Abstract:
The literature on teacher effectiveness identifies numerous presage, process and context variables that influence student learning in school classrooms. Much of this literature reports studies in which the data were gathered by direct or indirect observation and/or by analysis of information supplied by teachers. The study reported in this paper took a different approach by examining teacher effectiveness through the eyes of students. It was concerned with identifying teacher behaviours that students saw as helping them understand a particular science or mathematics lesson and with identifying teacher behaviours that students saw as inhibiting their understanding of that lesson. The study involved 955 junior high school students from four countries (Australia, USA, Finland and the Republic of South Africa) in an attempt to identify aspects of teacher effectiveness that were common and unique to the four sites.
The students in the study identified 43 distinct teacher behaviours that helped them to understand the information presented by their teachers, and 29 teacher behaviours that confused them or made it difficult for them to understand the information presented by their teachers. There were numerous similarities, and several important differences, in the behaviours identified by the students in different countries, but at all sites the students were much more readily able to identify things that helped them to understand than they were able to identify things that hindered their understanding. The paper presents a detailed description of the findings and discusses some of the implications that they have for teacher educators.
The students in the study identified 43 distinct teacher behaviours that helped them to understand the information presented by their teachers, and 29 teacher behaviours that confused them or made it difficult for them to understand the information presented by their teachers. There were numerous similarities, and several important differences, in the behaviours identified by the students in different countries, but at all sites the students were much more readily able to identify things that helped them to understand than they were able to identify things that hindered their understanding. The paper presents a detailed description of the findings and discusses some of the implications that they have for teacher educators.