Introduction
Teacher effectiveness and student performance
Criticisms of importance of teachers
References
Various policies have used specific characteristics of teachers such as training or experience to define high quality teachers. For example, the No Child Left Behind Act, passed in the US in 2001, defines good quality teachers as those who are highly qualified with advanced degrees (Hanushek & Rivkin, 2012). However, research has failed to identify any specific characteristics that make teachers effective, including training and experience (Hanushek, 2011). Researchers have now largely abandoned trying to define teacher quality using specific characteristics. Today, a good teacher is generally considered to be one who year after year produces bigger learning gains from students (Hanushek & Rivkin, 2012).
Typically, student test scores in one or a number of different subjects (e.g., English, science and maths) have been used in research to quantify student achievement. To estimate teacher effectiveness, student achievement is compared across different teachers. When data on what the students knew at the start and end of the academic year is available, such data is used to calculate increases in student learning over an academic year. This approach is known as the value added approach and is commonly used in research today (Hanushek & Rivkin, 2012). The value added approach employs various mathematical models to estimate teacher effectiveness, which control for other factors that can affect student learning, including family factors. A number of studies have found that principal evaluations of teacher effectiveness correlate with those generated by value added models (e.g., Jacob & Lefgren, 2008), suggesting that value added models have validity. However, this approach is not without limitations (e.g., non-random assignment of students and teachers to classrooms; Rothstein, 2010; ambiguity of causal direction; Nye, Konstantopoulos, & Hedges, 2004). Complex data is required to estimate teacher effectiveness and the methods used to do this continue to be debated (Hanushek & Rivkin, 2010).
The study of teacher effects on student learning has a long history and has emerged from a broader line of research on school effectiveness. One of the earliest works is the Coleman Report (Coleman et al., 1966) on educational equality in the US. The Coleman Report revealed that students from low socio-economic status (SES) backgrounds were not performing as well as students from high SES backgrounds. This lead to the conclusion that differences in student learning were due to differences in student SES rather than differences between schools. Researchers then began to examine the contribution of schools to student achievement more closely by measuring the learning gains students made whilst attending a particular school (the value added approach). This line of research showed that it is not as important to attend a particular school as it is to be taught by a good teacher (Wiliam, 2007).
A growing body of research has shown that teacher effectiveness is a strong predictor of differences in student achievement. Rockoff (2004) estimates teacher effectiveness using data from two school districts in New Jersey over the years 1989/90 to 2000/01 covering grades 2 to 6. The data allow individual teachers to be matched with their pupils for each year of the study. Rockoff (2004) found that a one standard deviation increase in teacher quality results in a 0.11 standard deviation increase in reading and writing test results. Teacher experience is found to a have a significant positive effect on maths and reading exam results, but no other observable teacher characteristics are found to have significant effects.
Nye, Konstantopoulos, and Hedged (2004) used data from a four-year experiment in which teachers and students were randomly assigned to classes to estimate teacher effects on student achievement. It was found that difference in achievement gains between having a 25th percentile teacher and a 75th percentile teacher is over one third of a standard deviation (0.35) in reading and almost half a standard deviation (0.48) in mathematics. Researchers also found much larger teacher effect variance in low socioeconomic status (SES) schools than high SES schools, suggesting that effective teachers are especially important in poorer schools.
Rivkin, Hanushek and Kain (2005) used a large dataset that spanned grades 3 to 7, for three cohorts of a total of half a million students across 3000 schools in Texas. Their data does not match individual students to individual teachers, only to a set of teachers in a grade within a school. Their lower bound estimate implies a one standard deviation increase in teacher quality is associated with 0.11 and 0.095 standard deviation increases annual growth in achievement in maths and English respectively in grade 4. They find a significant negative effect of inexperience in maths teachers, and a smaller negative effect for English teachers. However the qualifications of teachers were found to have no significant effect.
The context studied by Aaronson et al (2007) is ninth-grade maths scores in one school district in Chicago over a three year period. The study linked students with the actual teacher that taught them, and the data of prior attainment was available. They find that an increase in teacher quality of one standard deviation above the mean is associated with 0.15 standard deviation increase in the maths test score.
Slater, Davies, and Burgess (2009) linked over 7000 pupils, their exam results and prior attainment to the individual teachers who taught them, in each of their compulsory subjects in the crucial high-stakes exams at age 16. The results showed that teachers matter a great deal: being taught by a high quality (75th percentile) rather than low quality (25th percentile) teacher adds 0.425 of a GCSE point per subject to a given student, or 25% of the standard deviation of GCSE points.
As we have seen above teachers are important in a students learning as there is no other measured aspect of school that is nearly as important in determining student achievement. However despite the fact that there have been hundreds of research studies focused on the importance of teachers for student achievement it has not been possible to identify the specific characteristics of a teacher that make them effective (Hanushek, 2011). Hanushek and Rivkin (2004) found the effectiveness of teachers on students learning is not due to their teacher training, salary level or whether or not they have a masters degree. It has also been found that experience does not affect the effectiveness of a teacher on leaning as a teacher with 5 years experience is as effective as a teacher with 25 years experience. This makes it difficult to understand and identify what makes an effective teacher and how they significantly contribute to a students learning.
Although teachers contribute significantly to a students learning, learning cannot just be teacher centred, it needs to involve the learner as well. Chi et al (2008) found students learn more when the use active learning which involves discussing a topic with peers and getting feedback from peers on their thoughts and ideas. Active learning also involves contributing ideas and interacting with the teacher about a topic as if students are just taught information and do not think about it or try to explain it themselves then no matter how good the teacher is the student will still not understand it. Chi et al (2008) found no evidence of learning in the condition where students were taught by tutors contributions alone which shows that although teachers are important, students are as equally important in their successful learning.
A students motivation and personality may also affect the success of their learning which are factors that are outwith a teacher’s control.
“Desires, emotions and motives are all produced in and through the system of social relations”.
Social class may also affect whether a student wants to learn or not which is again outwith a teacher’s control. Students who are from lower classes are less likely to attend high school and higher education because of their parent’s opinions that school and higher education are useless and have no effect on their lives. Whereas students who are from higher classes attend and try to do well in school because their parents have always told them it is important. Also students who are from lower classes may be less motivated to learn because they have a low self-esteem because they have always been told they are a failure and will never achieve anything because of where they are from. Therefore where a student lives may affect their motivation to learn which affects the success of their learning achievement and is outwith the control of the quality of the teacher.
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