this study consisted of a blend of qualitative techniques: (1) the pre-service teachers’ weekly field notes; (2) their weekly reflective reports on their own field notes and their classroom practice experiences; (3) their written responses to open-ended questions posed at the end of the semester; and (4) my observational notes which I took during weekly discussion sessions. Findings underscore that there are several reasons leading to the participants’ limited professional language use. A focus on teachers’ professional language use – a significant part and indicator of teachers’ professional development – might help to reveal the dimensions of the processes involved in teachers’ identity formation in different educational contexts as well as in mainstream contexts.

Profiling teachers’ sense of professional identity

This study shows that professional identity should not be viewed as a composed variable with a uniform structure. Based on the literature and previous research, we view teachers’ job satisfaction, self‐efficacy, occupational commitment and change in the level of motivation as indicators of teachers’ professional identity. Using two‐step cluster analysis, three distinct professional identity profiles have empirically been identified, based on data of 1214 teachers working in secondary education in the Netherlands. These profiles differed significantly regarding the indicators of teachers’ professional identity. Teachers belonging to the found profiles did not significantly differ in their amount of experience.