What's the Evidence?
Professional standards for teachers that focus on teaching were created in Australia over ten years ago with an aim to improve learner outcomes. Our What’s the Evidence study shows the need for a refocus of the educational research and policy agenda to build support for teacher quality to address both the high attrition rate of early career teachers and to aid capacity building for experienced teachers.
Developing a robust construct of teacher quality was essential for clarity and consistency when identifying and measuring indicators of teacher quality.
Our project contains three phases.
Phase 1: Identifying the indicators of teacher quality (2021-2022)
The team conducted a scoping literature review, examining empirical research publications from 2011 – 2021 that identified 50 indicators of teacher quality. These indicators became the basis of our Teacher Quality Construct, articulating the intellectual, interpersonal, affective, and intrapersonal qualities of teachers. A word doc of the research informed indicators of teacher quality can be found here.
Phase 2: Refining the indicators relevant for early career teachers (2022-2023)
The team conducted a series of focus groups with education experts and professional associations, as well as a sequence of surveys open to teachers in the NSW Department of Education. The focus groups and surveys were to determine which indicators of the Teacher Quality Construct were considered essential for early career teachers in particular. Through this process, we were able to identify the top three qualities essential for early career teachers – motivation, respect for diversity, and reflective practice – as well as fit for purpose measurement tools.
Phase 3: Measuring the indicators and alignment with TPA results (2023)
The team will conduct a measurement process with early career teachers in NSW government schools. Principals and early career teachers at eligible schools will be invited to participate in our research through completing a questionnaire measuring their levels of motivation, respect for diversity, and reflective practice. Eligible schools will also be offered the opportunity to attend a half-day professional development workshop exploring these qualities in more depth.
Beyond Phase 3
A nationally agreed construct of teacher quality is necessary to inform and structure education policy. Education systems value what can be measured but no measures exist for what stakeholders value about teacher quality. This will be the focus of future projects.
Developing a robust construct is essential for clarity and consistency when identifying and measuring indicators of teacher quality. Especially if findings are going to inform future practise and inform policy decisions.
Prior research and practice in education shows that being a teacher requires cognitive processing abilities (Bardach & Klassen, 2020; Darling-Hammond, 2000), relationship-building abilities (Grönqvist & Vlachos, 2008), the ability to relate to others and be relatable (Klassen et al., 2018), and the ability to take personal responsibility for professional conduct (Klassen et al., 2018; Klassen & Tze, 2014). The conceptual definition that informs our study aligns with this prior work.
Therefore, construct of teacher quality, which we have adopted for the What’s the Evidence project refers to a composite of intellectual, interpersonal, affective, and intrapersonal attributes, knowledges and skills possessed and practised reflexively by an individual.
As the profession of teaching impacts directly the immediate and lifelong welfare and wellbeing of other human beings, teacher quality supposes an ethics of care, so the construct accounts for a moral dimension. The construct enables us to derive an operational definition from the literature (Braun et al., 2002) that will help us measure what we value as the distinctive attributes possessed by quality teachers.
Phase 1 of the What’s the Evidence (WtE) project involved identifying the indicators of teacher quality. To achieve this objective, six online, education-focused databases were searched to identify relevant peer reviewed publications published between 2011 and June 2021.
These publications were systematically reviewed, resulting in 1,004 individual publications being included in this study. An initial analysis of the individual publications identified 3,370 indicators of teacher quality. Through content analysis, guided by our construct of teacher quality, these indicators were coded into seven sets containing 50 indicators of Teacher Quality.
Four of the sets containing 37 of the indicators, related to our Teacher Quality construct i.e., a composite of intellectual, interpersonal, affective, and intrapersonal attributes, knowledges and skills possessed and practised reflexively by an individual.
A word doc of the research informed indicators of teacher quality can be found here.
As the What’s the Evidence (WtE) study is investigating the predictive validity of a Teaching Performance Assessment (TPA), Phase 2 of the project involved refining the indicators of Teacher Quality identified in Phase 1, into those relevant for early career teachers.
The WtE team also wished to confirm that the construct created for the study was seen to be fit for purpose by stakeholders. The team met in focus groups with the expert panel made up of 16 leaders from education systems [e.g. regulatory bodies, union representatives, and policy makers] who have knowledge of the NSW education system including APST and have teaching, policy or research experience in the Department of Education or professionally affiliated bodies.
The panel members discussed the four sets as illustrated through the 37 indicators named in the scoping review and confirmed the construct as appropriate to the profession. As part of the focus group discussions the panel members also identified the 12 indicators they saw to be most essential for early career teachers.
The 12 indicators nominated by the expert panel are: cognition, curiosity, and belief and expectations (intellectual set); adaptability, communication, and collaboration and relationship building (interpersonal set); respect for difference and diversity, morals and ethics, and cultural competence (affective set) and resilience, persistence, and time management (intrapersonal set). A paper discussing this process and the results has been submitted for publication.
The WtE wished to achieve a consensus view on the essential indicators judged to be essential for early career teachers across the profession. In the next phase, we collected two rounds of survey data from classroom teachers and professional association leads. Each group individually ranked the 37 indicators from the scoping review as Essential, Very Desirable, Somewhat Desirable, or Not relevant. Between each round of data collection synthesis of results occurred to identify the indicators deemed to be most essential.
As a result of the first round of the process, the following indicators were deemed not essential for early career teachers and were removed from the second round of the survey: creativity and analytical (from the intellectual set), agency, advocacy, leadership, and influence (from the interpersonal category), and self-confidence (from the intrapersonal category). No indicators were removed from the affective category.
The second round of the survey data is currently being analysed.