National Teacher Examinations Research Articles

Teacher and headteacher assessment, feedback, and continuing professional development: the Mexican case

ABSTRACT Teacher and headteacher assessments and professional development are deemed critical levers for improving quality education in an increasing number of countries and contexts. However, prioritising improvement is not always evident, given that sometimes those subjected to assessments are not effectively informed about their performance (e.g. from national teacher examinations) or how to improve their work via feedback. This paper explores the bridging role of feedback concerning teacher and headteacher assessments and continuing professional development in the Mexican context, where scarce research exists. This mixed-methods research contributes evaluation evidence of Mexico’s 2013–2018 education reform, including high-stakes staff assessments and individual feedback reports. Survey data from 122 primary school teachers and headteachers and thirteen interviews with teachers, headteachers and policymakers indicate the feedback report made it difficult to distinguish between poor and proficient performance and identify strengths and weaknesses. Challenges regarding suitable continuing professional development following assessment feedback are put forward.

O exame nacional do “bom” professor sob um olhar reflexivo

O que caracteriza um “bom” professor? Nasce-se? Torna-se? A ideia de professor como uma profissão vocacionada coloca em questão a formação docente que vem sendo tema de inúmeros estudos acerca dos cursos de graduação em Licenciatura disseminados pelo país. Rios (2001), quando propõe uma reflexão sobre um ensino de qualidade que ultrapasse a visão meramente técnica, lança um olhar à competência docente sob variados atributos que visam a um trabalho ético e competente. Mesmo considerando todas as competências conferidas ao “bom professor”, discutidas por autores como Duarte (2001), Rios (2001) e Facci (2004), o objetivo primeiro deste estudo será o de refletir sobre os atributos que vêm sendo considerados na proposta do exame nacional docente defendida pelo MEC/INEP, sendo nomeado por alguns autores como o “Enem dos professores”. Na análise do documento, encontramos uma série de valores que são atribuídos ao “bom” professor. Assim, adotando os pressupostos da abordagem qualitativa, por meio da técnica de pesquisa documental, serão levantadas questões sobre o que se pretende com este exame, considerando os aspectos que o documento atesta que caracterizam um “bom professor”. Dessa forma, este trabalho pretende contribuir para uma reflexão acerca do papel a ser desempenhado por aquele que se espera do “bom” professor, levando-se em consideração os apelos pragmáticos, instrumentais e mercadológicos presentes no discurso que se anuncia no documento analisado.

Curriculum Review of Teacher Professional Development Program Based on Biology Teacher Profile in Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge

Teachers in Indonesia must follow Teacher Professional Development Program (PPG) for one year. This article reflects the curriculum of PPG through the TPACK profile of the graduates. TPACK is composed of Pedagogical Knowledge (PK), Content Knowledge (CK), and Technological Knowledge (TK) as proposed by Shulman. This research measured PK, CK, TK and PCK of biology teachers participated in PPG SM3T in the Biology Education Study Program in UNY to reflect on the curriculum of PPG. The respondents were fifteen biology teachers participated in PPG. The instruments were tests constructed based on the test of teacher competences test (UKG) and on the national biology Olympiad tests. The tests were conducted at the end of the program. The results were analyzed using descriptive statistic. The results indicate that PK, CK, and TK of the PPG participant scored 59.3, 52.9, dan 62.7 of scale 100. The results was similar to the results of National Teacher Examination (UKG) where biology teachers scored 62.0. The CK scored 26.2 for material of genetics of the national Olympiad. Therefore, the teacher competences on TPACK still need improvement. The curriculum of PPG that relayed meanly on PK should be adapted to the development of CK and TK.

A Comparison of Alternatively and Traditionally Prepared Teachers

By 1993, 40 states had instituted alternative certification (AC) programs for degree holders wishing to teach (Sindelar & Marks, 1993). Although these alternative certification programs have occasioned controversy over their value, researchers have conducted very few substantive investigations on their effectiveness. The few extant studies have somewhat contradictory results. One problem with investigations and even discussion of AC and traditional certification (TC) is the variety of the former. Cornett (1990) provides useful descriptions of the broadly differing ends of the spectrum of AC programs: [Some AC programs] simply give teachers without the proper credentials (requirements such as education hours completed) an interim status and allow them to be employed while they work to earn the college credits that are equivalent to standard requirements for teacher education programs. On the other hand, several states have developed alternative certification programs--ones that permit Arts and Sciences graduates to go through intensified but shorter programs (not requiring the typical accumulation of education hours), or meet requirements by demonstrating competencies, or by gaining the necessary expertise through field-based experiences while holding a teaching position (p. 5 7, emphasis in original). In this article, we compare TC program graduates with individuals completing a carefully constructed AC program. The AC program required condensed coursework to meet provisional certification standards, an induction mentoring program, and ongoing coursework to meet minimal state certification guidelines. It did not meet the full requirements for a degree program in middle-level education. Darling-Hammond (1992), reviewing the literature on alternative teacher certification programs, reports: Studies of teachers admitted through quick-entry alternate routes frequently note that the candidates have difficulty with curriculum development, pedagogical content knowledge, attending to students' differing learning styles and levels, classroom management and student motivation (Feiman-Nemser & Parker, 1990; Grossman, 1989; Lenk, 1989; Mitchell, 1987). Novice teachers without full training show more ignorance about student needs and differences and about teaching basics than trained beginners (Rottenberg & Berliner, 1990) (Darling, Hammond, 1992, p. 131). Some researchers question the content preparation of AC teachers, a supposed strength of AC programs. McDiarmid and Wilson (1991) compared the mathematical knowledge of teachers from two different AC programs with that of TC teachers and noted that teachers with AC preparation lacked depth of content knowledge. They did not improve appreciably through teaching the content: Our analyses should raise questions about assumptions that underlie policy initiatives such as alternate routes: Specifically, should a major in mathematics--or in any discipline--be accepted as a proxy for the kinds of understandings of the subject essential to helping diverse learners understand critical ideas and concepts (McDiarmid & Wilson, 1991, p. 102)? Several studies support the equivalence and occasional advantages of AC programs when compared with TC programs. Adelman (1986) found that AC programs attract individuals with greater classroom effectiveness than that possessed by TC teachers. In an evaluation of Texas programs, Wale and Irons (1990) found that administrators held favorable opinions of AC teachers. Hawk and Schmidt (1989) found no difference between AC and TC teachers, either in observed classroom performance or National Teacher Examination scores. Other researchers (Barnes, Salmon, & Wale, 1989; Dewalt & Ball, 1987; Etheridge, Butler, Etheridge, & James, 1988; Guyton, Fox, & Sisk, 1991; Hutton, 1987; Mishima, 1987; Soares, 1989, 1990) report similar findings. Comparisons based on achievement test performance suggest that AC programs do not necessarily lead to lower student outcomes (Barnes, et al. …

Evaluating the Psychometric Qualities of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards' Assessments: A Methodological Accounting.

In 1991 the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards established a Technical Analysis Group (TAG) with responsibility for conducting research on the measurement quality of its innovative performance assessments of classroom teachers. The TAG's measurement research agenda focused on four principal areas of inquiry and development—(1) validation of the Board's assessments, (2) characterizing the reliability of the Board's assessments, (3) establishing standards of performance for awarding candidate teachers National Board Certification, and (4) investigation of the presence and degree of adverse impact and bias in the Board's assessments. Because the National Board's assessments differed materially from conventional tests that had been used in the past for assessing teachers' knowledge and skills (for example, the National Teacher Examinations), textbook approaches to evaluation of their measurement properties were largely inapplicable. New measurement methodology was thus required. This article contains a summary of the measurement strategies developed and employed by the TAG. Because investigations of the degree of adverse impact and bias in the National Board's assessments are described in another contribution to this journal issue, the article considers only the first three issues mentioned above. The article begins with a brief description of the structure of the National Board's assessments. A final section of the article identifies some remaining measurement dilemmas and provides suggestions for additional inquiry.

The University of Tennessee at Martin (UTM) and Lane College (LC) Urban - Rural Exchange Partnership Program Phase One: The Purpose and Plan

This article highlights a partnership between an historically Black urban institution, Lane College (Jackson, Tennessee) and a rural institution, The University of Tennessee at Martin (Martin, Tennessee). The purpose of the partnership is to provide urban - rural early field experience exchange for preservice students, conduct joint educational seminars, prepare preservice students for the National Teacher Examination (NTE), provide technological training, recruit minorities for careers in teaching, and establish a mutual assistance network for accreditation.

Testing Equality: The National Teacher Examination and the NAACP's Legal Campaign to Equalize Teachers' Salaries in the South, 1936-63

In the middle of the twentieth century, the white elites who controlled public education in the South stood at a racial crossroads. Facing increasingly insistent demands for equality and access from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), political and educational leaders had to choose between accommodation and resistance. Pressure from the NAACP and the courts did bring important accommodations, but in significant, and still unexamined, ways the white South chose to resist. The most durable resistance to the challenges posed by the NAACP's legal campaign came not in the courts or in politics but within educational institutions. While the South's legal and political defense of racial discrimination and segregation ultimately collapsed, resistance inside schools endured. Beginning in the 1940s, shrewd southern elites institutionalized new, more legally defensible forms of discrimination and inequality that continue to define educational arrangements in the region today.

The Predictive Validity of the National Teacher Examinations Used for Admission to Teacher Education Programs

This research investigates previous findings which report that performance on the National Teacher Examinations (NTE) tests of Communication Skills (CS) and General Knowledge (GK) used for teacher education admissions was not related to performance in teacher education course work. Administrative data were collected for 1,143 graduates of teacher education programs, including various test scores and grade point averages. The CS and GK scores were not found to be strongly enough related to performance in teacher education programs, as measured by grade point average, to merit their use as requirements for admission. The tests are useful for predicting performance on the NTE test of Professional Knowledge, the state certification examination. Cross-validation of prior regression models showed these relationships to be stable. The authors point out policy implications of the study.

Correlations of National Teacher Examination Core Battery Scores and College Grade Point Average with Teaching Effectiveness of First-Year Teachers

Correlations of National Teacher Examination Core Battery scores and college grade point average with a measure of teaching effectiveness were evaluated for 493 first-year teachers. The correlation was higher for GPA (r = .28) than for the Core Battery (R = .16). The Core Battery did not improve the prediction of teacher effectiveness over using only GPA.

Reflections on Teacher Education in Dance

It takes little if any imagination to recognize that today's schools are not working well for more than a small number of students. Statistics on low SAT scores and dropout rates are part of the daily news. There is little evidence, despite efforts at educational reform, that the situation has changed much from that in 1983, when Ernest Boyer wrote that American high schools provide an outstanding education for only 10 to 50 percent of the students. Further, he noted that a larger percentage of students-perhaps 20 to 30 percent-mark time in school or drop out.…The majority of students are in the vast middle ground….They attend high schools that, like the communities that surround them, are surviving but not thriving.1 Many people blame teachers, accusing them of not being bright enough or hardworking enough; my university now requires a second academic major for education students, as well as higher OPAs and higher scores on the National Teacher's Examination. Others blame students, and/or they blame their families for raising students who are lazy or who are more interested in a job at McDonald's to support a car than they are in learning. The proposed remedies have included more of many things that now exist-more academics, more testing, more homework, more requirements.

Comparisons of the ETS National Teacher Examination Listening Model with Models Used in Two Standardized Listening Tests

This article examines the development, rationale, models and definitions employed in the ETS Nafional Teacher Examination (WE) Listening Segment. In addition, the model employed in the NTE are compared with those used in the development of two contemporary listening tests—The Kentucky Listening Test and the Watson-Barker Listening Test. The comparisons are presented in tabular form according to a battery of criteria suggested for the evaluation of listening measures by communication scholars. All three measures tend to focus on some similar aspects of listening behavior, but diferences are noted in a variety of areas. The results of the comparisons can help communication educators select a measure which closely parallels the approach to listening represented in the NTE, in order to better prepare their students to take the examination.

Predicting Performance On The Professional Knowledge Portion Of The National Teacher Examinations

Teacher education programs are expected to prepare competent individuals. nevertheless, because policy makers have been unable to envision the possibility of classrooms without teachers, they have insisted on a guaranteed supply of teachers, even at the expense of quality (Dolce, 1986). However, since the report titled A National at Risk (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983) was published, much nzonalmediaandpolitical attention has been focused on improving the quality of public education at all levels. This attention has caused an upsurge in public demand for quantitative visible educational results, effectiveness, and efficiency. These demands have resulted in growing numbers of legislative mandates at the state and national levels designed to make the education system more accountable. Conceivably, the insistence for increased educational accountability could serve as a catalyst for exerting pressures on the educational community to improve the quality of teachers entering the profession.

Influence of Type of Judge, Normative Information, and Discussion on Standards Recommended for the National Teacher Examinations

There are few empirical investigations of the consequences of using widely recommended data collection procedures in conjunction with a specific standardsetting method such as the Angoff (1971) procedure. Such recommendations include the use of several types of judges, the provision of normative information on examinees' test performance, and the opportunity to discuss and reconsider initial recommendations in an iterative standard‐setting procedure. This study of 236 expert judges investigated the effects of using these recommended procedures on (a) average recommended test standards, (b) the variability of recommended test standards, and (c) the reliability of recommended standards for seven subtests of the National Teacher Examinations Communication Skills and General Knowledge Tests. Small, but sometimes statistically significant, changes in mean recommended test standards were observed when judges were allowed to reconsider their initial recommendations following review of normative information and discussion. Means for public school judges changed more than did those for college or university judges. In addition, there was a significant reduction in the within‐group variability of standards recommended for several subtests. Methods for estimating the reliability of recommended test standards proposed by Kane and Wilson (1984) were applied, and their hypothesis of positive covariation between empirical item difficulties and mean recommended standards was confirmed. The data collection procedures examined in this study resulted in substantial increases in the reliability of recommended test standards.

Relationships between Scores from the ACT, PPST, NTE, ACTCOMP, and GPA

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationships that exists between entrance tests scores, for teacher education students, derived from the American College Test (ACT) and the Pre-Professional Skills Test (PPST) and outcomes measures including the National Teacher Examinations (NTE), College Outcomes Measures Project test (ACTCOMP) and overall grade point average (GPA). The subjects included 615 students who had completed a teacher education program and were eligible for licensure. Significant correlations (p < .01) were obtained between all scores from the four tests and GPA. Regression equations using scores from the ACT and PPST were developed to predict NTE and ACTCOMP scores and GPA. ACT scores were the best predictors of the outcomes measures.

The Influences of Salaries and "Opportunity Costs" on Teachers' Career Choices: Evidence from North Carolina

Richard Murnane, Judith Singer, and John Willett analyze data from a larger study on the factors influencing career paths of teachers, focusing specifically on the career paths of White teachers in North Carolina who were first hired between 1976 and 1978. Using methodology known as "hazards modeling," the authors explore the relationship between the risk of leaving teaching, on the one hand, and teacher salary and opportunity cost, on the other hand. By employing hazards models, they are able to examine simultaneously various predictors of risk of leaving teaching — gender, National Teacher Examination (NTE)score, subject specialty, and the level of teaching (elementary or secondary) — and to determine whether the effects of these predictors remain constant or vary across teachers' careers. The authors conclude by discussing implications for policy and for teacher supply and demand models.

Race, Gender, and Opportunity: Supply and Demand for New Teachers in North Carolina, 1975–1985

This paper examines two related questions. First, what changes took place between 1975 and 1985 in the number and characteristics of college graduates who obtained teacher certification? Second, do demographic characteristics, subject specialties, and scores on National Teacher Examinations (NTE) predict which certificants became teachers in North Carolina and which did not (40% of certificants never taught in the state). We find not only that the number of new certificants was sensitive to the demand for classroom teachers but also that certificants’ choices of subject field were sensitive to demand. We also find an important difference between Black and White certificants in the relationship between NTE scores and the probability of entry into teaching in North Carolina.

Predicting Performance on the National Teacher Examinations Core Battery

AbstractThis study examined factors that predict performance on the National Teacher Examinations (NTE) Core Battery. We found strong relationships between a student’s undergraduate grade point average (GPA), American College Test (ACT) subtests, and the NTE Core Battery tests. We developed and used regression equations to predict NTE Core Battery test scores for a cross-validation group of students whose scores were not used in developing the original equations. Predictions ranged in accuracy from r = .73 for professional knowledge to r = .92 for general knowledge. Results are discussed in terms of comparing current predictors of success on the NTE Core Battery with past predictors of success on the NTE Common Examinations and the implications for teacher educators.

Relationships of National Teacher Examination Communication Skills and General Knowledge Scores with High School and College Grades, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Characteristics, and Self-Reported Skill Ratings and Academic Problems

Relationships of National Teacher Examination (NTE) Communication Skills (CS) and General Knowledge (GK) test scores with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) characteristics, self-reported academic problems, and 14 skill self-ratings were examined for 161 college teaching majors. The purpose was to determine if such personality data, collected 4 years before the students took the National Teacher Examination (NTE) tests, could explain variability in the NTE scores that could not be explained by high school and college classroom achievement. Results from multiple regression analyses indicated that after controlling for classroom achievement, gender, and whether or not students were elementary/special or secondary majors, the personality variables could explain a statistically significant percentage of the CS (12%) and GK (17%) variances. An irony was observed in that MBTI sensing/judging types attained lower NTE scores than would be expected from their classroom achievement, although they also are the type that most often chooses teaching as a vocation.

Another Look at the Concurrent and Predictive Validity of the National Teacher Examinations

AbstractThis study examined (a) the concurrent validity of the 1982 version of the National Teacher Examinations (NTE) through correlations with test scores, success as an undergraduate, and certain personal characteristics and (b) the predictive validity of the NTE in relation to principal ratings, pupil ratings, and classroom observations made by independent observers for a group of teachers who were graduates of the same university. Scores from the NTE were significantly correlated with American College Test and mean grade point averages. Correlations of NTE scores with measures taken in the classrooms indicated few relationships. The results of the study support similar studies that were performed with earlier versions of the NTE.

Factors Influencing Recommended Standards for Essay Tests

Sixty-one judges provided recommendations on minimal standards for the Essay portion of the National Teacher Examinations Communication Skills Test, which is used to screen applicants to North Carolina teacher education programs. The standard-setting procedures were described; provision of student performance information to judges and group discussion significantly increased the average recommended standards. Initial differences between the average recommended standards when two sets of essays were used by judges were diminished by those treatments. The recommendations of public school judges were significantly more variable than were those of college and university judges following discussion.