Teacher Professional Development

for Improving Quality of Teaching

Bert Creemers • Leonidas Kyriakides
Panayiotis Antoniou

Teacher Professional
Development for Improving
Quality of Teaching
Bert Creemers Leonidas Kyriakides
Faculty of Behavioural & Social Sciences Department of Education
University of Groningen University of Cyprus
Groningen, The Netherlands Nicosia, Cyprus

Panayiotis Antoniou
Faculty of Education
University of Cambridge
Cambridge, UK

ISBN 978-94-007-5206-1 ISBN 978-94-007-5207-8 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-5207-8
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Preface

Five years ago, we published the first results of our joint efforts to understand quality
of teaching by searching for grouping of factors concerned with teacher behaviour
in the classroom. Results reveal that teaching skills can be grouped into five types
of teacher behaviour, which are clearly distinguishable and move gradually from
skills associated with direct teaching to more advanced skills concerned with new
teaching approaches and differentiation of teaching. Teachers exercising more
advanced types of behaviour were found to have better student outcomes. A question
that arises from our first study is whether stepwise development of types of teacher
behaviour can be achieved and, if so, what type of programmes of teacher profes-
sional development should be offered in order to improve teacher effectiveness. To
further elaborate on these issues, we investigated acquisition of teaching skills over
time and examined critically research on teacher training and professional develop-
ment. It was found that research on effective teaching was not systematically used in
the development of programmes for teacher training and professional development.
At the same time, researchers in the area of educational effectiveness have concen-
trated on identifying factors operating at different levels within the system but not
on finding out how to improve the quality of teaching through teacher training and
professional development programmes.
Each of us has experience in both teaching and teacher training, and we strive to
promote quality of teaching by making use of the results of teacher effectiveness
research in our courses. For this reason, two of us have developed a theoretical model
that attempts to establish links between research and improvement. In this book, we
elaborate further on this attempt by concentrating on how this theoretical model can
be used to develop a dynamic approach to teacher training and professional develop-
ment. We also present results of studies showing that this approach can help teachers
improve their teaching skills and move gradually from simple to more complex types
of teacher behaviour encompassing specific teacher competences.
For this purpose, the first part of this book provides a critical review of research
on teacher training and professional development and illustrates the limitations of
the main approaches to teacher development such as the competency-based and the
holistic approach. It is argued that we may have to guard ourselves against narrowing

v
vi Preface

down the discussion to this classical dichotomy relating to content and develop an
integrated approach to teacher professional development that will be focused on an
improved way of grouping factors associated with teacher behaviour in the classroom.
For this purpose, not only should reflection and understanding of practice be encour-
aged but research on teacher effectiveness should also be taken into account.
The second part of this book provides a critical review of research on teacher
effectiveness. The main phases of this field of research are analysed. It is shown that
teacher factors are presented as being in opposition to one another. Thus, an integrated
approach to defining quality of teaching is adopted. Another significant limitation
of this field of research is that the whole process of seeking to identify teacher
effectiveness factors had no significant effect upon teacher training and professional
development.
For this reason, in the third part of this book, it is advocated that teacher training
and professional development should be focused on how to address the groupings of
specific teacher factors associated with student learning and on how to help teachers
improve their teaching skills. The use of an evidence-based and theory-driven
approach to teacher training and professional development is also promoted.
Specifically, we argue that the dynamic model of educational effectiveness can be
used to establish such an integrated approach by combining research on teacher
effectiveness with that on teacher training and professional development. The main
characteristics of this dynamic integrated approach are also described. In addition,
we refer to studies illustrating how this approach can be used in developing the
policy and practice of teacher professional development, and we provide evidence
supporting the validity of the theoretical framework upon which this approach is
based. Moreover, experimental and longitudinal studies supporting the use of this
approach for improvement purposes are presented.
This book concludes with a chapter which discusses the viability of the dynamic
approach to teacher training and professional development and provides suggestion
for the further development of our proposed approach. Implications for policy and
practice are also drawn.
In the writing of this book, we received support from many colleagues, profes-
sionals in schools and our families. We would like to make a special mention
of some of them. The research assistants in our research group, and especially our
Ph.D. students, provided us with comments from the perspective of young
researchers in the field of educational effectiveness and improvement. Evi
Charalambous helped us in the production of the manuscript, and Sheila M. Hakin
supported us in the process of linguistic editing. They did this not only from a
strictly linguistic perspective but were also critical in helping us to clarify the
meaning of this book. Finally, our three universities were supportive in facilitating
our academic efforts to write this book. We would like to thank them all for their
help, and we hope that they will be pleased with the final product. Of course, any
mistakes that remain are ours.
As mentioned previously, this book is a report of the journey we have undertaken
in studying teacher professional development by integrating research on teacher
Preface vii

training and professional development with research on educational effectiveness

and the development of a dynamic approach. We welcome comments, criticisms
and contributions to further development and research from readers with different
perspectives on education. We hope that you will join us on our journey towards the
establishment of an evidence-based and theory-driven approach to teacher training
and professional development.
Contents

Part I Research on Teacher Training and Professional Development

1 Towards the Development of a Dynamic Approach

to Teacher Professional Development ................................................... 3
Introduction ............................................................................................... 3
The Rationale of a Dynamic Approach to Teacher
Professional Development ........................................................................ 7
Aims and Outline of the Book .................................................................. 10
The Aims of the Book .......................................................................... 10
The Nature and Structure of the Book ................................................. 10
2 Improvement of Teaching by Mastering Specific
Competences: The Competency-Based Approach ............................... 13
Introduction ............................................................................................... 13
Rationale and Background ........................................................................ 14
Definition and Main Characteristics ......................................................... 17
Using the CBA for Developing Educational Policy.................................. 19
Strengths and Weaknesses ........................................................................ 23
Strengths and Advantages .................................................................... 23
Weaknesses and Limitations ................................................................ 25
3 Improvement of Teaching Through Critical Reflection:
The Holistic Approach ............................................................................ 29
Introduction ............................................................................................... 29
Rationale and Background ........................................................................ 29
Definition and Main Characteristics ......................................................... 31
Using the HA for Developing Educational Policy .................................... 34
Strengths and Weaknesses ........................................................................ 37
Strengths and Advantages .................................................................... 37
Weaknesses and Limitations ................................................................ 39

ix
x Contents

4 Going Beyond the Classical Dichotomy Related

to the Content of Teacher Training
and Professional Development ............................................................... 43
Introduction ............................................................................................... 43
Conclusions About the Two Dominant Approaches
to Teacher Training and Professional Development ................................. 44
Thesis–Antithesis–Synthesis: The Rationale
of Merging the Two Dominant Approaches.............................................. 45
Characteristics of Effective Teacher Training
and Professional Development Programmes ............................................ 51
The Content of the Programme Should Have a Clear Focus
on Specific Skills Which Are Linked to the Daily Teaching
and Have Been Found to Be Positively Related
to Student Progress............................................................................... 52
The Content of the Training Programme Should Be
Differentiated so as to Meet the Participants’ Different
Priorities for Improvement and to Address Contextual Issues
Influencing Quality of Teaching........................................................... 53
The Programme Should Provide Opportunities
for Active Participation and Engagement of the Teachers
and Provision of Feedback for Each Teacher ....................................... 55
The Programme Should Provide Opportunities for Collaboration
and Networking Among Teachers in the Same School,
the Same Class or Teaching the Same Subject..................................... 57
The Programme Should Last for a Sufficient Period of Time.............. 59
The Programme Impact on Teaching Skills
and Student Achievement Should Be Evaluated .................................. 59

Part II Main Foundations of Research on Teacher Effectiveness

5 Establishing the Field of Teacher Effectiveness Research:

Moving from Investigating Personal Characteristics
of Teachers to Understanding Effective Teaching Practices ............... 65
Introduction ............................................................................................... 65
Research into Teacher Effectiveness: Major Findings .............................. 66
Presage–Product Studies: The Early Phase of TER ............................. 67
The Process-Product Studies ................................................................ 68
Beyond-Classroom Behaviour ............................................................. 71
Concluding Comments ......................................................................... 74
Conceptual Limitations of TER ................................................................ 74
Resource Utilisation Model.................................................................. 75
The School-Constituencies Satisfaction Model ................................... 76
The Accountability Model ................................................................... 76
The Absence of Problems Model ......................................................... 77
The Continuous Learning Model ......................................................... 77
Concluding Comments.............................................................................. 78
Contents xi

6 Different Approaches to Teaching Which Emerged

from Teacher Effectiveness Research .................................................... 81
Introduction ............................................................................................... 81
Mastery Learning ...................................................................................... 81
Direct and Active Teaching Approach ...................................................... 85
New Learning and Teaching: A Constructivism Approach ...................... 86
Beyond Basic Knowledge and Skills in Language
and Mathematics .................................................................................. 86
A ‘New’ View on Learning .................................................................. 87
New Ways of Teaching: A Constructivist Approach ........................... 88
Research on ‘New’ Learning and Teaching ......................................... 90
A Comparison Between Direct (Interactive)
and Constructivist Instruction .............................................................. 91
Effective School Improvement in Mathematics (MIP) ........................ 92
The Implementation of ‘New’ Teaching .............................................. 95
The Combination of Different Approaches
to Learning and Teaching.......................................................................... 97
7 Establishing Theoretical Frameworks to Describe
Teacher Effectiveness .............................................................................. 101
Introduction ............................................................................................... 101
The Comprehensive Model of Educational Effectiveness:
General Characteristics ............................................................................. 101
The Carroll Model for Learning in Schools:
A Starting Point for Developing the Comprehensive Model ............... 102
Instructional Theories as the Basis for the Development
of Creemers’s Model ............................................................................ 103
The Conditional Role of the School Level ........................................... 105
Quality, Time and Opportunity at the School Level............................. 105
The Main Assumptions of the Comprehensive Model......................... 109
The Four Formal Principles of the Model ............................................ 109
The Dynamic Model of Educational Effectiveness .................................. 111
National Studies Testing the Validity of the Comprehensive
Model: A Starting Point for the Development
of the Dynamic Model ......................................................................... 111
The Essential Characteristics of the Dynamic Model .......................... 117
Dimensions of Measuring Effectiveness Factors ................................. 120
Classroom Factors of the Dynamic Model........................................... 124
School Factors of the Dynamic Model................................................. 130
Main Conclusions Emerging from the Second Part of This Book ............ 134

Part III Combining Teacher Effectiveness Research with Research

on Teacher Training and Professional Development

8 Using the Dynamic Model to Develop an Integrated Approach

to Teacher Training and Professional Development ............................ 139
Introduction ............................................................................................... 139
xii Contents

Studies Seeking to Identify Stages of Effective Teaching ........................ 139

A Study Seeking to Identify for Stages: Levels of Effective
Teaching Conducted in Cyprus ............................................................. 140
Seeking for Stages of Effective Teaching in Different Contexts:
Testing the Validity of the Dynamic Model in Canada ........................ 152
A Dynamic Approach to Teacher Professional Development .................. 155
The Main Steps of the DIA .................................................................. 156
9 An Experimental Study of Teacher Professional
Development Based on the Dynamic Integrated Approach ................ 161
Introduction ............................................................................................... 161
Phases of the Study ................................................................................... 162
Phase 1: Initial Evaluation.................................................................... 162
Phase 2: The Formation of the Two Experimental Groups .................. 162
Phase 3: The Establishment of the Training Sessions .......................... 162
Phase 4: Final Evaluation and 8th Session: Measurement
of Teaching Skills, Teacher Perceptions Towards
Teaching and Student Outcomes ........................................... 166
Measures ................................................................................................... 166
Student Achievement in Mathematics.................................................. 166
Student Background Factors ................................................................ 167
Opportunity to Learn ............................................................................ 167
Contextual Factors at Teacher/Classroom Level .................................. 168
Quality of Teaching .............................................................................. 168
Results ....................................................................................................... 168
Impact on Teaching Skills .................................................................... 168
Impact on Teacher Perceptions and Attitudes ...................................... 170
Impact on Student Achievement .......................................................... 170
Implications............................................................................................... 175
Summary of Results ............................................................................. 175
Implication of Research Findings ........................................................ 177
Appendix A: Description of the Content of the Teacher
Professional Development Programme Based on DIA ............................. 179
First Group (Stage 1): Basic Elements of Direct Teaching .................. 179
Second Group (Stage 2): Incorporating Aspects
of Quality and Touching on Active Teaching....................................... 180
Third Group (Stage 3): Acquiring Quality in Direct
Teaching and Reaching Out ................................................................. 180
Fourth Group (Stage 4): Differentiation of Teaching
and Putting Aspects of Quality into New Teaching ............................. 181
10 Broadening the Scope of the Dynamic Integrated
Approach to Teacher Professional Development ................................. 183
Introduction ............................................................................................... 183
Searching for Stages of Teacher Skills in Assessment:
Implications for Research on Teacher Professional Development ........... 184
Contents xiii

The Theoretical Background of the Study ........................................... 184

A Framework for Investigating Teachers’ Skills in Assessment.......... 184
Research Design and Results of the First Phase of the Study .............. 188
The Second Phase of the Project .......................................................... 192
Research Instruments ........................................................................... 196
The Main Results of the Second Phase of the Project ......................... 197
Implications for Research on Teacher Professional Development....... 203
The Added Value of Using DASI to Provide Inset Courses
on a School Basis: A Group Randomisation Study .................................. 204
The Theoretical Background of the Study ........................................... 204
Research Design and Methods ............................................................. 205
Main Results......................................................................................... 207
Implications and Suggestions for Further Research............................. 211
11 Implications for Research, Policy and Practice:
A Way Forward ....................................................................................... 215
Introduction ............................................................................................... 215
Implications for Research on Teacher Professional Development ........... 216
Implications for Policy and Practice ......................................................... 220

References ........................................................................................................ 225

Index ................................................................................................................. 257

List of Figures

Fig. 7.1 The comprehensive model of educational effectiveness ................ 106

Fig. 7.2 The dynamic model of educational effectiveness .......................... 118
Fig. 7.3 Factors of the dynamic model operating at the school level .......... 132
Fig. 10.1 The assessment cycle illustrating the four
phases of assessment...................................................................... 185
Fig. 10.2 Rasch scale of teacher’s skills in assessment
(N = 178 teachers; L = 87 skills)...................................................... 189

xv
List of Tables

Table 5.1 The main factors associated with effective teacher examined
by each phase of research into teacher effectiveness ..................... 66
Table 7.1 School-level factors and formal principles
operating in generating effectiveness ............................................. 110
Table 7.2 A summary of the findings of the six studies conducted
in the Netherlands and Cyprus in order to test the validity
of the Creemers’s model................................................................. 112
Table 7.3 Operational definitions of the five dimensions
of measuring each effectiveness factor and ways
of measuring each dimension ......................................................... 121
Table 7.4 The main elements of each teacher factor involved
in the dynamic model ..................................................................... 126
Table 8.1 Rasch and Saltus parameter estimates for factor scores
measuring the classroom-level factors of the dynamic
model of educational effectiveness ................................................ 144
Table 8.2 Parameter estimates and (standard errors) for the analyses
of achievement in Greek language, mathematics
and religious education (cognitive and affective aims) .................. 150
Table 9.1 The five stages of teaching skills included
in the dynamic model ..................................................................... 163
Table 9.2 Parameter estimates and (standard errors) for the analysis
of student achievement in mathematics (students
within classes, within schools) ....................................................... 171
Table 9.3 Parameter estimates and (standard errors) that emerged
from analysing separately the achievement of students
taught by teachers situated at the same level.................................. 176
Table 9.4 Effect of employing DIA rather than HA expressed
as Cohen’s d per group of students taught by teachers
situated at the same stage and for the whole sample...................... 176

xvii
xviii List of Tables

Table 10.1 The theoretical framework for measuring

teacher assessment skills ............................................................. 187
Table 10.2 Statistics relating to the questionnaire measuring
assessment skills that emerged from each administration
period based on the whole sample and the two groups ............... 190
Table 10.3 Means and standard deviations of teacher
scores measuring assessment skills of the control
and the experimental groups before
and after the intervention ............................................................. 199
Table 10.4 Parameter estimates and (standard errors)
for the analysis of student achievement in mathematics
(students within classes, within schools) ..................................... 201
Table 10.5 Parameter estimates and (standard errors) that emerged
from separately analysing achievement of students taught
by teachers situated at the same level .......................................... 202
Table 10.6 Effect of employing each approach expressed
as Cohen’s d per group of students taught by teachers
situated at the same stage and for the whole sample ................... 202
Table 10.7 Means and standard deviations of teacher scores
measuring quality of teaching of each of the experimental
groups at the beginning and at the end of the intervention .......... 208
Table 10.8 Parameter estimates and (standard errors) for the analysis
of student achievement in mathematics (students
within classes, within schools) .................................................... 210
 Part I
Research on Teacher Training
and Professional Development

The first part provides a critical review of research on teacher training and
professional development. This field of research is shown to have been dominated
by two different and rather opposing approaches: the competency-based approach
and the reflective approach. These two approaches are described in Chaps. 2 and 3,
respectively, and their strengths and weaknesses are discussed. In Chap. 4, it is
argued that we may have to guard ourselves against narrowing down the discussion
to this classical dichotomy related to content and develop an integrated approach
to teacher professional development that will focus on improving the grouping of
factors associated with teacher behaviour in the classroom. For this purpose, not
only should reflection and understanding of practice be encouraged, but research on
teacher effectiveness should also be taken into account.
Chapter 1
Towards the Development
of a Dynamic Approach to Teacher
Professional Development

Introduction

Teacher training and professional development are considered essential mechanisms

for enhancing teachers’ content knowledge and developing their teaching practices
in order to teach to high standards (Cohen & Hill, 2001; Darling-Hammond &
McLaughlin, 1995; Smith & O’Day, 1991). Over the recent years, the demand for
improved quality of teaching and learning and for increased accountability and higher
academic standards has put issues related to effective professional development high
on the agenda of educators, researchers and policy-makers. Professional development
is usually used in a broad sense, frequently encompassing ‘all types of learning
undertaken by teachers beyond the point of their initial training’ (Craft, 2000, p. 9).
According to Guskey (2000), the term refers to those processes, actions and activities
designed to enhance the professional knowledge, skills and attitudes of teachers so
that they might, in turn, improve the learning of students.
Despite the recognition of its importance and the pressures emanating from high
stakes accountability systems, most professional development opportunities remain
fragmented, poorly aligned with curricula and inadequate to meet teachers’ needs
(Borko, 2004; Cohen & Hill, 2001; Corcoran & McDiarmid, 2000). In this context,
each year, schools, districts and educational systems spend a considerable amount
of money and resources on in-service seminars and other forms of professional
development, which are intellectually superficial and do not take into account what
we know about effective teaching and how teachers could better learn and implement
such practices (Ball & Cohen, 1999; Kyriakides, Creemers & Antoniou, 2009;
Putnam & Borko, 1997). At the same time, educational reform movements around
the world are setting ambitious goals for student learning (Borko, 2004). However,
although teachers generally support high standards in teaching and learning, many
teachers are not prepared to implement teaching practices based on such standards
(Cohen, 1990; Elmore & Burney, 1996; Elmore, Peterson & McCarthey, 1996;
Grant, Peterson & Shojgreen-Downer, 1996; Sizer, 1992). This is exactly why there

B. Creemers et al., Teacher Professional Development for Improving 3

Quality of Teaching, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-5207-8_1,
© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
4 1 Towards the Development of a Dynamic Approach to Teacher…

is now more than ever the need to support and guide teachers to respond effectively
to the growing demands of increased accountability and the need to raise student
learning standards by developing effective professional development programmes
that can promote change in classroom practices (Ball & Cohen, 1999; Fullan &
Miles, 1992; Putnam & Borko, 1997; Spillane, 1999; Wilson & Berne, 1999).
Although researchers are beginning to examine the effects of professional
development on teaching and learning, few studies have explicitly compared the
effects of different approaches to professional development (Garet, Porter,
Desimone, Birman, & Yoon, 2001). Thus, there is a clear need for new, systematic
research on the effectiveness of alternative strategies in relation to professional
development. This is also stressed by the USA National Research Council, supporting
in a research review the need for more research studies to determine the efficacy
of various types of professional development activities (Bransford, Brown, &
Cocking, 1999). In this context, it is acknowledged that in the literature of teacher
professional development, there exist a variety of views on the methodology,
structure and philosophical perspectives of different approaches to teacher training
and professional development and the role of teachers in the developmental process
(Day, 1999; Hargreaves, 1994).
In particular, Zeichner (1983) was the first to identify and describe the four
representative paradigms in teacher education and professional development.
He defines paradigm as a ‘matrix of beliefs and assumptions about the nature and
purposes of schooling, teaching, teachers, and their education that gives shape to
specific forms of practice in teacher education’ (p. 3). The first is the traditional
craft paradigm, an apprenticeship model, focusing on the accumulation of wisdom,
based on the field experiences of teaching involving the trial and error of practitioners.
The second paradigm is what Sprinthall, Reiman and Thies-Sprinthall (1996)
call the expending the repertoire paradigm. The focus of this approach is less on
highly explicit and discrete instructional strategies and teaching skills and more
on the acquisition of comprehensive instructional models of teaching, like direct
instruction (knowledge transmitter model), inductive inquiry and interpersonal
approaches to learning. Then, predominant in teacher education is the competency-
based paradigm also known as the expert paradigm. Based on a technical production
metaphor and positivistic epistemology, this paradigm focuses on mastery of knowl-
edge and teaching skills identified by expert academics and university researchers.
Finally, opposing the competency-based paradigm is the inquiry-oriented
paradigm, also known as the holistic or reflective paradigm, which is more like a
metaphor of liberation. This paradigm emphasises the development of teachers’
capacity for reflective action through an examination of the moral and political
implications of their teaching.
Other analytical frameworks also exist with underlying principles similar to
the ones identified by Zeichner (1983). For example, Tanner and Tanner (1990)
distinguish between a traditionalist and a progressive movement. The traditionalist
movement is based on an economic model in which the function of education is
conceived of as the transmission of the culture (a conception from which the academic
tradition originated), which is assumed to remain unchanged and permanent.
Introduction 5

From this perspective, the functions to be performed by teachers and the content to
be transmitted to students are predetermined, and teaching is based on authority
and discipline, which reminds us of the main principles of the competency-based
approach (CBA). The progressive movement, a reaction to the traditional approach
to education, has its origins in the emergence of science as a means to develop
educational knowledge but also in the idea that people create and develop their own
knowledge and culture and that education should serve the process of transforming
society (Kliebard, 1986); this resonates with some of the elements of the holistic
approach (HA) to teacher professional development.
The CBA has had a significant effect on teacher training and development from
the 1980s onwards, both in terms of development needs (e.g. Further Education
National Training Organization, 2001) and the methodology used in teacher training
and professional development programmes (Brooks, 2002; Last & Chown, 1996).
In this context, competences and standards for teachers can be found nowadays
throughout the developed world (Christie & O’Brien, 2005). Such standards refer to
competences expected at different stages of a teacher’s career and provide a frame-
work for the development of teacher professional development programmes. On the
other hand, the dominant approach nowadays to teacher training and professional
development is that of reflective practice (Golby & Viant, 2007). This approach
refers to various practices, ranging from reflection as a component of skill and a
means of fostering effective teaching to reflection as a heightening of one’s aware-
ness of social justice in educational practice. At the same time, the holistic nature of
this approach refers to a certain vagueness in relation to the content of teacher
reflection, which may include all skills, attitudes, perceptions, motivation and moral
disposition associated with teaching and learning (Cruickshank & Metcalf, 1990;
Feiman-Nemser, 1990). Thus, the next two chapters of this book describe the two
dominant approaches to teacher professional development and elaborate on their
strengths and weaknesses.
Nevertheless, many researchers in the field of teacher professional development
are critical of the eclectic approach often reflected in teacher education programmes
since elements of these traditions are combined in different ways (e.g. Donmoyer,
1996). Merging elements of different paradigms are also supported by Zeichner
(1983) himself who argues that these traditions are not uniform, that they overlap
and contain contradictions and tensions but that the principles that underlie them
are helpful in analysing the implications for teacher education and teaching in
general. Thus, in the fourth chapter of this book, we argue for the need to develop
an integrated approach by merging elements of the two dominant approaches to
teacher professional development in order to overcome their main weaknesses
and enhance their potential to make a significant impact on teaching practices and
student learning. In particular, it is argued that reflection needs to be predicated
upon something to think about (Zeichner, 1993). That is, there must be content
which is clearly related to teaching skills to address the needs of different groups
of teachers, supported by validated theoretical frameworks. At the same time,
teachers’ critical reflection in relation to these teaching skills should be encouraged.
Thus, both teacher experiences and critical reflection and the knowledge base of
6 1 Towards the Development of a Dynamic Approach to Teacher…

educational effectiveness research (EER) revealing groupings of teaching skills,

should constitute the major elements of teacher training and professional develop-
ment programmes.
Apart from the philosophical perspectives and the methodology to be employed,
in our efforts to develop an effective professional development programme, we also
need to clarify that such programmes could have various targets related to teacher
knowledge and practices. A useful schema to help us overview the variations of
such knowledge and practices has been proposed by Shulman (1987), who identifies
seven types of teacher knowledge: pedagogical knowledge, content knowledge,
curriculum knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, knowledge of learners and
their characteristics, knowledge of educational contexts ranging from the workings
of the groups or classroom, the governance and financing of school districts to the
character of communities and cultures and finally, knowledge of educational ends,
purposes, values and of the philosophical and historical bases of education. Among
these categories, this book focuses on how we could effectively develop teachers’
pedagogical knowledge. Pedagogical knowledge goes beyond knowledge of subject
matter to that required for effective teaching. From this perspective, it relates to
teacher behaviour in the classroom that can maximise student learning gains. This
is important, as identifying specific practices, fundamental to supporting student
learning, is at the heart of building an effective system for the professional training
and development of teachers (Ball & Forzani, 2011).
However, a review of the literature reveals that, despite the amount of studies on
teacher training and professional development, the vast majority of these seem to
ignore the results of EER, which describes exactly how teacher factors and teaching
skills contribute to student learning. Since every effort to train teachers inevitably
refers to what an effective teacher is or how an effective teacher should behave in
the classroom in order to maximise the learning potential of the students, we argue
in this book that teacher professional development programmes should be linked to
the results deriving from research on teacher effectiveness. This argument was put
forward three decades ago but was not developed further, either for research or for
policy purposes. Specifically, Gage (1978) claims that research on teacher profes-
sional development and on teacher effectiveness has been conducted separately and
with little reference to one another. In addition, Katz and Raths (1984) support that
very few investigators of training methods have rationalised the content of the pro-
fessional development programmes by taking into consideration research on teaching
effectiveness and very few have evaluated the impact on student learning of the
teaching skills they developed. At the same time, researchers on teacher effective-
ness have spent little time speculating about the methods that might be used to
develop teaching skills that were found to be associated with student outcomes.
Three decades after the publications by Gage (1978) and Katz and Raths (1984),
very similar conclusions about research on teacher education were drawn by the
AERA panel on research in teacher education (Cochran-Smith & Zeichner, 2005).
This mutual isolation is particularly unfortunate for anyone attempting to draw
implications for teacher education and professional development from research on
educational effectiveness. It can be claimed that research on teacher training and
The Rationale of a Dynamic Approach to Teacher Professional Development 7

development should increasingly take into account the results of research on teacher
effectiveness, addressing the skills and competencies that are found to contribute
to student learning.

The Rationale of a Dynamic Approach to Teacher

Professional Development

This book supports the development of a dynamic approach to teacher education

and professional development which could make a contribution towards merging
the findings of EER with the initiatives to improve education in general and particu-
larly teacher training and professional development. Since EER aims to identify
factors associated with student achievement, we make use of the available knowl-
edge base to identify those factors that are found to be associated with student
achievement. Although there are many different approaches to learning, such as the
direct active teaching approach (Joyce, Weil & Calhoun, 2000) and the new learning
approach (Schoenfeld, 1998), which refer to different skills that teachers need to
develop, the proposed dynamic approach is based on the assumption that an evi-
dence-based approach to teacher training and professional development should be
adopted. Rather than focusing on a specific approach to teaching, teacher training
and teacher professional development should be concerned with developing those
skills that are found to be associated with successful learning outcomes, irrespective
of the approach from which they are derived.
The second essential characteristic of the dynamic approach has to do with the
fact that teacher factors concerned with teacher behaviour in the classroom are
related to each other. In this context, the concept of grouping of factors has been
proposed (see Creemers & Kyriakides, 2008b) in an attempt to establish more
comprehensive improvement strategies. Thus, teacher training and professional
development should not be concerned with the development of isolated teaching
skills but with different types of teacher behaviour that address specific groupings
of teacher factors. Recent studies have revealed the types of behaviour that need to
be developed and have been found to be associated with learning outcomes (Antoniou
& Kyriakides, 2011; Kyriakides et al., 2009).
Thirdly, the dynamic approach takes into account the importance of recognising
the fact that each teacher/group of teachers has specific needs in terms of improvement,
implying that the content of the teacher training and professional development will
vary accordingly. This suggests that teachers with the same profile (i.e. teaching
experience, initial training qualifications, duties) may have different needs and
priorities for improvement and may need to concentrate on working towards the
development of different skills. In order to identify the priorities for teacher improve-
ment, at the outset, data about teacher behaviour in the classroom should be collected
and factors that need to be addressed and further developed should be identified.
Fourthly, it is acknowledged that teachers should be actively involved in their
professional development courses and should have a clear understanding of how the
8 1 Towards the Development of a Dynamic Approach to Teacher…

factors addressed will have an impact on student learning. For example, in training
courses on improving classroom management, teachers need to understand that the
factors addressed are related to the effective use of teaching time, which is always
limited. Therefore, students’ engagement, which determines learning outcomes,
could be increased by improving teachers’ skills associated with these factors.
This implies that we should use the knowledge base of EER in order to design
professional development programmes which aim to help teachers understand the
importance of teacher factors and develop the skills associated with these factors.
Specifically, the conceptual framework provided by the dynamic model of educa-
tional effectiveness (Creemers & Kyriakides, 2008b) is used for teacher improvement
purposes. In this context, this book promotes the establishment of strategies for
teacher professional development which place emphasis on the evidence stemming
from theory and research. Thus, the value of a theory-driven approach to teacher
training and professional development is stressed. The need to collect multiple data
about the skills of teachers in order to identify their improvement priorities is also
emphasised. In this way, it is argued that a theory-driven and evidence-based
approach to teacher training and professional development should be established.
Fifthly, a distinctive feature of the dynamic model, which is used as the theoretical
framework of the proposed dynamic approach to teacher training and professional
development, is that it not only refers to factors that are important in explaining
variation in educational effectiveness but also attempts to explain why these
factors are important by integrating different theoretical orientations of effectiveness
(Heck & Moriyama, 2010; Hofman, Hofman & Gray, 2010; Sammons, 2009). In this
way, teachers could become aware of both the empirical support available related to
the factors involved in their developmental programme and the way these factors
operate within a conceptual framework. Through this approach, teachers are offered
the opportunity to utilise in a flexible manner the existing knowledge base on effective
teaching, adapt it to their specific needs and develop their own strategies and action
plans for improvement. Thus, the dynamic approach is neither based on improve-
ment prescriptions or predetermined requirements for teachers to follow in order
to improve their skills nor on relying solely on teachers themselves to identify
exclusively what can be done, and how, in order to improve the quality of their
teaching. The dynamic approach provides teachers with the opportunity to identify
their improvement needs and makes use of the available knowledge base in order to
develop their action plans for the purpose of improving their teaching skills.
Sixthly, the dynamic approach supports the view that the advisory and research
team, which is responsible for the coordination and the general provision of the
developmental programme, has an important role in facilitating and supporting
teachers in their efforts to develop and implement their action plans in their class-
rooms. Thus, it is not expected that teachers should make use of the available knowl-
edge base of effective teaching to design their own action plans without discussing
and exchanging views with the advisory and research team (A&RTeam)
responsible for coordinating the developmental programme. This implies that
the A&RTeam is expected not only to monitor or facilitate the training meetings
but also to coach teachers in utilising the knowledge base of EER and support them
The Rationale of a Dynamic Approach to Teacher Professional Development 9

on a systematic basis. Another related crucial element of the dynamic approach is

that the A&RTeam should also support teachers to establish formative evaluation
mechanisms and collect data on the effectiveness of the programme throughout the
improvement process.
Seventhly, monitoring the implementation of teacher action plans in classroom
settings is an essential part of the dynamic approach to teacher professional devel-
opment. During this procedure, teachers are expected continuously to develop
and improve their action plans on the basis of the information collected through
formative evaluation. Critical reflection on the implementation of the action plans is
also an important aspect of formative evaluation. It is important to stress that critical
reflection and collaboration with peers are important elements in all aspects of
learning and throughout the improvement process. Thus, the dynamic approach
seeks to initiate changes in educational practices by encouraging teachers system-
atically to reflect on their teaching practice and to work with other teachers through-
out the whole curriculum in order to improve the effectiveness of existing practices
and assist in the development of new ones, based on the grouping of factors included
in the dynamic model of EER and their particular priorities for improvement. For
example, teachers could be encouraged to keep their own reflective diaries in order
to identify ways to improve their action plans. At the same time, the A&RTeam
should help teachers collect additional data from other sources and test the internal
validity of their evaluation mechanism by comparing such data. In this sense,
the dynamic approach is also concerned with whether, and to what extent, teachers
can develop their teaching skills and integrate them into a more self-consciously
articulated model of classroom pedagogy.
Finally, the dynamic approach also refers to the importance of conducting sum-
mative evaluation in order to identify the impact of the developmental programme
on the teaching skills of the participating teachers and on the learning outcomes
of their students. Measuring the short- and the long- term impact of the dynamic
approach described in this book is important since it could help us investigate the
added value of using this rather than other approaches to teacher professional devel-
opment, such as the CBA (Last & Chown, 1996; Robson, 1998; Whitty & Willmott,
1991) and the HA (Cornford, 2002; Korthagen, 2004). The results of summative
evaluation are also important in relation to taking decisions as to whether some
groups of teachers need to design new action plans in order to address new priorities
for improvement. This implies that teachers should be continuously involved in
improvement efforts in order to move from the initial stages to the more demanding
stages of effective teaching.
The basic elements of the dynamic approach are presented in this book and
empirical support for each of them is provided. In addition, experimental studies
are also described, and the positive impact of utilising the dynamic approach on
teaching skills and student learning outcomes is elaborated. Moreover, possibilities
for broadening the scope of the dynamic approach are investigated through the
description of research projects aiming to improve student assessment practices in
particular and of those designed to compare the effectiveness of the proposed
approach when this is provided internally (at the school level) rather than externally
10 1 Towards the Development of a Dynamic Approach to Teacher…

(at the district or system levels). Finally, implications for the development of policy
and the improvement of practice in relation to teacher professional development
are drawn.

Aims and Outline of the Book

The Aims of the Book

The main aim of this book is to describe the dynamic approach to teacher profes-
sional development which is based on the eight characteristics described above.
This approach merges findings from research on teacher effectiveness with that on
teacher training and professional development. For this reason, a critical review of
research on teacher training and professional development is provided, which helps us
identify the limitations of the main approaches to teacher development, such as the
CBA and the HA. A dynamic perspective in relation to policy and practice in teacher
training and professional development is also advocated. An essential element of
this dynamic perspective is making use of validated theoretical models of teacher
effectiveness to help teachers move gradually from simple to more complex types
of teacher behaviour, which encompass specific teacher competences. For this
purpose, a critical review of research on teacher effectiveness is provided, and
the importance of using an integrated approach in defining quality of teaching is
supported. It is also advocated that teacher training and professional development
should be focused on how to address the grouping of specific teacher factors
associated with student learning and how to help teachers improve their teaching
skills. Beyond describing the dynamic approach to teacher professional development,
we also refer to studies providing evidence supporting the view that this approach
can have an impact on improving teacher effectiveness and student outcomes.
Finally, suggestions for further development of this approach and for research on
using this approach to teacher training and professional development are provided.

The Nature and Structure of the Book

This book is organised in three parts, and a summary of the main points of each part
is provided at the end of this book. In the last chapter, the main conclusions emerging
from this book are outlined and suggestions for further research are provided.
Part I provides a critical review of research on teacher training and professional
development. It is shown that this field of research has been dominated by two
different and rather opposing approaches: the CBA and the reflective approach.
These two approaches are described in Chaps. 2 and 3, respectively, and their
strengths and weaknesses are discussed. In Chap. 4, it is argued that we may have to
guard ourselves against restricting the discussion to this classical dichotomy related
Aims and Outline of the Book 11

to content and develop an integrated approach to teacher professional development

that will be focused on the improvement of grouping of factors associated with
teacher behaviour in the classroom. For this purpose, not only should reflection and
understanding of practice be encouraged, but research on teacher effectiveness
should also be taken into account.
Part II provides a critical review of teacher effectiveness research (TER). The
main phases of TER and their findings are presented in Chap. 5. It is shown that
teacher factors are presented as being in opposition to one another. Thus, in Chap. 6,
we refer to the main approaches to teaching, such as the direct teaching and mastery
learning approaches and those associated with constructivism. In Chap. 7, it is shown
that current models of educational effectiveness adopt an integrated approach in
defining quality of teaching and refer to factors associated with student achievement
irrespective of the fact that they belong to one or another teaching approach. It is
finally argued that another significant limitation of this field of research is that the
whole process of seeking to identify teacher effectiveness factors has had no
significant effect upon teacher training and professional development. For this reason,
the proposed dynamic approach to teacher training and professional development is
elaborated in the third part of this book.
Part III advocates the use of an evidence-based and theory-driven approach to
teacher training and professional development. Specifically, we argue that the
dynamic model can be used to establish such an integrated approach, combining
research findings on teacher effectiveness with those on teacher training and profes-
sional development. The main characteristics of this approach are described in
Chap. 8. In Chap. 9, we present a study illustrating how the proposed approach can
be used by policy-makers and practitioners in teacher training and professional
development. This study also provides evidence for the impact that the dynamic
approach can have on improving teaching skills and student learning outcomes.
In Chap. 10, two projects investigating possible ways of expanding the dynamic
approach are presented. The first project examines the extent to which the proposed
approach can be used to improve not only teaching but also assessment practice,
whereas the second investigates the added value of using the dynamic approach
internally rather than externally.
In the final chapter of this book, suggestions for the development of this approach
and for further research on using this approach for the purposes of teacher training
and professional development are presented.
Chapter 2
Improvement of Teaching
by Mastering Specific Competences:
The Competency-Based Approach

Introduction

In the first chapter, the importance of teacher professional development for improving
student learning was emphasised, and issues related to the fact that most profes-
sional development opportunities remain fragmented, poorly aligned with curricula
and inadequate to meet teachers’ needs were mentioned. It has also been argued
that teacher training and professional development should draw from TER, which
aims to identify teaching skills associated with student outcomes. This point is further
elaborated in the second part of this book, providing a critical review of TER.
The first part reviews research on teacher training and professional development.
It is shown that this field of research has been dominated by two different and rather
opposing approaches: the CBA and the reflective approach. This chapter provides
a description of the main characteristics of the CBA and elaborates on its main
advantages and weaknesses.
The CBA, also referred to as performance-based teacher education and profes-
sional development, was spawned in the 1970s, supported by grants from federal,
private and state sources in the USA and began to have some impact on European
educational systems in the 1980s (Tuxworth, 1982). Since then, this approach,
prompted by policy-makers and articulated in practice through national standards,
has been a source of controversy and debate within the field of education and
training (Ollin, 2002). Although the term itself is less frequently used in teacher
professional development nowadays, the concept pervades practice. Many com-
ponents of this approach have had a significant effect on teacher training and
development from the 1980s onwards, both in terms of identifying development
needs in relation to teaching standards (e.g. Further Education National Training
Organisation, 2001; Further Education Unit, 1986) and the methodology used in
teacher training and professional development programmes (Brooks, 2002; Last &
Chown, 1996). In this context, competences and standards required of teachers can
be found nowadays in many countries (Christie & O’Brien, 2005). Such standards

B. Creemers et al., Teacher Professional Development for Improving 13

Quality of Teaching, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-5207-8_2,
© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
14 2 Improvement of Teaching by Mastering Specific Competences…

refer to competences expected of teachers at different stages in their careers and

provide a framework for the development of teacher professional development
programmes.

Rationale and Background

In the 1980s, the growth of student-centred learning and the introduction of

modularised, flexible curricula were accompanied by new systems of assessment
and accreditation. Although systems using continuous assessment measured
against specific criteria were already in use, as in the Technical Education Council
qualifications introduced in the UK in the late 1970s, these ideas were further
expanded. Systems of training, professional development and assessment, which
involved a continuous monitoring of performance with a focus on an individual’s
capacity to implement effectively various skills and competences, gained increased
prominence. As a result, many educational systems and related sub-sectors
nowadays have established standards or competencies for the assessment of perfor-
mance and consequently for the training and professional development of teachers
(Trorey, 2002).
The foundation of the CBA is best exemplified by the work of Good and Brophy
(1984) and Good (1979). An overall list of strategies and competences has been
developed by experts in the field. Usually such strategies are highly explicit, for
example, how to greet students, how to praise, how to review homework and how to
ask higher-level questions. The information comes from outside the classroom, and
the rationale is that research has shown positive effects on student achievement
when one or more such strategies are employed (Rosenshine, 1987b, p. 90). In this
context, the basic assumptions of all the variations of this approach are as follows:
there is a core of information and skills that expert and professional teacher
educators have developed in terms of independent and isolated teaching skills.
This knowledge base forms the framework for training and professional development
programmes within a variable time frame, for example, short- or long-term workshops.
There is also variation in the nature of the skills and processes to be acquired, from
a single discrete concrete activity, such as the use of a 5-second pause in questioning,
to the development of a comprehensive model for classroom management. However,
as Sprinthall, Reiman, and Thies-Sprinthall (1996) argue, in spite of such differences,
the overall premise is that teachers (student teachers, beginners and experienced
teachers) need expert advice to improve their teaching practice.
From this perspective, we consider that one of the theoretical bases for the devel-
opment of the CBA derives from research on teacher effectiveness related to the
process-product model. Between the 1960s and 1980s, this research led to the
identification of a range of behaviours which are positively associated with student
achievement (Borich, 1992; Brophy & Good, 1986; Doyle, 1986; Evertson &
Anderson, 1980; Galton, 1987; Muijs & Reynolds, 1999; Reynolds, Creemers,
Hopkins, Stoll & Bollen, 1996). The findings, many of which have been validated
Rationale and Background 15

experimentally (e.g. Griffin & Barnes, 1986), relate to specific teaching skills,
such as the quantity and pacing of instruction. Based on this skill, the amount of
knowledge acquired is linked to opportunity to learn, and achievement is maximised
when teachers emphasise academic instruction as a major part of their own role,
expect their students to achieve the curricular aims and allocate available time to
curriculum-related activities (Brophy & Evertson, 1976). Another significant factor
associated with student achievement is related to consistent success. To learn
efficiently, students must be engaged in activities that are appropriate in terms of
level of difficulty and suited to their current achievement levels and needs (Bennett,
Desforges, Cockburn & Wilkinson, 1984; Stallings, 1985). Effective teachers expect
all students to be able to succeed, and their positive expectations should be transmit-
ted to students (Muijs & Reynolds, 2000).
In addition, research on the process-product model has provided support for the
importance of the classroom environment in raising student achievement. Thus,
effective teachers are expected to organise and manage the classroom environment
as an efficient learning environment and thereby to maximise engagement rates
(Creemers & Reezigt, 1996). Key indicators of effective classroom management
include good preparation of the classroom and establishment of rules and proce-
dures at the beginning of year, smoothness and momentum in lesson pacing, consistent
accountability procedures, clarity about when and how can students get help and
what options are available when they finish a task. The classroom environment
should not be only businesslike but also provide a supportive atmosphere for the
students (Walberg, 1986).
Moreover, specific skills, identified by the process-product model as having an
impact on student achievement, are related to the actual teaching process. For example,
it was argued that students achieve more in classes where they spend most of their
time being taught or supervised by their teachers rather than when working on their
own (Brophy & Good, 1986). Another skill was related to classroom discourse.
Most teacher talks are academic rather than managerial or procedural, and much of
it involves asking questions and giving feedback as opposed to extended lecturing
(Cazden, 1986). Teaching skills related to the form and quality of teaching were
also identified, in particular the need for effective teachers to structure their lessons
by beginning with an overview and/or a review of objectives, outlining the content
to be covered, signalling transitions between lesson parts and calling attention to,
and reviewing the, main ideas at the end. Effective teachers should also ask a wide
range of questions (soliciting) and attempt to involve pupils in class discussion.
In addition, effective teachers should be able to communicate clearly and directly
with their students without wandering, speaking above students’ levels of com-
prehension or using speech patterns that impair the clarity of what is being taught
(Smith & Land, 1981).
In this context, it has been argued that teacher training and professional develop-
ment should concentrate on specific skills, namely, those mentioned above, which
have been identified as ones which have an impact on student achievement.
Moreover, there is support for the view that teachers should gradually acquire those
skills by targeting them one at a time. Thus, the CBA aims to train teachers in each
16 2 Improvement of Teaching by Mastering Specific Competences…

of these specific skills by developing particular modules of instruction for each

one—segment of effective teaching. This argument has been further supported by
developments in the field of cognitive psychology and particularly cognitive load
theory (CLT).
Thus, it can be argued that another main theoretical basis for the development of
the CBA derives from CLT. CLT is an internationally well-known and widespread
theory, which builds upon an information-processing view of cognition in defining
long-term and working memory as the main structures of human cognitive archi-
tecture (Sweller, 2004; Sweller, van Merriënboer, & Paas, 1998). CLT is based on
one major assumption: a human being’s working memory has only a limited capacity.
When learning, human beings allocate most of their cognitive resources to this
activity, and in many cases, it is the instructional format which causes overload.
Consequently, the basic idea is to reduce such external load to speci fi c skills
and elements of knowledge in order to make available more capacity for actual
learning.
CLT can emerge from three different sources (Bannert, 2002). The first one is
called ‘intrinsic cognitive load’ (ICL) and is connected with the nature of the mate-
rial to be learned. High ICL occurs in the case of high-element interactivity and
when learners do not yet have sufficient command over appropriate schemata. The
second source is called ‘extraneous cognitive load’ (ECL) and has its roots in poorly
designed instructional materials. Such ECL does not contribute to learning—instead
it reduces working memory capacity for learning. Without proper support (in the
form of detailed, step-by-step explanations, richly annotated diagrams, etc.), novice
learners might struggle more than necessary with the new material, thereby
experiencing high ECL. Yet many of the instructional formats that reduce ECL for
novices increase it for experts. This is because the supportive information—so
beneficial for novices—is superfluous for experts (Kalyuga, Chandler, Tuovinen &
Sweller, 2001). Hence, ECL is minimised when the instructional support provided
matches to the learners’ prior knowledge. The third source is referred to as ‘germane
cognitive load’ (GCL); it occurs when free working memory capacity is used for
deeper construction and automation of schemata.
Since its conception nearly two decades ago, CLT has been recognised by many
educational researchers as a useful framework for exploring the effectiveness of
various instructional formats (for a retrospective review, see Sweller et al., 1998).
The widespread use of CLT as a basis for experimental studies has aided the theory’s
validation and allowed new insights to be generated. Today, CLT provides a rich and
multifaceted description of the interplay occurring between instruction and learner
during the learning process. As such, the theory is a source of valuable guidance in
the development of effective instructional design. According to CLT, presenting
information in such a way that cognitive load falls within the limitations of working
memory can improve speed and accuracy of understanding and facilitate deep
understanding of information content. Thus, the theory provides guidelines for the
design of effective instruction and stands as the theoretical framework of the CBA
to teacher professional development.
Definition and Main Characteristics 17

Definition and Main Characteristics

Based on the rationale elaborated in the previous section, competency-based profes-

sional development refers to an educational movement that advocates defining
educational goals in terms of precise measurable description of the knowledge,
skills and behaviours teachers should possess at the end of a course of study (Guskey,
2005). The apparent official interest in linking teacher training and professional
development to the achievement of certain specified and isolated competences has
initiated a flurry of activity on the part of various educational systems, agencies and
institutions with the aim of exploring the potential of competency-based approaches
to teacher improvement. However, no consensus has yet emerged about the meaning
of ‘competences’ or the specific competences that should be engendered by initial
teacher education or teacher professional development courses.
Finding a single definition for ‘competency’ is problematic since there are so
many. Competency-based training has been described as ‘a bandwagon in search of
a definition’ (Spady, 1977), and much the same applies to ‘competency-based
teacher education’ today. According to Bunda and Sanders (1979), generally there
are two types of competencies. One definition conceives of competence as a hypo-
thetical construct, while the second refers to a standard of performance, either
implicitly or explicitly. The first type of competency has much in common with
constructs, such as ‘skill’, ‘achievement’ and ‘intelligence’. ‘Competency’ when
used in this way fits into certain conceptual frameworks. When curriculum special-
ists talk of ‘collecting lists of competencies’, they are using the term to refer to a
construct. However, the breadth of the construct definition varies greatly: in some
cases, competency encompasses a broader meaning than the word ‘skills’ and refers
to a combination of cognitive, affective and psychomotor skills. Other individu-
als use competency as synonymous with ‘behavioural objective’, which is generally
a restrictive definition of a skill. As for the second type of competence, which refers
to a standard of performance, either implicitly or explicitly, the term closely paral-
lels definitions of mastery or criterion levels of performance.
Likewise, Whitty and Willmott (1991) argue that in the training courses they
examined, the term ‘competence’ is less than explicit about what it is meant to convey.
Nevertheless, they identify two major definitions of a competence: one referring to
the ability to perform a task satisfactorily (in which the task and the criteria of
success are clearly defined) and a wider one in which competence encompasses
intellectual, cognitive and attitudinal dimensions, as well as performance. The com-
petences specified in some courses are the minimum or threshold ones necessary to
perform particular teaching activities, and, in others, they are those which are
characteristic of the ‘good or effective teacher’. More generally, there are differing
views about whether a competence is something that is either a specific achievement
or, alternatively, a dimension of performance necessary for performing at different
levels. For the purposes of this book, the word ‘competency’ is used in the broad
sense, referring to knowledge, attitudes, skills and behaviours that facilitate intel-
lectual, social, emotional and physical growth in children (Weber, 1972). The basic
18 2 Improvement of Teaching by Mastering Specific Competences…

concepts of this approach, as recognised by several researchers (e.g. Delker, 1990;

Foyster, 1990; Norton, 1987), are simple and straightforward:
1. Programme requirements are derived from, and based on, the practice of effective
teachers: Rather than systematically studying disciplines such as psychology
and mathematics, the CBA is based on, and organised around, conceptualisations
of ‘best practices’ in teaching. This implies that such programmes consider what
teachers should know, be able to do and to accomplish, with graduation require-
ments based on such outcomes. In addition, the competencies comprising the
content of the programme are carefully selected to suit the tasks that teachers
perform daily and which were found to be related to student achievement.
2. Requirements are stated as competencies: Requirements describe what the
student must demonstrate for successful completion of the programme. Such
requirements employ observable actions (using objectives such as ‘use’, ‘organise’,
‘sequence learning’), while avoiding non-observable ones, such as ‘understand’
and ‘perceive’. What teachers know about teaching seems less important than
their ability to teach and to bring about change in their pupils.
3. Instruction and assessment are specifically related to competencies: Competencies
are defined prior to programme implementation and are made known to learners.
The major criterion for including content and activities in a specific instructional
programme is the extent to which this will contribute to the demonstration of
programme competencies. Instruction not directly linked to competencies is elimi-
nated. Assessment of student teachers is also based exclusively on programme
competencies and takes the participant’s knowledge and attitudes into account but
requires actual performance of the competency as the primary source of evidence.
4. Learner progress is determined by demonstration of competencies: In traditional
courses, a student excelling in one phase of the course can compensate for weak-
nesses in other phases, ultimately earning a pass grade. With the CBA, students
are expected to meet at least the minimum standards for each and every compe-
tency required in the programme. Evaluation in traditional courses typically
involves administering knowledge-based tests: while such assessments can
certainly be used in competency-based programmes to measure mastery of infor-
mation, the primary focus is on measuring mastery of skills. Thomson (1991)
reports that the decision to recognise a performance as satisfactory by demon-
stration of competence should be the basis for the success of a competency-based
programme. Moreover, Foyster (1990) argues that assessment in competency-
based programmes must be criterion-referenced, with the criterion being the
competencies upon which the programme is based. Likewise, Richards (1985)
indicates that simulation and work sample performance tests should include a
checklist or some type of rating scale. Moreover, Norton (1987) believes that
participants in a competency-based training programme should learn in an
environment that replicates or simulates the work place. Similarly, Richards, in
writing about performance testing, indicates that assessment of skills requires
tests using simulations (e.g. models and role plays) or work samples (i.e.
performing actual tasks under controlled conditions in either a laboratory or
Using the CBA for Developing Educational Policy 19

class setting). Thus, evaluation of skills is considered to be an integral part of

teaching and an important element of all competency-based programmes. Based
on the evaluation results, a decision is made as to whether the trainee has
mastered the specific skills and thus can proceed to the next teaching module.
The satisfactory completion of training is based on achievement of all specified
competencies.
5. In addition to the essential elements of this approach, there are other implied and
related characteristics: (a) instruction is individualised and personalised: this
implies that the participating teachers are expected to follow their own pacing
and the participants’ knowledge and skills are assessed as they enter the pro-
gramme so that those with satisfactory knowledge and skills may bypass training
in the competencies already attained; (b) the learning experience of the student
is guided by feedback: in relation to the previous characteristic, and as a result of
the evaluation process, each participant should receive individual feedback based
on his/her performance, which highlights areas for further improvement; (c) the
programme as a whole is systematic, which implies that there is a schedule
of meetings to be followed and material to be covered; and (d) instruction is
modularised, which implies that usually detailed training material has been
developed to target the selected competencies, which is structured by reference
to isolated skills (modules) that need to be addressed one at a time. A course may
be classified as competency-based, but unless specific competency-based mate-
rials and training approaches (e.g. learning guides and checklists) are designed
to be used as part of the programme, it is unlikely that the resulting course will
be truly competency-based.

Using the CBA for Developing Educational Policy

The CBA has several implications for policy on, and practice in, teacher profes-
sional development. At present, all over the world, many attempts are being made to
establish lists of competencies (or standards of teaching), something that seems to
be strongly supported by policy-makers (Becker, Kennedy, & Hundersmarck, 2003).
As mentioned earlier in this chapter, although the term itself is less frequently used
nowadays, the concept pervades practice. Thus, many characteristics of the CBA
still have a significant effect on teacher training and development, both in terms of
identifying development needs (e.g. Further Education National Training
Organisation, 2001; Further Education Unit, 1986, 1990; DfEE, 2000) and the
methodology used in teacher training and professional development programmes
(Brooks, 2002; Last & Chown, 1996; Wynne & Stringer, 1997). In particular, based
on the principles of this approach, professional standards for teachers have been
developed in relation to teacher education and professional development programme
accreditation and implementation. Such professional standards have been developed
on the assumption that it is possible to define what teachers should know and, most
importantly, be able to do. The objective is to strengthen the teaching profession,
20 2 Improvement of Teaching by Mastering Specific Competences…

raise its standards and eventually enhance the quality of student learning by
redesigning teacher licensing and accountability requirements and engaging teachers
in on-going professional development. The argument that competencies should
form the basis for the standards of the teaching profession and those of teacher
preparation and professional development is also aligned with the curricular reforms
at teacher education institutions and universities outlined in the Bologna Treaty.
The literature on standards-based reform is for the most part descriptive, rhetorical
and logical since the movement is still at an early stage in many places. Many
expository essays on the value and challenges of developing national standards have
been written (e.g. Darling-Hammond, 1999; Darling-Hammond, Wise, & Klein,
1999; Kaplan & Edelfelt, 1996; Kearns & Harvey, 2000; Lockwood, 1998; Ravitch,
1995; Resnick & Wirt, 1996; Tucker & Codding, 1998), as well as implementation
plans and guides for educators (e.g. Doyle & Pimentel, 1997; Foriska, 1998;
Marzano & Kendall, 1998; Mitchell, Willis & Crawford, 1995; Solomon, 1998). In
this context, educational policy in several countries places a growing emphasis on
issues related to the following: definition of general statements and competences
that apply to all teachers, acquisition of specified essential knowledge and skills,
application of the same standards of performance to all teachers, elimination of
differences between the aims of teacher education programmes and finally, perfor-
mance and practical skills rather than theoretical knowledge (Delandshere &
Arens, 2001).
For example, in the UK, Circular 24/89 (DES, 1989b) contains exit criteria for
certain activities in courses of initial teacher education, while a similar list has been
circulated to local education authorities engaged in the training of licensed teachers
(DES, 1989a). As Whitty and Willmott (1991) argue, the NCC document on initial
training has tried to bring these together (NCC, 1991). The introduction of such
standards or competences is designed to inform the initial training and continuing
professional development of staff involved in teaching and learning and to assist in
the development of institution-based activities, such as recruitment, appraisal and
the identification of training needs (see, e.g. FENTO, 1999). In another example, the
Department for Education and Employment in England (DfEE) (now Department
for Education) has produced a consultation document on professional development,
referring to qualities that a good teacher should possess (DfEE, 2000). These qualities
were based on the research, commissioned from Hay/McBer (2000), in which from
a systematic gathering of a wide range of evidence they provide a ‘model of effec-
tive performance’. This consists of 16 characteristics split into five groups which are
concerned with professionalism, capacity to think analytically and conceptually
about teaching, planning and setting expectations, leadership qualities and the
capacity to relate to others, all of which are in line with the national standards deter-
mined by the British government (Pring, 2002). This description also provides the
basis for the assessment of teachers as they progress through the main professional
grades, the new ‘performance threshold’ and into the advanced skills teacher grade
and then onwards to positions of senior management and leadership. As Odden
and Kelley (1997) argue, the CBA makes sense if, following systematic teacher
Using the CBA for Developing Educational Policy 21

appraisal, there are opportunities for teachers to obtain the professional competencies
necessary to perform according to the predefined standards.
In the United States, the standards-based reform is a national education reform
movement that is in accordance with the competency-based movement and follows
the argument that if the curriculum is clearly defined and if high performance
standards are set and monitored by external assessment, instructional practices will
improve and student achievement will be enhanced. For example, like similar
previous documents (e.g. MACTEQT, 1994; NPQTL, 1996), the National Standards
and Guidelines for Initial Teacher Education report, Preparing a Profession (ACDE,
1998) and, in Australia, the National Reference Group for Teacher Standards Quality
and Professionalism (2003) provide a comprehensive account of the range of skills,
knowledge and values required of teachers.
It is also acknowledged that different governments have adopted different
approaches to moving forward in their standards agenda. In some countries (e.g.
Canada and England), new regulatory frameworks were introduced with minimal
consultation with teachers, while in others (such as the Netherlands), a consensus-
building approach was adopted rather than a regulatory one (Moon, 2007). In the
Netherlands, in particular, an effort has been made to involve teachers to a substan-
tial extent in the standard-setting exercise, using as the basis a set of competencies
relevant to interpersonal communication, social and moral values, teaching subjects
and methods and organisational abilities. This framework also distinguishes four
different contexts in which teachers play these roles: with students, with colleagues,
within their environment and with themselves (Storey, 2006). The Scottish frame-
work of competencies has proved particularly relevant, as it addresses the same
themes that were identified as problematic in the context of education in the Western
Balkans (Zgaga, 2006, p. 17). The Scottish list consisting of 48 competences pertain
to four areas of competence: (a) subject matter and content of teaching; (b) class-
room competencies (organisation, teaching, learning and assessment); (c) school
and the education system and (d) values and attributes related to professionalism
(The Scottish Office, 1998).
In conclusion, we could argue that in many countries, government-set ‘standards’,
conceived of as ‘what teachers should know and be able to do’ (Libman & Zuzovsky,
2006, p. 37), have largely affected programmes of teacher preparation and
professional development, leading them to focus on the competencies teachers need
in practice. However, as mentioned in the previous section describing the weakness
of the CBA, usually there are too many standards relating to teaching skills to be
covered in any standards-based professional development programme. As Gore and
Morrison (2001) point out, such lists of desirable attributes can be overwhelming,
both for the teacher educators who are to produce such graduates and for the teachers
participating in such programmes, who are to acquire and/or develop further
these competencies. Comprehending and synthesising lists of over 100 attributes
and translating those into planning and practice often prove unwieldy to the extent
that teacher educators and their students tend to focus on only a section of the list,
governed by what they already know and value.
22 2 Improvement of Teaching by Mastering Specific Competences…

Most importantly, very few studies have been conducted which examine the
meaning and quality of the professional teaching standards adopted by educational
policy around the globe or which investigate the quality of their use (Delandshere &
Arens, 2001). From this perspective, concerns about the issue of competencies as a
basis for teacher education and professional development have been raised, prompted
by questions about teacher quality in light of new student demands, the changed
nature of the knowledge needed by teachers and the balance between accountability
and professional autonomy (Cowen, 2002; Day, 2002; Wubbels, 1995).
Another limitation regarding the development of professional teaching standards
is related to the process whereby such standards are developed. The primary task is
to define a set of standards in a particular licensure or certification area derived from
the ‘knowledge base’ of teaching. Yet these standards are generally produced without
careful review or reading of research on teaching and without systematic recording
and analysis of the practical or theoretical knowledge or experiences that educators
bring to the discussion. Most of the work is based on oral conversations about beliefs
concerning what teachers should know. Without an articulated theory of teaching
and a validated knowledge base on the basis of which standards could be formulated,
most standards are not readily interpretable (Delandshere & Arens, 2001).
Moreover, another weakness of the standards is related to their uniformity,
irrespective of teachers’ priorities in terms of improvement and professional needs.
The elimination of differences in the way teaching is represented or understood
is also reductionist, particularly in light of the uncertainty about the impact of
these teaching practices on student learning. As Cohen (1995) points out, different
and equally rigorous sets of standards are possible ‘just as different but equally
rigorous approaches to inquiry coexist within all disciplines and professional
fields’ (p. 755).
Especially in relation to teacher professional autonomy, it is argued that the way
governments have attempted to ‘regulate’ the issue of teacher quality has provoked
a good deal of controversy in many places (Day, 2002; Elbaz, 1992; Lasky, 2005;
Libman & Zuzovsky, 2006; O’Connor, 2008). Questions have been raised about
the possible role of governments in relation to quality control, suggesting almost
universal practices when setting ‘standards’ or ‘benchmarks’, including determining
what characteristics teachers should possess (Cowen, 2002; Harris, 1997; Libman
& Zuzovsky, 2006; Storey, 2006). In this context, campaigns for more governmental
control over curricula, assessments and teacher standards have been criticised for
bringing about the practice of ‘teaching to the test’ and for jeopardising teachers’
professional autonomy and opportunities to exercise discretionary judgement, as
well as for endangering the moral and social values essential to teachers’ identities
(Day, 2002, p. 683). As Wubbels (1995) argues, to avoid these sorts of pitfall in
external standard-setting, it is paramount that professional groups set the require-
ments for group membership and are the primary source of the standards defined as
professional competencies. This is especially true given the number of studies that
conclude that reforms which do not coincide with teachers’ perceptions of their
professional identity are likely to fail (Beijaard, Verloop & Vermunt, 2000; Day,
2002; Lasky, 2005; Verloop, Van Driel & Meijer, 2001).
Strengths and Weaknesses 23

On the other hand, the holistic approach to teacher professional development

based on the social reconstructionist tradition does not seem to have played a role in
the definition of professional teaching standards. The idea that teachers are aware of
the ‘social and political implications of their actions and the context in which they
work, to see how their everyday choices as teachers are necessarily joined to issues
of social continuity and changes’ (Zeichner, 1993, p. 7) is for the most part absent
from professional teaching standards. Here, again, the use of pre-determined
standards to evaluate teaching performance in all contexts appears incompatible
with the view that teachers are critical change agents responsible for moving towards
a more just and humane society. In addition, one central dilemma of such proposals,
indeed of many standards frameworks, remains the tendency to raise issues con-
cerning the overall quality of teaching separately from questions addressing social
justice, each of which are heralded as primary virtues for teacher education.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Despite the fact that the CBA was initiated as the most effective approach to prepare
and develop teachers and was nominally employed for several years, it was criticised
as a mechanistic approach (Houston, 1988). Although the term itself is less frequently
used in teacher professional development nowadays, the concept pervades practice.
This is mainly due to the appeal of the CBA in its emphasis on pragmatism in deter-
mining the content of teacher education programmes, its potential for improvement
through research and its systematic approach to preparing and developing teachers.
This section provides an overview of the main strengths and weaknesses of this
approach.

Strengths and Advantages

The rationale supporting this approach is its reliance on objectives specified in

advance and known to the learner. It assumes that human beings are goal-oriented
and that they are more likely to achieve such goals and objectives when overt actions
are taken to achieve them. According to De Landsheere (1988), definite advantages
of this approach are the functional learning, the clarity of objectives, the easy use
modular individualised instruction and the more objective evaluation. As a conse-
quence, the CBA serves as an agent of change, and it improves teaching and learning
(Docking, 1994). Since competency-based approaches to teaching and assessment
offer teachers an opportunity to revitalise their education and training programmes,
quality of assessment can be improved, and the quality of teaching and students’
learning will be enhanced by the clear specification of expected outcomes and the
continuous feedback that competency-based assessment can offer.
A number of studies have described the advantages that the CBA can bring to both
initial teacher training and professional development (Brooks, 2002). These studies
24 2 Improvement of Teaching by Mastering Specific Competences…

highlight the clarity associated with competences, the clear statements they provide
regarding the skills that need to be demonstrated, the criteria used for assessment
and the recognition given to prior achievement (e.g. Last & Chown, 1996; Whitty
& Willmott, 1991). It has also been argued that they can contribute to making
professional practice in education more transparent and clarify the expertise that
is required of teachers (Hodkinson, 1995). As Robson (1998) argues, this could
help to delineate further the boundaries of teachers’ job and, as a result, emphasise
the professional nature of work in schools. Another advantage of the CBA is that
the focus is on the success of each participant. As Watson (1990) states, the CBA
‘appears especially useful in training situations where trainees have to attain a small
number of specific and job-related competencies’ (p. 18). According to Norton
(1987), the CBA has several advantages which, among others, are that participants
achieve competencies required in the performance of their jobs, participants build
confidence as they succeed in mastering specific competencies, participants receive
a transcript or list of the competencies they have achieved, training time is used
more efficiently and effectively as the trainer is a facilitator of learning as opposed
to a provider of information, more training time is devoted to working with participants
individually or in small groups as opposed to presenting lectures and finally, more
training time is devoted to evaluating each participant’s ability to perform essential
job skills.
Several researchers have studied the CBA in several domains, such as vocational
training (Chyung, Stepich, & Cox, 2006; Jackson et al., 2007; Jang & Kim, 2004;
Jorgensen, 2005; Kaslow, 2004; Mulder, Weigel, & Collins, 2007), information
technology (Caniels 2004; Chang, 2006, 2007; Sampson, Karampiperis & Fytros,
2007) and general education (Baines & Stanley, 2006; Biemans, Nieuwenhuis,
Poell, Mulder & Wesselink, 2005). Supovitz, Mayer and Kahle (2000) studied the
effects of intensive, standards-based professional development on science teachers
in Ohio. They found that teachers became more positive about instructional reforms
and more likely to use inquiry-centred pedagogy as a result of participating in intensive,
standards-based professional development.
An important meta-analysis of research in the CBA was conducted by Gliessman,
Pugh, Dowden, and Hutchins (1988). Their analysis was related to the identification
of variables influencing the acquisition of explicit and generic teaching skills,
in particular questioning skills. The variables identified through an analysis of 26
studies were classified under three general categories: (1) method of training, (2)
characteristics of trainees and (3) characteristics of the training setting. Methods of
training included instruction and instruction followed by practice. Instruction-based
approaches involved comprehension, demonstration and analysis of the targeted
skill in the case of questioning. Instruction with practice approaches included oppor-
tunities for practice, with feedback on the targeted skills. The results of the study
were somewhat surprising since the hypothesis that training incorporating both
instructional and practice methods (i.e. instruction/practice) results in a significantly
greater mean effect size than training based on instructional methods alone, was not
supported. Also the hypothesis concerning temporal variables, namely, that more
extended general and specific training times result in a significantly greater mean
Strengths and Weaknesses 25

effect size, was not supported. However, the major hypothesis that training results
in a significant difference between the means of experimental and control groups,
was confirmed.

Weaknesses and Limitations

As mentioned earlier in this chapter, despite the fact that the CBA was promoted as
the most effective approach to prepare and develop teachers and was nominally
employed for several years, it was criticised in relation to a number of issues by
several researchers (e.g. Carr, 1993; Cowen, 2002; Houston, 1988; Humes, 1995;
Korthagen, 2004; Stephens, Tonnessen & Kyriacou, 2004). In particular, to ensure
sufficient validity and reliability in the assessment of the teachers, the long detailed
lists of skills which were formulated gradually, resulted in a kind of fragmentation
of the teacher’s role. Thus, it was becoming increasingly apparent that this view of
teaching took insufficient account of the fact that a good teacher cannot simply be
described in terms of isolated competences, which can be learned in a number of
training sessions. In addition, these long lists proved to be extremely unwieldy in
practice. The main point is that there are too many isolated skills, which cannot be
covered thoroughly no matter how long the training programme is, while at the
same time doubts have been raised about the validity, reliability and practicality of
such lists of individual competences.
A similar issue is reported by Wragg (1993) in relation to the Leverhulme
primary project. In this project, the research team concentrated on skills, such as
management of pupils’ behaviour and work, questioning and explaining, and on
teacher subject knowledge. As the author argues, the issue of teacher competence
raises several important questions, one of the most significant of which is related to
the extent to which these skills should be learned in part or as a whole. The extreme
partial-learning stance is taken by some supporters of competency-based teacher
education who believe that teaching can be atomised into hundreds of discrete mini-
actions which can be systematically learned and appraised. At the heart of these
concerns is a belief that teaching cannot be deconstructed into a number of discrete
and separately identifiable parts in the form of competence statements, and indeed
many researchers question whether it is actually possible to describe the qualities of
good teachers in terms of isolated competencies (e.g. Barnett, 1994; Hyland, 1994).
As Korthagen (2004) argues, trying to put the essential qualities of a good teacher
into words is a difficult undertaking. In expressing his concerns about such
fragmentation, Halliday (1996) claims that no series of statements can allow for
the multitude of reactions, interactions and behaviours typical of every teaching
encounter. Similarly, Lyle (1996) warns of hastening ‘the transition from teaching
as a profession to teaching as a set of technical competences’ (p. 11).
In addition, the rather mechanistic procedure for implementing the prescribed
directions for each kind of teaching behaviour does not allow the critical and
creative thinking of teachers to be expanded nor is this taken into consideration in
26 2 Improvement of Teaching by Mastering Specific Competences…

the delivery of such programmes. Much of the literature focuses on the narrowness
of its approach and its failure to address certain important aspects of professional
practice, such as theoretical knowledge and understanding (e.g. Ashworth, 1992),
the ethical principles which underpin practice (Chown, 1996) and the ability to
make autonomous and pragmatic judgements (Chown, 1996; Elliot, 1996).
As Chown argues, ‘The CBA seems unable to cope with the fact that a vital part of
teaching is the complex process through which teachers draw on different types of
knowledge from a range of domains and decide what to do in rapidly changing
unpredictable circumstances’ (p. 143).
Although promoting specific competences through the CBA is often associated
with rhetoric about greater teacher professionalism, misgivings have been expressed
about the effects of those competences expressed as standards on professional
autonomy and their limited range. For example, Tickle (2001), writing about
the original English induction standards, was concerned that they reflected too
narrow a view of teacher expertise and that their use would lead to induction and
professional development becoming assessment- rather than development-led.
For Stephens et al. (2004, p. 113), the CBA ‘fails to take account of what Duncan
(1998) calls the messy kind of wisdom: teacher knowledge that can only be acquired
in practice and through personal experimentation’. It is argued that lecturers and
education managers should be entitled to a more professional and academic training
if they are to deal effectively with the increasingly complex situations they face.
From this perspective, there has been a shift from an emphasis on the courses taken
to a ‘results-oriented’ conception of education in which observable performances
and practical knowledge are valued (Delandshere & Arens, 2001, p. 557). There is
an assumption here that theoretical knowledge is a prerequisite of performance and
that all important knowledge can be evidenced through performance or activity.
Equating knowledge and performance seems to assume that knowledge is always
enacted, thereby devaluing those forms of knowledge that are not; it also disregards
the activities that one engages in to develop knowledge, which, in the case of teaching,
are the activities that inform us most about how and why knowledge develops. This
shift to performance has the potential to focus on the most visible aspects of teaching
but not necessarily the most important ones (Delandshere & Arens, 2001).
The failure of competency-based qualifications to engage with these more
complex aspects of teaching has largely been explained, according to Elliot (1996),
by their ‘pre-occupation with observable phenomena’ (p. 21) and the assumption
that all knowledge can be observed and assessed while in use. As Sprinthall et al. (1996)
argue, because the CBA is drawn from behavioural psychology and the cognitive
load theory, there is little consideration given to change in teacher cognitions or
the cognitive developmental dispositions of the teachers in training. Instead, the
assumption is linear and quantitative. Teach each skill as effectively as possible and
the teachers will follow and incorporate the skill in their teaching.
Furthermore, the specific educational context or the professional priorities and
needs of the participating teachers are not taken into consideration, something
that may reduce the interest and affect the will and the efforts of the participants
to engage in their improvement plans. As Lowyck (1978, p. 215) stresses, ‘Teaching
Strengths and Weaknesses 27

behavior can only be understood and improved when the original context of the
specific teaching behavior is included in the interpretation’. A similar argument has
been raised by Trorey (2002). She argues that national priorities for teacher devel-
opment, expressed as isolated teaching competences, create many tensions as they
may imply that the specific developmental needs of a school or teachers remain
unaddressed. As Brooks (2002) argues, ‘There is little evidence that professional
development programs were consistently successful in ensuring that both individual
and institutional needs were met’ (p. 36).
It has also been argued that in addition to failing to capture the complexity of the
teachers’ work, competency-based training and qualifications have served to push
forward system and/or institutional objectives at the expense of the individual needs
of the staff. Taking this argument further, Edwards and Usher (1994) suggest that
competency-based professional development programmes are a way of imposing
self-discipline and self-regulation on individuals so that they conform to what is
required. Similarly, Bathmaker (2000) argues that competences stated as standards
‘might offer an easy way to meet institutional monitoring and assessment
requirements[…]but fail to stimulate the development of imaginative and creative
professionals who can be flexible and responsive in a rapidly changing environment’
(p. 19). In the same line of argument, issues related to the erosion of teachers’
professional autonomy may also be raised. Although policy documents (e.g. DfEE,
2000) state that teachers and schools are best placed to know what development
activities could meet their particular needs and raise standards of teaching and
learning in their school, such professional responsibility is confined to the means
of achieving the outcomes, to the isolated skills and competences and not to the
deliberation over the educational values and purposes themselves. As Faulkner,
Freedland and Fisher (1999) argue, there was to be, and is, little scope for profes-
sional judgement in the establishment of standards or targets as the main responsi-
bility lies in the hand of central government and policy-makers, irrespective of
individual teacher needs. Patrick, Forde and McPhee (2003) argue that by concep-
tualising teaching in simplistic terms as a set of measurable outcomes, the frame-
work of teacher professional development could undermine the autonomy and
professionalism which it claims to enhance. On the other hand, others argue that
detailed analysis of the relevant skills and competences and the related evaluation
systems enhances rather than diminishes the professional nature and stature of
teachers (e.g. Odden & Kelley, 1997). The competent teacher might be said to be
more professional than the incompetent one, but at the same time this might be a
rather limited notion of what it means to be a professional. Likewise, others see in a
framework of standards both a potential threat to the autonomy of teachers and also
an opportunity to re-professionalise (e.g. Storey & Hutchinson, 2001).
Beyond the discussion relating to the opportunities and strengths and despite the
extensive rhetoric, publications and discussions concerning the CBA, almost no
basic definitive research has been conducted to prove or disprove its effectiveness.
Certainly, short-term research has shown that student achievement does improve, as
a meta-analysis by Walberg (1986) has documented. However, the long-term results
are less positive. Richardson and Anders (1994) note that there is a real paucity of
28 2 Improvement of Teaching by Mastering Specific Competences…

research on the follow-up effects of the competency-based training. According to

Sprinthall et al. (1996), the best-known programme using the CBA has been the
Madeline Hunter approach, which includes a series of highly explicit steps in the
classroom. Even though the training was comprehensive, expensive and focused
on a relatively small number of teachers, the results suggested extremely modest
outcomes in terms of student achievement. Although Hunter has always maintained
the need for teacher flexibility with regard to how the methods are applied in the
classroom, yet the training itself may not encourage such teacher flexibility. In this
context, given the growing official interest in competency-based approaches, those
responsible for teacher training and professional development can expect to come
under increasing pressure to explore the extent to which the use of competences can
enhance the effectiveness of teacher education and the overall quality of teaching.
However, the advantages of using the CBA still remain to be proven. There is
certainly insufficient experience to date to justify the national imposition of any
particular approach, but there is considerable scope for further exploration and
evaluation of the range of approaches that are currently being developed (Whitty &
Willmott, 1991). Today, the factors influencing quality of teaching require sufficient
levels of skill, understanding, flexibility and reflection on the part of teachers, which
go for beyond the rudimentary CBA and training in isolated teaching skills in
teacher training and professional development programmes (Wragg, 1993). Thus,
the next chapter describes the holistic or reflective approach to teacher training and
professional development, which often claims to be the very antithesis of the CBA
to teacher training and professional development.
Chapter 3
Improvement of Teaching Through Critical
Reflection: The Holistic Approach

Introduction

The dominant approach to teacher training and professional development nowadays

is that of holistic or reflective practice (Golby & Viant, 2007). Teacher educators
have been preoccupied by what Smyth (1992) calls an ‘inexplicable wave of enthu-
siasm’ (p. 268) for reflective approaches. Fifty years after Dewey’s differentiation
between routine action and reflective action, the terms ‘reflection’, ‘reflective practice’
and ‘reflective practitioners’ abound in the literature of teacher education and
professional development (see Admiraal & Wubbels, 2005; Birmingham, 2004;
Loughran, 2002; Rodgers, 2002). This approach has also been described as a reaction
against more centralised policy perspectives in teacher training and professional
development, which regard teachers as technicians, a view promoted by the CBA
(Copeland, 1991) described in the previous chapter. The term has been used to refer
to widely differing practices, ranging from reflection as a component of skill and a
means of fostering effective teaching to reflection as a heightening of awareness of
social justice in educational practice. At the same time, the holistic nature of this
approach refers to the rather general, or even vague, content of teacher reflection,
which may include all skills, attitudes, perceptions, motivation and moral disposition
related to teaching and learning (Cruickshank & Metcalf, 1990; Feiman-Nemser,
1990). This chapter provides an overview of the HA to teacher training and profes-
sional development and discusses its main strengths and weaknesses.

Rationale and Background

As long as 80 years ago, Dewey (1933) commented on the need to differentiate

between routine action and reflective action. He defined reflective action as the
‘active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of
knowledge in light of the grounds that support it and the further consequences to

B. Creemers et al., Teacher Professional Development for Improving 29

Quality of Teaching, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-5207-8_3,
© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
30 3 Improvement of Teaching Through Critical Reflection: The Holistic Approach

which it leads’ (p. 9). Since that time, two books by Schon have led to a resurgence
of interest in reflection, The Reflective Practitioner (1983) and Educating the
Reflective Practitioner (1987) which have had a significant effect on mainstream
educators’ thinking about reflection. In his first book, Schon argues for a new
epistemology of practice where professional growth, competence and artistry are
framed by an individual’s ability to reflect-in-action, which refers to individuals
thinking about what they are doing while they are doing it. However, the question of
how to promote this approach was left unanswered until the publication of his second
book. As Sprinthall, Reiman, and Thies-Sprinthall (1996) comment, Schon looked
at professional schools, such as architecture, music and counselling institutions, to
explore how guided reflection forms the mainstay of these professional programmes.
The dialogue between the instructor and the student in a reflective practicum
constitutes, as he argues, the necessary exemplar for a new epistemology of practice.
Yet few studies exist in the Schon genre. Only Mackinnon (1987), working with
pre-service teachers, developed a set of criteria for detecting Schon’s reflection-in-action
during student teachers’ supervisions.
The second important line of inquiry that has contributed to interest in teacher
thinking and reflection has been the work of cognitive developmentalists. Theorists
such as Erikson (1982), Piaget (1972) and King and Kitchener (1994) describe the
fundamental cognitive and affective processes that children, adolescents and adults
employ as they construct meaning from experience. Most studies of this approach
support the general finding that human beings have an intrinsic need to be profes-
sionally and personally competent and that competence will grow through qualita-
tively distinct stages when there is positive interaction in a supportive environment
(Berliner, 1994; White, 1959). The studies also demonstrate that teachers will vary
in their capacity, readiness and inclination to engage in reflection activities. For
example, concrete teachers at conformity levels may be opposed to engaging in any
coaching or guided reflection activity that encourages them to revisit and improve
their teaching practices. On the other hand, a teacher at the autonomous level may
be open to Schon’s intermediate zone of practice (Schon, 1987, p. 6).
The third body of literature comes from the information-processing line of
inquiry. Cognitive theorists, using the computer as their basic model, have developed
a theory of learning and memory, called information processing. In this model,
teacher cognition is conceptualised as representing a linear continuum from less to
greater cognitive complexity. It is important to note that such a model does not
connote a stage conceptualisation or that such conceptual development goes through
an invariant sequence of cognitive transformations. Instead, the model gives
more attention to specific cognitive processes, such as how an individual inputs,
stores and retrieves information. Although most of the work on the model has by far
focused on the process of student learning (Pintrich, Marx & Boyle, 1993), it can be
applied to adults in general and specifically, to the development of cognition in
teachers.
So far, the major effort in this area has focused on cognitive information processing
and teacher planning (Clark & Yinger, 1987). This approach, which derives from
the teacher as decision-maker, has charted the actual planning systems employed by
Definition and Main Characteristics 31

teachers with different amounts of experience. Thus, according to Royer, Cisero

and Carlo (1993), there are some differences between the novice and the expert
teacher planner in terms of metacognition. In this context, a number of educational
psychologists, such as Berliner (1986, 1992), have begun to examine differences
in how beginning teachers and experienced teachers practise their profession. Their
work draws heavily on information processing, describing how the cumulative
experiences of teaching allow expert teachers to cluster understandings of the teaching
and learning process and to retrieve information more quickly.

Definition and Main Characteristics

Influenced mainly by these three lines of inquiry, a number of teacher educators

have written extensively on the topic, and reflection has been advanced as an ideal
in numerous teacher education and professional development programmes. Clift,
Houston and Pugach (1990) have summarised a number of teacher education and
professional development programmes that feature reflection, and Tom (1985) has
mapped out some of the crucial parameters of an inquiry-oriented approach to
teacher education. Likewise, Calderhead (1989) has examined the various definitions
of reflective teaching and argued that teacher development, teacher knowledge and
the context of teacher learning have great potential in terms of extending our under-
standing of the role of reflection in teacher education and professional development.
In addition, Korthagen (1988), drawing on the developmental model, suggests that
teachers differ in their learning orientation. Some with an internal orientation, view
learning and reflection as an exciting and self-guided process. They readily examine
their own practice. Others with external orientations, require a high degree of structure
from instructors and conform to peers’ views of teaching.
However, despite the extensive writing on the HA and the importance of reflection
for teacher improvement, defining what actually constitutes reflective teaching or
reflective practice is fraught with difficulty, and this major problem of definition has
been recognised for some very considerable period of time (see Calderhead, 1989;
Hatton & Smith, 1995; Tom, 1985). While the concept of reflection in education is
not new and much of the writing about reflection employs the work of Dewey (1933)
as a reference point (e.g., Adler, 1990, 1991; Calderhead, 1989; Farrah, 1988;
Gilson, 1989), the vague nature of the concept, as expressed in Dewey’s writing, has
not been resolved. As Cornford (2002) argues, the ideals or purposes of reflection
in education are as manifold as the term itself: development of self-monitoring
teachers, teachers as experimenters, teachers as researchers, teachers as inquirers,
etc. An analysis of the literature reveals a plethora of words associated with the
concept of reflection, each of which, as Adler (1990, 1991) suggests, is embedded
in and reflects a different discourse (see Smith & Hatton, 1992a for a full analysis
of these terms). At base, it is not always clear whether reflection is conceptualised
as an exclusively cognitive activity (as a special type of thinking) or what exactly
constitutes its relationship to ongoing, past or future events (Ottesen, 2007).
32 3 Improvement of Teaching Through Critical Reflection: The Holistic Approach

The concept has been described in several ways, drawing variously upon the writing
of Dewey (1933) on modes of reasoning, Schon (1983) on professional thinking,
Stenhouse (1975) on teachers as researchers, recent theories of cognition in cognitive
science (see Borko, 1988) and critical theory (see Elliot, 1987).
The definitions of reflective teaching, as mentioned above, have varied both in
terms of their conception of the nature of reflective activity and, most importantly,
on the content on which teachers are expected to reflect (see Calderhead, 1989).
For example, Schon’s (1983) notion of reflection-in-action refers to the ways in
which professionals identify and solve problems through the consideration of alter-
native modes of framing or viewing a professional situation or problem. It describes
the problem-finding and problem-solving processes involved in professional action.
On the other hand, Zeichner and Liston (1987) take a broader view of reflection,
derived largely from the philosophy of action, as the active, persistent and careful
consideration by teachers of the origins, purposes and consequences of their actions.
Different conceptions and definitions of holistic or reflective practice seem to
have channelled teacher educators into drawing upon specific areas of research to
inform their ideas of reflection and also to provide methods, such as narratives and
journal writing, stimulated recall, action research and ethnographies that might be
transposed from a research to a practice setting. For example, the Maryland
Reflective Teacher Education Program, described by McCaleb, Borko, and Arends
(1992), views reflection primarily in terms of evaluation skills and draws on research
on teaching, and especially teacher thinking, in the programme as a means of
increasing teachers’ repertoire of concepts that can be used in analysis and evaluation.
Ross, Johnson and Smith’s (1992) account of the Florida Reflective Teacher
Education Program, on the other hand, views reflection in terms of personal and
professional growth and adopts a series of processes to promote teachers’ examination
of their own educational values and beliefs.
In terms of the strategies used to implement and stimulate the holistic or reflective
approach, either in initial or in-service teacher training, five broad approaches can
be identified (Smith & Hatton, 1992a). These include action research (Gore &
Zeichner, 1991; Ross, 1989; Smith & Lovatt, 1991; Sparks-Langer & Colton,
1991); case studies of students, teachers, classrooms and schools (Ross, 1989;
Sparks, 1991; Zeichner, 1986); field experiences and practicums (Sparks-Langer &
Colton, 1991; Zeichner, 1986); microteaching (Cruickshank, 1985); and other tasks,
including the development of curriculum units and their implementation (Ben-
Peretz, 1984; Beyer, 1984; Smith, 1991a, 1991b; Zeichner, 1986). All of these
approaches generally comprise the reflective strategies of observation, analysis,
interpretation and decision-making (Duckworth, 1987; Richardson, 1989; Zeichner
& Liston, 1987).
In addition, Zeichner (1987) has reviewed instructional strategies that can be
employed in pre-service teacher education and in-service professional develop-
ment programmes to enhance teacher reflection. Among such strategies are action
research, ethnography, writing, supervisory approaches and curriculum analysis
and development. In practice, these approaches usually involve making use of
reading and rereading of journal writing, observation notes, transcribed conversations,
Definition and Main Characteristics 33

videotaped analyses, self-regulations, etc. In particular, journal writing is commonly

used to attempt to facilitate reflection. Such writing is by its definition and structure
reflective-on-action and is more likely to exhibit characteristics of the genre of
reflection utilised by teachers. There are still issues, however, related to the audience
of the writing and the degree to which it is private or public, which also confound
its usefulness as evidence for reflection. Moreover, the analysis of, and discussion
on, critical incidents is also a useful element of reflective practices. A critical
incident is not an extreme case but any professional experience which offers
significant meaning (e.g. a discussion with a student, a meeting with parents).
According to Chater (2007), all strategies, practices and activities of a
reflective practitioner could be categorised into the micro-, the meso- and the macro-
levels: the micro-level includes those characteristics that function at classroom
level and have an impact on the school (i.e. playgrounds, corridors), the meso-level
includes those that operate at the school level but can impact upon other schools
in a consortium, community or region and the macro-level includes those that
operate at regional and national levels, where they influence schools and class-
rooms. At the micro-level (i.e. reflective practice in a teacher’s mind as it affects
classrooms and schools), reflective teachers could perform frequent and thoughtful
self-evaluation on the quality and the process of their own teaching. Of course,
evaluation is not always a self-contained activity. In a collaborative, critical-friend
model of evaluation, Campbell, Kyriakides, Muijs and Robinson (2004) suggest
that peers can challenge and support each other through listening, asking questions,
articulating each other’s beliefs and aspirations about teaching and giving feed-
back. In doing this, Smyth (1991, p. 13) recommends the use of the following
four questions: (a) Describe: What do I do? (b) Inform: What does this description
mean? (c) Confront: How did I come to be like this? (d) Reconstruct: How
might I do things differently? Based on the above strategies and activities, teacher
training and professional development involves more than just the acquisition of
the theory of teaching. Implicit or explicit in all the writings that focus upon
reflective teaching (other than the extreme position of theorists concerned
solely with the personal development of the individual) is the idea that increased
reflection will translate into action and result in improvement in teaching and learn-
ing (Cornford, 2002).
There is a general support for the view that teachers’ beliefs about teaching
which are based on previous experience and perceptions of education have a
significant influence on learning to teach and improvement in teaching (Cole &
Knowles, 1993; Elliot & Calderhead, 1995). Existing knowledge, experience and
beliefs need to be recognised and challenged in order to support teachers in recon-
structing and developing themselves appropriately in the light of new ideas and
experiences. Challenging teachers’ constructs of teaching is an ongoing process of
moving their learning on throughout their professional development. Thus, it is
argued that it is in the nature of reflective practice that the context, as defined by
the learning needs of teachers, other professionals, pupils and their families, must
be taken into consideration as it is one of the decisive factors contributing to the
quality of reflective practice.
34 3 Improvement of Teaching Through Critical Reflection: The Holistic Approach

Using the HA for Developing Educational Policy

Over recent years, the demands to improve quality of teaching and learning and to
increase accountability have put professional development high on the agenda of
policy-makers in many countries. As has been described in the previous chapter,
professional standards of teaching have been developed and promoted by policy-
makers and governments, referring to what teachers should know and be able to do
in terms of specific skills and competences. In this context, approaches such as the
CBA have largely affected the development of professional teaching standards and
of related teacher preparation and professional development programmes. However,
many have criticised the focus on teacher competencies and professional standards
which were perceived as policies which privileged those instrumental aspects of
teaching that can be subjected to tests concerning their immediate use and applicability
(Cowen, 2002). It is argued that the development of professional standards of teaching
has underestimated the aims and values underlying teaching, leaving little room for
an individual to personally interpret his/her role as a teacher or the specific demands
and conditions of a given situation (Van Huizen, Van Oers & Wubbels, 2005).
Questions have also been raised about the possible role of governments in terms of
quality control, suggesting an almost universal practice of setting ‘standards’ or
‘benchmarks’, including determination of which characteristics effective teachers
should possess (Cowen, 2002; Harris, 1997; Libman & Zuzovsky, 2006; Storey,
2006). Thus, policy developments based on competency-based teacher education
and professional development have been criticised as ‘technicist’ and as ultimately
leading to teachers’ deprofessionalisation and deskilling (Harris, 1997), as has been
elaborated in the previous chapter.
Such kinds of criticism have promoted the development of alternative ways of
thinking about developing policy concerning teacher professional development.
Educators and researchers have promoted a broader conceptualisation of teacher
training and professional development, based on the principles of the HA. They argue
that teacher education and professional development must equip teachers with much
more than an ability to use particular teaching skills and knowledge. Teacher training
requires a deeper understanding of the historical, political and economic context of a
particular education system and teachers’ comprehension that might not necessarily
manifest itself in an observable, immediately assessable way. As mentioned before in
this chapter, reflective practice has been advocated because of its ability to assist
teachers reinterpret and reframe their experiences from a different perspective and
participate consciously and creatively in their own growth and development (Munby
& Russell, 1990). As Day (2002) argues, the humanist tradition of viewing education
as being of intrinsic value and having ‘core moral purposes’ is central to teachers’
motivation, commitment and effectiveness. He argues that this tradition, which is
fundamental to teacher identity, is being challenged by the new results-driven
technical culture of teaching focused on classroom management, subject knowledge
and pupil test results (pp. 682–684).
Using the HA for Developing Educational Policy 35

In this context, we could argue that there is an ongoing debate primarily in relation
to the aims and content of teacher training and professional development. Where
policy-makers and some researchers generally focus on the importance of outcomes
in terms of competencies and professional teaching standards, educators and some
other researchers equally emphasise the more personal, moral and ethical character-
istics of teaching (e.g., Tickle, 1999), which in turn could help to raise teaching
standards through reflection. This assumption of course needs to be empirically
tested through systematic research, before reaching any conclusions related to the
potential of the reflective approach to raising standards, as many have questioned
the association between this paradigm’s theory and practice, as explained in the
following section.
Nevertheless, policy and practice in some educational systems have made some
steps towards incorporating the principles of the HA in teacher professional devel-
opment, without necessarily moving completely away from the standards agenda.
For example, in the Netherlands, a consensus-building approach rather than a regulatory
one has been adopted in developing standards of teaching by involving teachers to
a substantial extent in the standard-setting exercise based on a set of competencies
relevant to interpersonal communication, social and moral values, teaching subjects
and methods and organisational abilities (Moon, 2007).
In addition, there is a growing emphasis on school-based professional develop-
ment, which enables practitioners to analyse, discuss, evaluate and change their own
practice by adopting an analytical approach and encourages them to appraise the
moral and ethical factors implicit in classroom practices, including the critical
examination of their own beliefs about good teaching. In addition, it encourages
teachers to take greater responsibility for their own professional growth and to seek
ways of acquiring some degree of professional autonomy. For example, several
policy documents in the UK (e.g. DfEE, 2000) state that teachers and schools are
best placed to know what development activities could best meet their particular
needs and raise standards of teaching and learning in their schools. Such statements
seem to acknowledge that in practice, teachers are able to consider new initiatives
on their individual merits, particularly in relation to their benefits in the classroom
(Corkindale & Trorey, 2002). Teachers have turned away from competency-based
or holistic professional development approaches, which are not seen to have ready
relevance to, and application in, the classroom and they are not geared to teachers’
needs, priorities for improvement and other contextual parameters deriving from
their schools and classrooms (Ayres, Dinham & Sawyer, 2000; Dinham, Brennan,
Collier, Deece & Mulford, 2000). Thus, based on the HA, teacher professional
development in many schools focuses on providing time and opportunities for
teachers to become actively engaged in meaningful discussion and to set their own
improvement agenda based on their particular needs and context (Loucks-Horsley,
Hewson, Love & Stiles, 1998). In this sense, an important implication of the HA for
policy and practice is related to the extent to which teachers participating in teacher
professional development programmes are given professional empowerment and
autonomy (Corkindale & Trorey, 2002).
36 3 Improvement of Teaching Through Critical Reflection: The Holistic Approach

In addition, elements of the HA have also provided support for the development
of related educational policies, such as that promoting lifelong learning, which have
been upheld by national governments and the EU, particularly over the last decade.
The term recognises that learning is not confined only to teacher professional devel-
opment programmes but also takes place throughout school life and in a range of
situations. From this perspective, learning can no longer be divided into a place and
time to acquire knowledge and a place and time to apply the knowledge acquired
(Fischer, 2000). Instead, teacher learning can be seen as something that takes place
on an ongoing basis in the course of daily interactions with other colleagues and
with the school and teacher environment. In this context, aspects of the HA, as acts
of teacher liberation, empowerment and autonomy, have been widely emphasised.
This is important as, in pursuit of externally imposed targets, professional judge-
ment has been increasingly limited to deciding upon the most efficient means of
achieving those targets set by the system, without taking into consideration the
individual teacher needs and priorities for improvement or the context of the teacher
workplace (i.e. characteristics of community, school and classroom).
However, despite the important policy implications of the HA, especially in rela-
tion to teacher engagement, empowerment and autonomy, there are also limitations
that educators, researchers and policy-makers need to consider in formulating any
kind of policy proposals. In particular, it should be acknowledged that teachers
develop routines in order to survive in their classrooms, and they do not naturally
systematically reflect on the quality of their work. This is due to the fact that they do
not always have the time to do so (Campbell & Neill, 1994) or because questioning
of the existing teaching practice can be threatening to self-esteem, especially when
organisational cultures are not supportive (Clark & Yinger, 1977). Moreover, even
when teachers are willing to engage in reflective activities, the depth and breadth of
reflection varies greatly among teachers, depending on the context and on their
proclivity for reflection. This is partly due to the fact that relatively few teachers
have been trained properly to engage in critical reflection and analyse their own
classroom practice in a systematic way or to study the practice of others (Wragg,
1993). For example, the results of a study by Huang (2008) showed that teacher
reflection content was mostly at the level of reporting what occurred, rather than
that of analysing. Teachers need to improve themselves in order to become critical
and reflective teachers, and indeed teacher training and professional development
programmes should provide opportunities to promote such reflective skills.
In addition, in relation to the content of teachers’ reflection, relying only on
teachers’ experiences can be limiting in terms of their development (Britzman,
1991), since there appears to be little, if any, evidence from the published literature
that assisting teachers to become reflective without providing them with a valid
framework to meet their personal needs and priorities for improvement necessarily
makes their practice more effective (Smith & Hatton, 1992b). Likewise, many studies
stress the need for the provision of a well-researched and theory-based framework
to guide the content of reflection (Bierman, Nix, Greenberg, Blair & Domitrovich,
2008; Buczynski & Hansen, 2010; Domitrovich et al., 2009; Yoon, Garet, Birman
& Jacobson, 2007). Future policy directions need to take into consideration that one
Strengths and Weaknesses 37

of the main critiques of the HA is that it lacks a grounded theory on the basis of
which specific teaching skills could be developed. As Calderhead (1993) argues,
many reflective teacher education and professional development programmes appear
in fact to draw upon fairly narrow conceptions of both research and practice. On the
other hand, the use of competence statements or standards is not a panacea for
teacher training and development (Evans, 1993), nor should it be dismissed out
of hand. The construction of a hierarchy of competence acquisition needs to pay
particularly close attention to the demands made by practical teaching, as any
teacher professional development programme is of little value if it fails to improve
teacher effectiveness (Kyriakides, Creemers & Antoniou, 2009). Nevertheless, if the
professional standards drawn upon the basis of validated theoretical models of
teacher effectiveness are used as the foundation for dialogue and intelligent reflection
rather than as a set of demanding criteria for success, it will enhance the ability of
teacher training and professional development to make a significant contribution
to the quality of teaching and student learning.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Across the diversity of perspectives, positions and definitions described in the previous
section, the HA, through teacher reflection, is generally assumed to promote under-
standing and insight and to have transformation or empowerment as its purpose or
effect. Thus, many argue that reflection should be a standard professional disposi-
tion for all teachers helping them to understand the complex nature of classrooms
(Feiman-Nemser, 1990; Zeichner & Liston, 1996). This section provides an over-
view of the main strengths and weaknesses of this approach.

Strengths and Advantages

A widely accepted strength of the reflective approach is that reflection enables prac-
titioners to analyse, discuss, evaluate and change their own practice, adopting an
analytical approach towards their teaching skills. It also encourages them to appraise
the moral and ethical factors implicit in classroom practices, including the critical
examination of their own beliefs about good teaching. Through reflective practice,
teachers may reinterpret and reframe their experiences from a different perspective
and participate consciously and creatively in their own growth and development
(Munby & Russell, 1990). In addition, the reflective approach may encourage teachers
to take greater responsibility for their own professional growth and to seek ways of
acquiring some degree of professional autonomy. It may also help them develop
their own theories and empower them to take a more active role in educational
decision-making.
For example, a key finding in a study conducted by Scott and Dinham (2002) was
that teachers had, either on their own or with a mentor or other colleagues, reflected on
38 3 Improvement of Teaching Through Critical Reflection: The Holistic Approach

and identified their professional strengths and weaknesses. They had then formulated,
either formally or informally, a personal action plan to meet their professional needs
and had taken steps to put this plan into action. However, in planning to meet these
needs, these teachers gave a low priority to formal employer-led professional devel-
opment initiatives, as they considered them to be unrelated to their priorities
for improvement. A sample of secondary heads of department in another study
had similar views (Dinham, Brennan, Collier, Deece & Mulford 2000). Generally,
educational systems are perceived by teachers to provide various training packages
which are often generic in nature, covering areas such as leadership, school manage-
ment, child protection and other mandatory requirements. However, both teachers
and school managers showed a clear preference for professional development which
was focused on their subject discipline and area of teaching and tailored to meet
their needs. In this context, professional development provided by educational
systems was frequently concerned with current priorities which were more to do
with systems, school administration and policy rather than actual teaching practice.
Moreover, according to Day (2002), there are three reasons why reflective
practice is increasingly being recognised as essential to good teaching and playing
a central role in the professional life of the effective teacher. The first concerns the
nature of teaching. The assumption is that since teaching and learning are complex
processes and since there is not necessarily one right approach (Loughran, 1996),
deliberating about competing versions of good teaching and recasting past under-
standings and current practices (Grimmett, MacKinnon, Erickosn & Riecken, 1990)
are likely to lead to improvement. Although we agree that there is not one right
approach to teaching, we could argue at this point that, drawing on the EER, there
are specific teaching skills identified as having an impact on student achievement.
If we ignore this, then efforts for improvement might lose their focus and scope.
From this perspective, we consider teaching not only as an art but also as a science
with a particular knowledge base and empirical evidence to be taken into consider-
ation. Without the capacity to evaluate assumptions, teachers will not be able to
improve further.
The second is that engaging in reflective practice is a means of helping individu-
als towards gaining greater self-knowledge and the ability to challenge themselves,
which are in turn considered to be useful ways to achieve personal development
(Johnston & Badley, 1996) through an analysis of the personal values and theories
that underlie teaching. Finally, the third reason, according to Day (2002), is related
to the idea that reflective practice is considered to be central to the growth of teachers
as inquirers who engage in collaborative research with others from both inside and
outside the school, generating knowledge of practice rather than regarding them-
selves as objects whose role is to implement existing theory in their practice.
Taking this argument further, Forde, McMahon, McPhee and Patrick (2006)
argue that teachers need to forge new professional identities in order to reclaim
ownership of their profession. The authors suggest that the way to achieve this is
through professional development, reflection and inquiry. The forging of new
identities is a critical process within approaches to professional development since
it is important to enable teachers to reflect on, and to create, new practices which
Strengths and Weaknesses 39

best serve the learning needs of their students. The authors also argue that these new
practices should centre on an increased sense of teacher agency and ownership of
the profession. Most professional development programmes do not appear to be
based upon a recognition of the complexity of teaching, nor do they demonstrate a
commitment to supporting teachers’ moral purposes (Sockett, 1993) as an essential
part of their professionalism or recognise the emotional labour (Hochschild, 1993)
and emotional intelligence (Goleman, 1995) which are fundamental parts of the
teaching process. As Hargreaves (1997, p. 12) argues, ‘good teaching is not just a
matter of being efficient, developing competence, mastering technique, and possessing
the right kind of knowledge. Good teaching also involves emotional work. It is
infused with pleasure, passion, creativity, challenge and joy […] it is a passionate
vocation’. Although we accept Hargreaves’s argument, at the same time, we do
not approve the extent to which such aspects of teaching are over-emphasised,
whereas other scientific aspects of teaching are being underestimated or even
ignored. As has been mentioned earlier, research findings have revealed that specific
teaching skills have an impact on student achievement. Our argument is that such
knowledge should not be ignored, especially with respect to our efforts to improve
student learning. However, as many argue (e.g. Bierman et al., 2008; Buczynski &
Hansen, 2010; Domitrovich et al., 2009; Sprinthall et al., 1996; Yoon et al., 2007), it
is crucial to move beyond the theoretical discussions about the merits of reflection
to actually investigate the impact of such approaches on teaching and learning and
identifying possible limitations.

Weaknesses and Limitations

The main criticism has been that the holistic or reflective approach lacks a grounded
theoretical foundation on the basis of which specific teaching skills could be devel-
oped. In other words, this approach seems to neglect research findings related to
what constitutes effective teaching and is based on the assumption that reflective
practitioners can improve solely by virtue of their own critical thinking and reflection
on their past experiences. Nevertheless, teachers do not always learn from experience
and that experience itself can be limiting in terms of their development (Britzman,
1991). In addition, while there are increasing demands on teachers to become more
reflective, there have been few studies of practical strategies to facilitate such
reflection and even fewer investigations of the impact of various strategies upon
the development of reflective practices. Most importantly, there appears to be little,
if any, evidence in the published literature that assisting teachers to become
reflective without providing them with a framework to meet their personal needs and
priorities for improvement, necessarily makes their practice more effective (Smith
& Hatton, 1992b).
Consequently, another major weakness of the HA is related to the vagueness of
its content. Despite the considerable emphasis on promoting reflection in teachers,
it is not always clear exactly what teachers are supposed to reflect upon when they
40 3 Improvement of Teaching Through Critical Reflection: The Holistic Approach

wish to become better teachers (Cornford, 2002). The general or even vague nature
of reflective approaches has been noted by Cruickshank and Metcalf (1990) when
they argue that all of these approaches are ‘intended to prepare teachers to become
more thoughtful’ (p. 485). According to earlier studies, reflection must be broad and
deep in order to be productive (Luttenberg & Bergen, 2008). Breadth refers to the
content of teachers’ reflections, which may be restricted to a narrow area of their
teaching activity or may involve many different aspects. Furthermore, reflection is
considered broad if it is both internally and externally oriented (Korthagen, 2001) or
if both the past and the future are considered (Conway, 2001). Reflection is also
broad if it pays attention to personal, cognitive or moral dimensions (Harrington,
Quinn-Leering & Hodson, 1996) or if it refers to social, cultural and political
conditions of teaching (Dinkelman, 2000; Noddings, 1995).
In addition, teacher educators supporting reflective teaching have generally
employed research selectively to illustrate or support their standpoints or provide a
methodology for teacher education and professional development. For example,
work on narrative and journal writing has been used to justify reflective practices in
some programmes and also to provide a methodology. However, the use of such
approaches in teacher education and professional development itself raises many
questions that require exploration in order to expand our understanding of the
developmental process. For instance, how journal writing contributes to teachers’
professional development has not been investigated thoroughly. Both for teacher
professional development and for research, it is important to pursue these questions
so that the processes and particular activities of professional development under
the HA are more fully understood.
Another major criticism of the HA is that although reflection is high on the
agenda of teacher education and professional development, it has often not been
connected with practice (Kaasila & Lauriala, 2012). Similarly, in terms of adult
learning theory, Johnston and Usher (1996) have challenged the relevance of
reflective practice as articulated by Boud, Cohen, and Walker (1993) on the grounds
that such reflection separates theory and practice. We are all likely to have encoun-
tered less effective teachers who are particularly adroit at reflecting; they are able to
give cogent and superficially acceptable accounts of their practice and to justify
their behaviour in the classroom. In other words, there are teachers who are excel-
lent at reflecting on their practice but whose execution is very unsatisfactory. As
McNamara (1990) argues, it is comparatively straightforward, indeed routine, for
some teachers to offer critical and reflective analyses of teaching in their formal
written assignments and to engage in lively critical talk about practice in non-teaching
situations (such as tutorials when stimulated by video transcripts), but their transfer
of these mental capacities to their actual teaching is problematic. It is difficult to
promote reflective teaching among teachers which goes beyond academic tokenism
and actually leads them to modify their behaviour and teach differently and more
effectively. Although much has been written about teachers’ need to reflect, reflection
without action can be sterile (Wragg, 1993).
In this context, the relation between reflection and action remains complicated
(Boud et al., 1993; Kaasila & Lauriala, 2012; McNamara, 1990). Teacher behaviour
Strengths and Weaknesses 41

cannot be comprehended completely by understanding its subjective meaning for

the person involved (Kelchtermans, 1993). As Argyris and Schon (1978) put it,
there is a difference between espoused theory and theory in use. Teacher professional
behaviour is determined to a great extent, according to those supporting reflection,
by the theories of action. Through reflection, this theory can be thematised and
made more explicit, which then could lead to the espoused theory. But what people
say they do and why often differs from the theory in use, the theory of action
that can be inferred interpretatively by observing the actual behaviour of teachers
at schools.
Although reflection has been very fashionable in all sectors of teacher education,
including vocational and adult education, for a number of years, there is little solid
empirical evidence that supports the view that it results in superior teaching practices
(Cornford, 2002; McNamara, 1990). One might have anticipated that there would
have been concerted efforts to evaluate the practical effectiveness of these various
approaches to reflection by means of empirical methods and through these, the
ideological positions that such approaches represent, but this has not occurred to
any appreciable degree. In addition, it should be acknowledged that there has
been pertinent, carefully reasoned criticism of reflective teaching in a number of
published sources (e.g. Gilliss, 1988; Shulman, 1988), but this does not seem to
have dented the enthusiasm in any way.
The results from the few published empirical studies that have attempted to
quantify the effects of reflective thinking programmes upon teachers’ thought and
classroom performance have not managed to provide sound support for the impact
of this approach. Chandler, Robinson, and Noyes (1991) found that reflection is not
significantly related to teaching performance. Wubbels and Korthagen (1990),
comparing teachers who had graduated, both recently and some time before, from
conventional colleges and colleges implementing reflective teaching programmes,
found no differences between the two groups in their attitude to reflection and
inclination towards innovation. Moreover, research by Winitzky and Arends (1991)
indicated that it is possible to develop schemas approximating those of expert
teachers using reflective methods, but they found no statistically significant differences
between the experimental and control groups regarding knowledge or performance.
While there is some evidence that the HA in some studies can produce greater
ability to verbalise (Stoiber, 1991; Winitzky & Arends, 1991), there is no clear
evidence that this can be carried through into superior practical teaching perfor-
mance. Overall, as Cornford (2002) argues, there is a strong tendency for studies
assessing the efficacy of reflective teaching to reveal equivalence between reflective
treatment and control groups on a range of measures.
In this context, there is a failure to compare experimentally the different reflection
paradigms and the results from the implementation of these. At the same time, it is
acknowledged that numerous qualitative or case studies on reflective practice have
been widely disseminated through publication (see Kagan, 1992). Many of these have
reported the enthusiasm of trainee teachers and lecturers using reflective approaches
and/or have explored methods or processes encouraging reflection in student teachers.
In addition, there have been many articles on reflection that have attempted to
42 3 Improvement of Teaching Through Critical Reflection: The Holistic Approach

categorise the diversity of views on the essential nature of reflective practices in

teaching into some neat taxonomy, either on the basis of underlying philosophy or
types of processes employed to achieve objectives (e.g. Copeland, Birmingham,
De La Cruz & Lewin, 1993; Hatton & Smith, 1995; Tom, 1985). These articles
attempting categorisation do not appear to have resulted in further agreement or a
greater inclination to examine the differential effectiveness of different paradigms
or processes when they are implemented. The question that still remains to be
answered is related to which are the important aspects of reflection which can facili-
tate teacher development and improvement in the quality of teaching (Cornford,
2002; Cruickshank & Metcalf, 1990; Smith & Hatton, 1992b). The next chapter
attempts to resolve the issue related to the content of reflection by arguing that we
need to guard ourselves against the dichotomy existing between the CBA and the
holistic or reflective approach to teacher training and professional development.
Chapter 4
Going Beyond the Classical Dichotomy
Related to the Content of Teacher
Training and Professional Development

Introduction

In Chapters 2 and 3, the two dominant approaches to teacher training and profes-
sional development, that is, the competency-based and the holistic approaches, have
been reviewed, and their strengths and weaknesses have been identified. In this
chapter, taking those weaknesses into consideration, we argue that a more productive
synthesis of these two approaches is needed. In particular, it is acknowledged that
reflection needs to be predicated upon something to think about (Zeichner, 1993).
That is, there must be content related to teaching skills or a coherent body of knowl-
edge, supported by validated theoretical frameworks from which groups of teaching
skills could be selected and based on which the developmental needs of different
groups of teachers could be identified through evaluation. At the same time, teachers’
critical reflection in relation to effective teaching skills should be encouraged and
developed on a systematic basis. Thus, teachers’ critical thinking on their experiences
and research findings from TER addressing identified teacher needs should consti-
tute the two major elements of teacher training and professional development
programmes. In this chapter, the rationale for merging the two dominant approaches
to teacher training and professional development is explored. In addition, the basic
elements of effective teacher professional development programmes, as identified
in previous research studies and literature reviews, are discussed, and their relation-
ship to aspects of the dynamic approach, which lies between the two dominant
approaches, is explained in relation to Chap. 8 of this book, which provides a
detailed overview of the characteristics of the dynamic approach to teacher training
and professional development.

B. Creemers et al., Teacher Professional Development for Improving 43

Quality of Teaching, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-5207-8_4,
© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
44 4 Going Beyond the Classical Dichotomy Related to the Content…

Conclusions About the Two Dominant Approaches

to Teacher Training and Professional Development

Chapters 2 and 3 provide a description of the two dominant approaches to teacher

training and professional development and reveal that they both have not only
strengths but also weaknesses. In particular, the CBA is concerned with specific
knowledge and isolated skills that teachers should possess, and training programmes
are organised in units which relate to individual and particular teaching skills and
pieces of knowledge (Burke, 1989). However, this approach led to the development
of lists containing too many isolated teaching skills, all of which had to be taught in
corresponding courses, something which gave rise to doubts about the feasibility
and practicability of this approach. In addition, the long detailed lists of teaching
skills could gradually have resulted in a kind of fragmentation of the teacher’s role.
Moreover, it has become increasingly apparent that this view of teaching takes
insufficient account of the fact that a good teacher cannot simply be described in
terms of isolated competencies, which could be learned over the course of a number
of training sessions (Korthagen, 2004). On the other hand, the HA gives a much
broader view of what teachers should know and expects that increased reflection on
experience and beliefs will translate into action which will eventually result in
improvements in teaching and learning (Cornford, 2002). However, a number of
problems have been recognised that are associated with the development of the HA
in teacher education and professional development. Among others, the content of
reflection is not always clearly defined, nor is the whole procedure always associated
with teaching practice and action for improvement (Elbaz, 1988; Zeichner, 1990),
something which creates doubts in relation to the potential of reflection to improve
teaching practice. As has been explained in Chap. 3, improvement in teaching as a
result of reflection is the main assumption underlying the HA. However, we argue
that this assumption needs to be tested through systematic research in order to
discover the other essential characteristics of reflection that could facilitate improve-
ment in teaching and learning.
In particular, in terms of empirical justification, there is little solid evidence that
supports the view that the reflective approach results in superior teaching practices
(Cornford, 2002; McNamara, 1990). Similarly, although some studies show that the
CBA may have positive short-term effects on improving teaching practice, doubts
could be raised about the long-term effects of defining teaching and improving
teachers’ knowledge and skills. There is so far no definite answer as to which is the
most effective teacher professional development approach that should be used to in
order to improve quality of teaching and student attainment. As Garet, Porter,
Desimone, Birman, and Yoon (2001) argue, although there is a large body of litera-
ture on professional development, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the
actual content of the professional development activities. The same issue has been
reported by Wragg (1993) in relation to the content of the Leverhulme Primary
Project, in which, he argues, one of the most important issues was the extent to which
teaching skills should be learned in part or as a whole, ‘The extreme part-learning
Thesis–Antithesis–Synthesis: The Rationale of Merging the Two Dominant Approaches 45

stance is taken by some supporters of the competency-based teacher education who

believe that the teaching can be atomized into hundreds of discrete mini-acts which
can be systematically learned and appraised. On the other hand, the extreme holistic
stance is adopted by those who contend that teaching is an art, and that to seek to
segment it is to destroy it’ (p. 192).
Nevertheless, we may have to guard ourselves against confining the discussion
to this classical dichotomy in teacher training and professional development.
In particular, in order to overcome the disadvantages of the two dominant approaches,
this chapter argues that an integrated approach is needed. This approach, sited
between the two dominant ones and utilising key elements from both, could help us
overcome their main disadvantages. In this context, the next section explains the
rationale for merging elements of the two dominant approaches.

Thesis–Antithesis–Synthesis: The Rationale of Merging

the Two Dominant Approaches

The rationale of merging the two main approaches is grounded in the idea that that
although each one has positive elements that can foster improvement in teaching
skills and ultimately student outcomes, when taken on their own, especially at their
extreme standpoints, they are rather inadequate, as has been discussed in the previ-
ous sections. The idea of merging different paradigms and approaches is not a new
one. As Calderhead (1993) argues, effective teacher training is far more likely to
reflect a combination of the different paradigms since classroom practice itself
involves diverse aspects of the knowledge emphasised by the different paradigms.
Similarly, Zeichner (1993) supports the view that the various approaches are not
uniform and they overlap to a certain extent.
One of the most important aspects of this integration is related to the content of
teacher training and professional development programmes. On the one hand, the
CBA supports the idea that the content should consist of specific teaching skills.
This, however, might give rise to questions relating to the practicability, validity and
usefulness of such long and detailed lists of effective teaching skills. The attempt to
generate long lists of individual teaching skills is not in line with EER, which refers
to generic teaching factors describing teacher behaviour (Creemers & Kyriakides,
2008b). On the other hand, while there is considerable emphasis on promoting
reflective approaches, at the same time, it is not always clear exactly what teachers
are supposed to reflect on when they wish to become better teachers. In addition,
issues related to the support (e.g. what kind of support, by whom, how often) necessary
for teachers to improve, need to be investigated further. The main results of EER
which relate to such arguments (explained in detail in the next part of this book)
support the view that different types of teacher behaviour have been found, which
explain variation in student achievement. These types of behaviour do not refer to
isolated teaching skills, but it has been shown that these skills relate to each other
and form groups of teaching skills.
46 4 Going Beyond the Classical Dichotomy Related to the Content…

In this context, we argue that research on teacher training and professional

development should increasingly take into account the results of EER, addressing
teaching skills that are found to be positively related to student achievement. This
relies on the assumption that all efforts to train teachers should take into consider-
ation what an effective teacher is and how an effective teacher behaves in the
classroom in order to maximise the learning potential of the students (Antoniou &
Kyriakides, 2011; Kyriakides, Creemers & Antoniou, 2009; Last & Chown, 1996;
Wragg, 1993). This is exactly the reason that teacher professional development
programmes should be linked to the results of EER. As has been mentioned earlier
in this book, this argument was originally advanced three decades ago but was not
developed further either for research or for policy purposes (see Gage, 1978; Katz
& Raths, 1984). Similar issues relating to the relationship between teacher training
and teacher effectiveness have been extensively discussed in both research and policy
cycles (see, e.g. Ballou & Podgursky, 2000; Darling-Hammond, 2000; Darling-
Hammond & Youngs, 2002; U.S. Department of Education, 2002).
Although the various models of teacher professional growth developed over the
last two decades, stress that teacher training and professional development pro-
grammes should be concerned with teacher beliefs and attitudes, the importance of
teaching skills is implied but not elaborated (Clarke & Hollingsworth, 2002).
Cornford (2002) argues that it is important that teaching skills should form part of
the basis of effective teacher education programmes, although skills are much
neglected by many in the reflective teaching movement, with those advocating the
teaching of these even being criticised as being ‘technicist’ (Gore, 1987). Similarly,
Wragg (1993, p. 189) argues, ‘In many school-based in-service programmes and
even to initial teacher training courses, there is still too little attention paid to important
basic classroom skills.’ From this perspective, reflection needs to have a focus. That
is, there must be a content or a coherent body of knowledge, supported by empirical
data and validated theoretical frameworks, to guide the reflection process by identi-
fying skills which (a) have been found to be related to student achievement based
on research findings and (b) are appropriate for the developmental stage of the
participating teachers, that is, their readiness and priorities for improvement. Both
of these aspects are further elaborated in Chap. 8, in which a detailed description
of the dynamic approach to teacher professional development is provided.
It is also important to note that an overemphasis on the content at the expense of
the process of learning and mastering those skills would be problematic. This is the
reason that the CBA is rejected by many teacher educators as it is considered to be
a rather mechanistic approach (see Chap. 2) with a central focus upon outcomes
rather than upon the teacher improvement process itself. The early association of
the CBA with vocational training, especially in some of the narrowly behavioural
approaches adopted in the USA, has led to a view amongst teacher educators that
the CBA implies an instructional form of pedagogy. A narrow, skill-based definition
of isolated competences has sometimes led to teaching that stresses performance at
the expense of understanding. Narrow competency-based approaches to education
and training have also relied particularly on the assessment of observable workplace
skills. Again they are associated in the minds of many teacher educators with
Thesis–Antithesis–Synthesis: The Rationale of Merging the Two Dominant Approaches 47

behaviourist and technicist approaches. For example, in one project, 121 separate
teacher behaviours had to be checked off by an independent observer and analysed
individually to produce individual competency levels (see Gitlin & Smyth, 1989).
Taking this into account, we could argue that the CBA has indeed tried to utilise the
findings from EER to develop teacher professional programmes. From this perspec-
tive, this approach has put forwards a view of teaching as a science and attempted to
use the existing knowledge base for teacher training and professional development.
However, we could argue that the CBA, in generating long lists of individual com-
petencies, has not taken into consideration the fact that any model of teacher profes-
sional development needs to be parsimonious in order to be feasible and viable. It is
also important to note that models proposed by the EER are not as complicated and
do not refer to such a large number of teaching skills or other factors influencing
learning.
In this context, if we take the extreme position of the CBA, then the successful
acquisition of every single competence at the same time is impossible (Hayes,
1997). Thus, some prioritising of teaching skills is inevitable, especially taking into
consideration the different stages or levels of competence of different groups of
teachers (Berliner, 1992, 1994; Hayes, 1997; Kyriakides et al., 2009). From this
perspective, results from validated models of educational effectiveness, describing
teacher behaviour and skills that were found to have a positive effect upon student
outcomes, should be utilised when deciding upon the content of teacher profes-
sional development programmes. In particular, we argue in this book that the
dynamic model of EER could be employed as the theoretical framework of an inte-
grated approach to teacher development which has the potential to help us better
understand the processes of change and the way effectiveness factors at the teacher
level operate and evolve over time (Heck & Moriyama, 2010; Hofman, Hofman &
Gray, 2010; Sammons, 2009). In addition, research findings relating to the grouping
of factors at the teacher level of the dynamic model into five stages describing
teacher behaviour (see Chap. 8) could help us overcome the major disadvantage of
the CBA, namely, that associated with the training of teachers in too many separate
and unconnected skills (Antoniou & Kyriakides, 2011; Kyriakides et al., 2009). The
essential characteristics of the model, the factors and the measurement dimensions,
along with an explanation of how it could be utilised for teacher training and profes-
sional development purposes, are elaborated in the second part of this book.
At the same time, reflection for understanding and critical thinking on those
skills are, or should be, important elements in all aspects of learning and performance.
As stated in the previous chapter, through reflection teachers participate consciously
and creatively in their own growth and development (Schon, 1987; Zeichner &
Liston, 1996). Reflection enables practitioners to analyse, discuss, evaluate and
change their own practice, adopting an analytical approach towards it, thereby
encouraging them to appraise the moral and ethical factors implicit in classroom
practices, including the critical examination of their own beliefs about good
teaching. In addition, it encourages them to take greater responsibility for their
own professional growth and to seek ways of acquiring some degree of professional
autonomy.
48 4 Going Beyond the Classical Dichotomy Related to the Content…

It is also important to clarify at this point the kinds of reflection to which we

are referring, especially the various definitions and different types of reflection
proposed in the past (see Calderhead, 1989; Hatton & Smith, 1995; Tom, 1985).
Taking Jay and Johnson’s (2002) description of the stages of reflection (i.e. descriptive,
comparative and critical reflection) in an integrated approach, the descriptive stage
refers to the problem-setting stage, during which the teacher, together with the
A&RTeam, identifies which aspects of his/her teaching practice should form the
core of his/her reflective attention and efforts for improvement, based on empirical
data from classroom observations and evaluation. The framework for identifying
these priorities needs to be validated from research findings, providing evidence of
its significant impact on student learning.
Then, as mentioned in Chap. 3, during the comparative stage, the teacher begins
to think about the teaching skills or other aspects of his/her role that have been
previously agreed as the target for his/her improvement effort, using a number of
different frameworks. The teacher tries to make sense of other people’s viewpoints
and also related research findings and suggestions that could facilitate his/her efforts.
The ultimate result will be a more comprehensive understanding of each teaching
skill as a result of taking into account the specific classroom and school contexts
and their complexity and also the development of action plans with regard to specific
teacher and/or student activities. This stage is also similar to what Van Manen (1977)
referred to as the technical stage, which is concerned with the effective application
of skills and technical knowledge in the classroom setting and in which reflection is
confined to constantly analysing the effects of the skills and strategies used.
At the third stage of an integrated approach, the critical reflection stage, the
teacher, having implemented the activities included in his/her action plan, evaluates
the different choices and alternatives and integrates the newly acquired information
with what he/she already knows and performs. This stage will form the basis for the
formulation of alternative ways of teaching or approaching problems on the part of
the teacher. This stage is also similar to what Van Manen (1977) called the practical
stage, which involves reflecting on the assumptions underlying a specific classroom
practice as well as the consequences and the impact of that practice on pupil learning.
At this final stage, teachers assess the educational implications of their actions and
incorporate new, improved skills into their everyday teaching.
From the above conceptualisation of reflection, it is clear that critical thinking is
necessary, but not sufficient. There needs to be both knowledge and bodies of intel-
lectual and performance skills validated by empirical findings that form the basis for
critical analysis. Without these and the ability to translate the critical analysis into
action in order to improve performance, there is little overt social benefit to be
gained from engagement in critical analysis and reflection approaches. As supported
by earlier studies, teacher reflection does not automatically make an individual a
better teacher (see Zeichner & Liston, 1987, 1996). Without a clearer sense of the
specific quality and content of reflection, its impact can be limited (Zeichner &
Wray, 2001). As Wragg (1993) argues, ‘It is wrong to expect that if the general
development of the teacher is sound, then all teaching skills and competences
will emerge of their own accord. There is now useful literature on teaching skills.
Thesis–Antithesis–Synthesis: The Rationale of Merging the Two Dominant Approaches 49

There are reflections and exercises one can undertake in a positive attempt to
improve the practice of some aspects of teaching’ (p. 192).
These concerns are also confirmed by Amos and Postlethwaite (1996), who
found that a concentrated effort on influencing the quality of teachers’ reflective
practice only resulted in a limited change in their behaviour, other than in the way
they approached lesson planning. Edwards and Brunton’s warning about the ‘ubiquity
of the reflective practitioner’ leading to a ‘degradation of meaning’ (Edwards &
Brunton, 1993, p. 165) should cause us to be careful about placing too much trust in
claims about the benefits of loosely defined reflective practice, despite general
agreement that one characteristic of effective classroom practitioners is their
capacity for thoughtful, intelligent deliberation. The simple guideline of writing
down strengths, weaknesses and suggestions for improving teaching generally is
not sufficient. Reflection on teaching practice does not occur in a vacuum, and
a concrete conceptual framework is needed to direct reflection (Huang, 2008). We
regard this connection as essential for improving teacher training and development
in order to make an impact on teaching skills and student attainment.
The above discussion implies that improvement in teacher effectiveness should
be focused neither on the acquisition of isolated skills/competencies (Gilberts &
Lignugaris-Kraft, 1997) nor on reflection across the whole process of teaching in
order to help teachers obtain ‘greater fulfilment as a practitioner of the art’ (of teaching)
(Clarke & Hollingsworth, 2002, p. 948). The first approach, that is, the CBA,
emphasises that the development of skills (and the implied knowledge) proceeds
gradually, and attempts to use the cognitive load theory to draw conclusions regarding
teacher training and professional development (Feldon, 2007). The second, namely,
the HA, is based on the assumption that an effective teacher cannot simply be
described in terms of certain isolated competencies, which can be learned in a number
of training sessions. It is argued that teacher education should refer to teachers’
personal development which attempts to change not only teacher behaviour but
also their beliefs and attitudes. It is, therefore, supported that the complexity of
classroom and school life demands a more rigorous, comprehensive and flexible
approach to teacher training and professional development rather than simply training
teachers to develop and master specific teaching skills.
In this chapter, it is argued that the two dominant approaches could be integrated
into a dynamic approach in order to overcome their main weaknesses. Emphasis in
teacher training and professional development on either one without considering the
other is likely to fail. The integration of such elements in teacher training and
professional development has been supported by previous studies. For example,
Wragg (1993, p. 193) argues ‘Nor should the study and development of classroom
skills be seen as in opposition to other forms of training. Some emphasis on specific
skills in an initial training course, in school-based in-service programmes of profes-
sional development, in the training of mentors or appraisers, does not replace other
forms of reflection and practice, but rather works in harmony with them.’ Likewise,
Hextall, Lawn, Menter, Sidgwick and Walker (1991, p. 15), argue that although
‘teaching is not reducible to a set of technical operations’, they are not running
away from the issue of the systematic appraisal and development of teaching
50 4 Going Beyond the Classical Dichotomy Related to the Content…

competences and skills. Moreover, Hutchinson (1994) refers to the ‘flexible definition
and redefinition of the complex situations in which class teachers work’ (p. 311) as
a warning against placing an over-reliance on mechanistic approaches such as the
competency-based approaches and stresses the need for intelligent reflection to aid
professional growth. However, it is important to note that at the same time he refuses
to accept that reliance upon reflective practice alone will somehow transform inertia
into sparkling professionalism (see Chown, 1994). This is why a combination of
teaching skills, which have been found to be positively related to student achieve-
ment, and critical reflection upon these skills is necessary.
The attempt to integrate elements of the two dominant approaches in teacher
training and professional development could also have greater potential to connect
reflection and action initiatives to maximise improvement. An important aim of any
training and/or professional development activity should be to facilitate the process
whereby the inner levels of theoretical knowledge of research findings concerning
teacher effectiveness, which refer to types of teacher behaviour, influence the outer
levels of teaching practice. In other words, what matters is developing effective
teaching behaviour, and, to that end, it is vital that teachers are not only cognitively
aware of the theoretical knowledge related to each teaching skill or competence
but that they take the step leading towards conscious decisions to make use of
this knowledge and then carry out those decisions effectively in their classrooms.
This procedure is significant since one main criticism of the holistic or reflective
approach is that although reflection is high on the agenda of teacher education, it has
often not been connected to practice (Kaasila & Lauriala, 2012). At the same time,
many models of reflection are in fact phase models describing the reflection
process, and they make no pronouncements on questions related to the content
of reflection in terms of behaviours or skills on which teachers could reflect in
their efforts to bring about improvement. As Johnston (2007) argues, like all skills,
teaching should be developed through practice underpinned by theory, research
and reflection, which is why teacher training is very specific about the need for
both trainees and practising teachers to reflect on and use their developing skills.
In addition, although each teacher is expected to develop his/her own strategies and
action plans for improvement, it is acknowledged that to do so effectively, support
should be provided to teachers by the A&RTeam. This team, consisting of researchers
on school effectiveness and teacher professional development, would be in a
position to make available knowledge about how to improve the functioning of
factors addressed by each teacher and his/her technical expertise. This issue is further
elaborated in Chap. 8, which describes a dynamic approach to teacher training and
professional development.
In addition, both teaching skills and reflection on those skills should be differen-
tiated to meet the professional needs and developmental priorities of different
groups of teachers. The assumption used in the dynamic approach to teacher
training and professional development, presented in Part III of this book, is that
something which is relevant for one teacher might not be relevant for another.
Each teacher could have different priorities in their efforts to improve, and programmes
should be structured according to the circumstances and the participants’ professional
Characteristics of Effective Teacher Training and Professional Development Programmes 51

needs. In this sense, evaluation of results, based on validated theoretical frameworks,

can supplement the process of reflection by helping teachers to determine which
skills they need to concentrate on in their efforts to improve. As for proposed
integration between the two dominant approaches, it might be expected that
those teacher-learner characteristics which provide a basis for entry to the course
would be identified in greater detail through evaluation mechanisms, thereby
facilitating a common understanding of the skills, knowledge and attitudes which
the participating teachers bring to the course and providing a foundation upon
which the developmental programme could be built. Such an approach might be of
particular benefit in relation to teacher professional development programmes for
teachers with some working experience, who bring a wide range of skills, knowl-
edge and understanding which need to be assessed if courses are to be devised to
meet their needs.
This is important, as often in teacher professional development programmes the
individual development needs have been neglected, unless they were in an area that
was designated a school priority. For example, McMahon (1999), reporting on the
findings of a Leverhulme-funded study of teachers’ perceptions of the provision of
professional development, conducted in four local education authorities in the UK,
found that the professional development days were often not well used, and the
content and level were often judged to be inappropriate by the participating teachers.
From this perspective, professional development should be linked to the teacher
evaluation process and results. One of the most difficult challenges is not designing
a new system of teacher appraisal, nor refining an old one, but sustaining a climate
in which effective formative teacher evaluation serves to encourage teachers to
develop action plans for their professional growth and continuous improvement
(Beall, 1999). A similar argument is raised by Guskey (2000) when he supports the
idea that the teachers’ professional performance review needs to be linked to their
personalised professional development plan.

Characteristics of Effective Teacher Training

and Professional Development Programmes

Based on reviews of teacher training and professional development programmes

(Blank & de las Alas, 2009; Borko, Jacobs & Koellner, 2010; Clewell, Campbell
& Perlman, 2004; Desimone, 2009; Hawley & Valli, 1999; Kennedy, 1998;
Timperley, Wilson, Barrar & Fung, 2007; Van Veen, Zwart & Meirink, 2011), this
section provides a description of the main characteristics on which effective teacher
professional development programmes should be based. In addition, direct or indirect
reference is made to key elements of merging the two dominant approaches, the
rationale for which has been explained previously. The research findings have
revealed that professional development is more effective if the teacher has an
active role in constructing knowledge (teacher as action researcher), collaborates
with colleagues (collective critical reflection), the content relates to, and is situated
52 4 Going Beyond the Classical Dichotomy Related to the Content…

in, the daily teaching practice (emphasis on teaching skills), the content is differentiated
to meet individual developmental needs (linked with formative evaluation results)
and the possibilities and limitations of the workplace are taken into account. These
characteristics are further elaborated below, and their implications for developing
teacher training and professional development programmes are also discussed.

The Content of the Programme Should Have a Clear Focus on

Specific Skills Which Are Linked to the Daily Teaching and Have
Been Found to Be Positively Related to Student Progress

As with all skill learning, regardless of whether it involves performance skills or

cognitive skills, there is a need for programmes that help participants to acquire the
desired skills (Cornford, 1996). In this chapter, we argue that we need to stop assum-
ing that all teachers are in possession of effective cognitive skills, which will enable
them to develop their teaching skills naturally and without the need for teaching and
learning which addresses their specific needs in terms of developing teaching skills
and competences. This attempt is supported by Desimone, Porter, Garet, Yoon, and
Birman (2002), arguing that focusing on specific teaching practices in professional
development increases teachers’ use of those practices in the classroom and thus
students’ learning. That is not to deny in any way that thinking and critical analysis
are important, as explained in the previous section of this chapter. The issue is
how to encourage such critical thinking, while at the same time building a solid
foundation of teaching skills, validated by research findings and connected to student
outcomes, which have been neglected in the holistic-reflective paradigm.
Nevertheless, the selection of these skills and practices is also crucial as teachers
or teacher professional development programmes’ administrators, in their efforts to
bring about improvement, have an infinite number of possible alternatives on which
to concentrate their focus and actions. Justifications for the particular competences
selected also seem to vary, while there is often a lack of clarity about the relation-
ship between different types of competences (Whitty & Willmott, 1991). As Hayes
(1997, p. 170) argues, ‘We need to be clear about how we define competence;
whether it is right to speak of one competence, two competences, three competences
etc.’ Although the specific competences employed in course design can be derived
from a variety of sources, such as the various task analyses of teaching, attempts to
specify the attributes of the teacher as professional or even competences specified
by external agencies, we need to be in a position to justify this selection on the basis
of research findings. This is why we need to develop or utilise validated theoretical
frameworks, drawing on EER, which could guide teacher educators by focusing on
groups of teaching skills that have been found to be related to student learning,
while at the same time facilitating teachers’ attempts to improve the skills they most
need to enhance their effectiveness (Whitty & Willmott, 1991; Sharpe, 1997). From
this perspective, it is argued that results from validated models of educational
effectiveness, describing teacher behaviour and skills that have been found to have
Characteristics of Effective Teacher Training and Professional Development Programmes 53

a positive effect upon student outcomes, should be utilised in defining the content of
teacher professional development programmes. This argument is further elaborated
in the second part of this book, in which the dynamic approach to teacher training
and professional development is described in detail.

The Content of the Training Programme Should Be Differentiated

so as to Meet the Participants’ Different Priorities for Improvement
and to Address Contextual Issues Influencing Quality of Teaching

The use of a valid framework, as mentioned above, on the basis of which the content
of the training programme is to be selected and formulated, cannot in itself ensure
that the programme will be effective and will improve the quality of teaching of all
participating teachers. In this chapter, we also argue that not only should a theory-
driven approach be followed to improve quality of teaching, but emphasis should
also be placed on collecting data in order to identify the teaching needs and priori-
ties for improvement for different groups of participants, thereby facilitating the
design of relevant improvement efforts with differentiated content and focus.
In practice, teachers seem to consider new initiatives on their individual merits,
particularly in relation to how they will benefit classroom teaching (Corkindale &
Trorey, 2002). Teachers have turned away from competency-based or holistic
professional development approaches, which are not seen to have ready relevance
to, and application in, the classroom and are not geared to teachers’ needs (Ayres,
Dinham & Sawyer, 2000; Dinham, Brennan, Collier, Deece & Mulford, 2000). As
Scott and Dinham (2002, p. 112) argue, ‘The pendulum is now swinging with qual-
ity of teaching becoming a major focus in the educational systems of many coun-
tries responding to teacher demands for professional development that matters in
their everyday tasks and activities.’
Data should also be collected in relation to the context, in which the participating
teachers operate. This is important, as several researchers argue (e.g. Imants & van
Veen, 2010; Little, 2006; Smylie, 1995), since most professional development research
hardly takes the condition of the daily workplace into account, although these condi-
tions strongly influence the opportunities, limitations and the overall contribution of
the professional development programmes. No single strategy will always work in
every school, for every teacher, all of the time. Local customisation is necessary for
the success of programmes of teacher learning or professional development (Fishman,
Marx, Best & Tal, 2003). Many professional development programmes customise
their content and include several strategies in one intervention, for example, a work-
shop that supports formal learning combined with teacher coaching or planning time
with colleagues. Providing continuous support while teachers are making changes,
either in the form of a series of workshops or informal collegial support, or both, is
essential, since a number of recent studies suggest that the duration of professional
development is related to the depth of teacher change (Shields, Marsh & Adelman,
1998; Weiss, Montgomery, Ridgway & Bond, 1998).
54 4 Going Beyond the Classical Dichotomy Related to the Content…

At this point, it should be acknowledged that teaching occurs in particular

contexts: particular students interacting with particular teachers over particular
ideas in particular circumstances. Teachers need to learn ‘in and from practice’
(Ball & Cohen, 1999), which allows other important components of effective pro-
fessional development to occur. Firstly, it gives teachers time to collaborate with
other teachers and school colleagues. Secondly, it allows more sustained learning
and professional development to occur since it becomes part of the work rather than
‘an additional’ aspect of it. And thirdly, it allows work to be well integrated in a very
meaningful, concrete way that addresses specific problems teachers have in their
own classrooms. The importance of grounding teacher training and learning in
ongoing practice in teachers’ specific educational contexts is a necessary component
of developing their expertise (Putnam & Borko, 2000).
The need to develop an evidence-based training approach is based on the
assumption that different groups of teaches will have different priorities for improve-
ment. This is also supported by research relating to the developmental stage theories
of teacher progression and competence. Over the past three decades, cognitive
psychology has produced a range of models of how people develop expert skills in
professions such as teaching, music, law and management (e.g. Berliner, 1994;
Billett, 2001; Ericsson & Smith, 1991; Hoffman, 1992; Sternberg & Ben-Zeev,
2001; Sternberg et al., 2000). Although these models vary with respect to both the
number of stages that must be passed through and the nature of each stage, all have
fixed sequences of stages representing successively higher levels of knowledge and
skills acquisition. For instance, some empirical studies distinguish novice and expert
stages in terms of extent and complexity of knowledge structures (e.g. Berliner,
1994; Carter, Cushing, Sabers, Stein & Berliner, 1988; Chi, Feltovich & Glaser,
1981; Feiman-Nemser & Remillard, 1996; Livingston & Borko, 1989). The theory
suggested by these models holds that the teachers must pass through a number of
periods or stages of development. Failure to respect the integrity of each stage and
to allow sufficient time for its fulfilment will result in subsequent problems.
From this perspective, we probably need to think about the scope and sequence
of teacher education experiences in the same way and with the same care that we
develop scope and sequence guides for students from kindergarten to twelfth grade.
Decision-making, priority setting and other aspects demonstrating personal control
over the environment are characteristic of the developmental stage of the compe-
tent teacher, rather than that of a novice. The question that must be raised while
teacher educators struggle to develop reflective practitioners, sensible decision-
makers and proficient problem-solvers, is whether those are proper goals for more
experienced or more effective teachers. As Hayes (1997) argues, some prioritising,
ranking or grouping of teaching skills is inevitable since the successful acquisition
of every single competence at the same time is unattainable, although this is sup-
ported by some programmes which take the extreme position of the CBA. The
research on the development of expertise suggests that we have not recognised the
limitations of the novice and the potential for growth of the advanced beginner and
competent teacher as we develop teacher education programmes. However, all the
Characteristics of Effective Teacher Training and Professional Development Programmes 55

stages are of fundamental importance to the professional development of teachers,

and educators must be capable of intervening at all stages, if they are to achieve the
best possible results.

The Programme Should Provide Opportunities for Active

Participation and Engagement of the Teachers and Provision
of Feedback for Each Teacher

Another core feature of effective professional development programmes concerns

the opportunities provided for teachers to become actively engaged in meaningful
discussion and planning and to practise and implement the new knowledge and
skills in their everyday teaching (see, e.g. Lieberman, 1996; Loucks-Horsely,
Hewson, Love & Stiles, 1998). For teachers, the effectiveness of professional devel-
opment initiatives depends heavily on the conditions in which opportunities for
development actually result in changes in classroom practice (Christie & O’Brien,
2005). Based on evaluation evidence relating to their needs, teachers, in collabora-
tion with the A&RTeam, need to be involved in identifying and setting their indi-
vidual and more specific goals for inclusion in the programme: furthermore, they
should participate in choosing the content and the design of the professional devel-
opment intervention that could best meet these developmental needs (Hawley &
Valli, 1999). This is why a combination of teaching skills found to be positively
related to student achievement should be selected, while at the same time, critical
reflection upon the current state of each teacher in terms of these skills should be
systematically encouraged and promoted.
This is also related to the argument that teachers participating in teacher
professional development programmes seek empowerment (Corkindale & Trorey,
2002). Many want to be involved in the decision-making which affects the quality
of their teaching. However, staff development, as Fullan (1992) has suggested, has
a history of doing things to teachers rather than with the teachers. Taking the above
into consideration, we argue that effective professional development programmes
should provide training based on ‘active teaching’ and should not be restricted only
to lecturing. This will provide the participating teachers with the chance to report
teaching practices and comment on them, to identify effective and non-effective
teaching practices, to understand the significance of specific types of skill which
correspond to their developmental stage and to comprehend how these are linked to
effective teaching and learning. From this perspective, special emphasis should be
placed on teachers as action researchers.
Action research refers to the application of social science methods to practical
problems of everyday teaching with the goals of contributing to theory and knowl-
edge in education and improving teaching practice. According to Somekh (1995,
p. 340), action research is designed ‘to bridge the gap between research and
practice, thereby striving to overcome the perceived failure of research to impact on
56 4 Going Beyond the Classical Dichotomy Related to the Content…

and improve practice’. It is worth mentioning that the term was first used by Kurt
Lewin in the 1940s. More recently, educators have framed action research as inquiry
conducted by practitioners with the help of a consultant and/or expert. The following
four characteristics have been attributed to action research: (1) it is collaborative,
(2) it addresses practical classroom problems, (3) it reinforces professional develop-
ment and (4) it requires a specialised structure to ensure both time and support for
the research initiative.
In this context, Oja and Smulyan (1989) have examined action research as a new
role taken on by teachers. Using a cognitive-developmental framework, they inves-
tigated how action research projects could transform teacher thinking, empathy and
perspectives. Their Action Research on Change in Schools project (ARCS) is an
extensive multicase study that analyses key elements of effective collaborative
action research. They used the theory of group dynamics and adult development
to explain how individual teacher researchers and groups develop. Their findings
‘suggest that the type and quality of collaborative action research are dependent on
the developmental stages of the teachers involved’ (Oja & Smulyan, 1989, p. 136).
Thus, the ARCS project is yet another study that examines how a teacher’s stage of
development may influence his or her personal and professional development, as
commented on previously in this section.
However, it is important at this stage to clarify a difference between the tradi-
tional action research approach, as has been put forwards by supporters of the HA
(see Chap. 3), and the approach proposing an integration of the holistic with the
competency-based approaches. In particular, although each teacher is treated as a
professional responsible for designing his/her own action plan and implementing
his/her own improvement strategies, teachers are not left alone to design and imple-
ment their strategies and actions, but are encouraged to make use of the expertise
and knowledge of the A&RTeam and any other available resource within and/or
outside the school. In such an integrated approach, teachers are the ones to take
decisions relating to the improvement actions and tasks to be designed and imple-
mented. By doing so, not only is ownership of the improvement effort established,
but the teachers’ experiences and the context of the school and classroom are also
taken into account (Muijs, 2008). At the same time, the A&RTeam has an important
role to play in designing teachers’ improvement strategies. The A&RTeam is
expected to share its expertise and knowledge with practitioners and help them
develop strategies and action plans that are in line with the relevant knowledge base
of effective teaching. This element of an integrated approach to teacher professional
development reveals its main difference from the traditional approaches regarding
teachers as action researchers, which are based on the assumption that teachers
should develop their own strategies and action plans based only on their reflections
on their or other colleagues’ past experiences.
From this perspective, in an integrated approach to teacher professional develop-
ment, with the supervision and guidance of the A&RTeam, each teacher develops
his/her own action plan to meet his/her individual needs as identified from the
evaluation results, within a validated framework of teaching skills and as discussed
with each participant. Important parts of an action plan are a statement of the teaching
skills the teacher aims to improve, specific actions the teacher will undertake in this
Characteristics of Effective Teacher Training and Professional Development Programmes 57

direction, the resources needed in order to undertake the proposed courses of action
(e.g. materials, rooms, equipment) and, finally, evaluation of the whole process.
In the evaluation section, teachers could make use of various techniques and methods
for gathering evidence of the effectiveness of their action plans, such as keeping a
reflective diary. Teachers could also ask their pupils to keep diaries. As Brophy and
Good (1986) argue, this enables the teacher to compare his or her experience of the
situation with that of the pupils. Moreover, opportunities for active learning can take
a number of forms, including the opportunity to observe expert teachers and to be
observed teaching; to plan how new curriculum materials and new teaching methods
will be used in the classroom; to review student work in the topic areas being covered;
and to lead discussions and engage in written work (Carey & Frechtling, 1997;
Darling-Hammond, 1997; Lieberman, 1996). In addition, other teachers at the school
of the participating teacher could act as outside observers (e.g. critical friends or peer
coaches) in order to collect information and convey it to the teacher in a variety of
ways, such as making video recording and showing the teacher excerpts they feel to
be significant, making detailed notes as they observe and using these as the basis for
a short report for the teacher to read or holding informal conversations.
After the development of the teachers’ initial action plans, systematic meetings
at frequent time intervals should be organised. This would allow the teachers
sufficient time to implement the activities included in their action plans and also to
reflect on the effectiveness of these activities. Additionally, in those meetings, teachers
with the assistance and guidance of the A&RTeam would have the opportunity to
revise and develop further their action plans based on their own and others’ experiences
and on the relevant research literature. At the same time, the teachers should receive
systematic feedback and more suggestions from the research team related to their
individual priorities for improvement.

The Programme Should Provide Opportunities for Collaboration

and Networking Among Teachers in the Same School,
the Same Class or Teaching the Same Subject

Another characteristic of effective professional development programmes is collec-

tive participation and learning, a feature closely related to active learning. Besides
individual reflection, collective reflection can be a fruitful tool for enriching and
widening a person’s thinking, especially since teachers’ work conditions are often
claimed to support individualism and privacy. This refers to collaborations between
teachers and the development of critical networks in the same school, grade or
department. The underlying assumption is that the group-based management structure
could utilise the accumulated experience and knowledge of the team to facilitate
improvement. As Desimone (2009) argues, ‘Such arrangements set up potential
interaction and discourse, which can be a powerful form of teacher learning’ (p. 184).
In addition, there needs to be a shared and collective responsibility on the part
of the teachers for their own professional development. Research on teacher
learning communities has typically explored features of professional development
58 4 Going Beyond the Classical Dichotomy Related to the Content…

programmes, such as the establishment and maintenance of communication norms

and trust, as well as the collaborative interactions that occur when groups of teachers
work together to examine and improve their practice. This research provides evidence
that ‘strong professional development communities are important contributors
to instructional improvement and school reform’ (Little, 2002, p. 936). Grossman,
Wineburg and Woolworth’s (2001) insights into teacher community suggest a
conceptual explanation for these findings. They argue that we cannot expect teachers
to create a community of learners among students if they do not have a parallel
community to nourish their own growth. Copeland, Birmingham, De La Cruz, and
Lewin (1993), for instance, emphasise the social nature of reflection. The reflective
content and level of thinking represent an individual’s interpretation of the roles
and teaching skills which are available to him or her within the particular situation
and which may be generated as individual solutions to practical problems.
In this sense, individual reflection may be more like personal interpretive hypotheses.
It needs to be shared and negotiated with colleagues so that teachers can reinforce
one another. The sharing of reflection gives teachers the opportunity to come together
in collegial groups and reflect together on their work. The underlying rationale is
that collaborative efforts are more powerful and could increase an individual’s sense
of satisfaction and motivation. A group of teachers can meet together to identify
problems, share information and determine appropriate action regarding different
dimensions of teaching practice. For example, Elbaz (1988), in her experiences with
teachers examining their own knowledge, initially found that ‘autobiographical
writing, combined with other types of writing, work on metaphors and imagery, and
group discussion, enhanced teachers’ awareness of their situations’ (p. 180). Later,
she found that it was important for teachers to generate and exchange different
views in a group process and to envisage concrete alternative courses of action if
they are to become self-sustaining in the reflective process.
Nevertheless, although teachers generally welcome the opportunity to discuss
ideas and materials related to their work, and conversations in professional develop-
ment settings are easily fostered, discussions that support critical examination of
teaching are relatively rare (Ball, 1994; McLaughlin & Talbert, 2001; Putnam &
Borko, 1997; Wilson & Berne, 1999). As Britzman (1986) argued a long time ago,
collaboration and collective efforts are not customary in teachers’ workplaces, and
to change this culture, collective action and reflection should be cultivated in teacher
education and training. The improvement effort may have better results if is to be
reviewed as a whole-school process, rather than by each teacher in isolation. In this
context, Zwart, Wubbels, Bergen, and Bolhuis (2009) point out, in relation to peer
coaching (Joyce & Showers, 1995), the significance of a safe learning culture
and collaborative climate in the school. Such conversations must occur, however, if
teachers are to explore collectively ways of improving their teaching and support
one another as they work to transform their practice. To foster such discussions,
tutors in the teacher professional development programme must help teachers to
establish trust, develop communication norms that enable critical dialogue and
maintain a balance between respecting individual community members and critically
analysing issues in their teaching (Frykholm, 1998; Seago, 2004).
Characteristics of Effective Teacher Training and Professional Development Programmes 59

The Programme Should Last for a Sufficient Period of Time

Another important element of effective professional development programmes is

their duration. Research has shown that on-off professional development workshops
are not typically aligned with the participants’ existing practices, needs and priori-
ties for improvement and do not reliably lead to changes in classroom teaching
(Loucks-Horsley et al., 1998). In addition, a number of recent studies have suggested
that the duration of professional development is related to the depth of teacher
change (Shields, Marsh & Adelman, 1998; Weiss et al., 1998). Desimone (2009)
supports the view that ‘research shows that intellectual and pedagogical change
requires professional development activities to be of sufficient duration, including
both span of time over which the activity is spread and the number of hours spent in
the activity’ (p. 184). Depending on the type of the activity, it is not always easy to
identify the optimal point of a programme’s duration. Findings from the review by
Yoon, Garet, Birman, and Jacobson (2007) support a duration of at least 14 h;
Desimone (2009) suggests a minimum of 20 h, while Supovitz and Turner (2000)
state that a minimum of 80 h of training is necessary for teacher behavioural change
to occur. Of course, we need to acknowledge that identifying the optimum point in
determining a programme’s duration is crucial, since research also indicates that too
many hours of professional development can be ineffective (Telese, 2008). This
principle is also in line with the stage dimension of the dynamic model, explained
in the second part of this book. According to the stage dimension, by giving extended
duration to a developmental programme, teachers can implement and practise the
new skills more frequently and on a systematic basis throughout the school year
(Creemers & Kyriakides, 2006).
In addition, issues related to the sustainability of the intervention (Desimone,
2009; Yoon et al., 2007) are important in determining its effectiveness. On-off,
short-term interventions might be less effective than long-term interventions
combined with sustained follow-up support, such as coaching at the workplace,
follow-up sessions and the provision of continuous support for teacher networking.
For example, a study by Dadds (1991) illustrates how in-service experience takes
time to be incorporated into classroom practice and that, given time, it can begin to
influence the thinking and practice of other teachers of the same group.

The Programme Impact on Teaching Skills

and Student Achievement Should Be Evaluated

Another conclusion drawn from the literature review is that despite the number of
studies on teacher professional development, the majority of these do not measure
the impact of different approaches and programmes on student learning outcomes
(Cochran-Smith & Zeichner, 2005). Few rigorous studies have addressed the effect of
professional development on student achievement (e.g. Antoniou & Kyriakides, 2011;
60 4 Going Beyond the Classical Dichotomy Related to the Content…

Borko, 2004; Clewell et al., 2004; Kennedy, 1998; Killion, 1999; Loucks-Horsley
& Matsumoto, 1999; Supovitz, 2001). At the same time, there is more literature on
the effects of professional development on teacher learning and teaching practice;
however, these fall short of demonstrating effects on student achievement (Garet
et al., 2001). In this context, while those responsible for professional development
have generally assumed a strong and direct relationship between professional devel-
opment and improvements in student learning, few have been able to describe the
precise nature of that relationship (Guskey & Sparks, 2002). Likewise, according to
an extensive review by Van Veen, Zwart and Meirink (2011), only a limited num-
ber of studies have focused on the relation between professional development inter-
ventions and student results (e.g. Antoniou & Kyriakides, 2011; Borko, 2004; Little,
2006; Loucks-Horsley & Matsumoto, 1999). Nevertheless, improvement pro-
grammes should be introduced only when they have been systematically evaluated
using designs that demonstrate their impact on quality of education (Slavin, 2002).
In this respect, in order to implement any professional development programme at
the regional or national level, there needs to be empirical evidence supporting the
effectiveness of the programme in terms of student outcomes.
However, teacher professional development programmes are usually evaluated
on the basis of summarising the activities undertaken as part of the professional
development programme: what courses were attended, how many credits accrued,
etc. This clearly gives no indication of the effectiveness of the activities undertaken,
making this form of data collection inadequate as a means of looking at the effects
of the programme (Nicolaidou & Petridou, 2011). Where some evaluation does
exist, this usually takes the form of participant satisfaction questionnaires. Obviously,
such questionnaires allow one to gauge whether participants considered the event
to have been enjoyable and successful, but does not engage with issues such as
gains in knowledge, or changes in teaching practice as a result of participating in the
professional development programme, and certainly does not evaluate whether
there have been changes in student outcomes. For example, in a study of teacher
professional development activities in England, Edmonds and Lee (2002) found
that in most cases, evaluation took the form of a feedback questionnaire that was
completed by teachers, including questions on delivery, content and whether they
felt the course had met its objectives. Follow-up was unusual, with actual effects on
teaching and learning being very rarely studied.
Nevertheless and beyond the current limitations, Guskey (2000) distinguishes a
hierarchy of five levels of impact. These levels are hierarchically arranged from
simple to complex, that is, each successive level of evaluation is more complex than
the previous one. The first three levels of this model relate to participants’ reactions
to, and satisfaction with, the programme, participants’ knowledge and organisational
support and change. The final two levels of this model are considered by Guskey
to be the hardest to achieve and at the same time the most important. In particular,
level 4 refers to the evaluation of the participants’ use of new knowledge and skills.
The extent to which such knowledge and skills have made a difference in participants’
professional practice is the focus of evaluation at this level. This analysis should be
based upon predetermined, clear indicators of both the degree and the quality of
Characteristics of Effective Teacher Training and Professional Development Programmes 61

implementation. Finally, the fifth and top level in the evaluation of professional
development programmes continuum is the evaluation of student learning outcomes.
Therefore, a range of evaluative approaches is needed that match Guskey’s levels
and have the potential to provide meaningful formative and summative feedback for
teachers, school principals and policy-makers at the system level. Employing a
more comprehensive approach to evaluating the outcomes and the impact of teacher
professional development programmes, and aiming to identify changes in teacher
perceptions, teaching skills and student outcomes might reveal important information
related to the effectiveness of these programmes and assist policy-makers in taking
informed decisions regarding improvement.
Summing up, in this chapter, it is proposed that an integrated approach, which
merges key elements of the two dominant approaches to teacher training and profes-
sional development, is needed to overcome their main weaknesses. In this context,
it has also been argued that research on teacher training and professional development
should utilise the main findings of EER. By establishing links between these two
fields, both of them could have mutual benefits. In particular, research on teacher
professional development could expand its research agenda by taking into consider-
ation the impact of effective programmes on student outcomes, and at the same
time, EER could identify the extent to which its validated theoretical models could
be used for improvement purposes. In this way, stronger links between research,
policy and improvement of teaching practice could be established.
In summary, the first part of this book has provided a critical review of research
on teacher training and professional development. It has been shown that this field
of research has been dominated by two different and somewhat opposing approaches:
the CBA and the HA. These two approaches have been described in Chaps. 2 and 3,
respectively, and their strengths and weaknesses are discussed. In this chapter, it is
argued that we may have to guard ourselves against confining the discussion to this
classical dichotomy relating to content and develop an integrated approach to
teacher professional development that will focus on the improvement of grouping of
teacher factors. For this purpose, not should only reflection and understanding of
practice be encouraged, but research on teacher effectiveness should also be taken
into account. In the second part of this book, a critical review of TER is provided.
Thus, the following chapters refer to the main phases of TER, the main teaching
approaches, such as the direct teaching and mastery learning approaches and those
associated with constructivism. It is also shown that current models of educational
effectiveness adopt an integrated approach in defining quality of teaching by refer-
ring to factors associated with student achievement, irrespective of the fact that they
belong to one or another teaching approach. It is finally argued that another
significant limitation of this field of research is that the whole process of seeking to
identify for teacher effectiveness factors had no significant impact upon teacher
training and professional development. For this reason, the proposed dynamic
approach to teacher training and professional development is discussed in the third
part of this book.
 Part II
Main Foundations of Research
on Teacher Effectiveness

The second part provides a critical review of teacher effectiveness research.

The main phases of teacher effectiveness research and their findings are presented
in Chap. 5. It is shown that teacher factors are presented as being in opposition to
one another. Thus, in Chap. 6, we refer to the main teaching approaches, such as
direct teaching, mastery learning and the approaches associated with constructivism.
In Chap. 7, it is shown that current models of educational effectiveness adopt an
integrated approach in defining quality of teaching and refer to factors associated
with student achievement, irrespective of the fact that they belong to different
teaching approaches. It is finally argued that another significant limitation of teacher
effectiveness research is that the whole process of attempting to identify teacher
effectiveness factors has not been able to make a significant impact upon teacher
training and professional development. For this reason, the proposed dynamic
approach to teacher training and professional development is elaborated in the third
part of this book.
Chapter 5
Establishing the Field of Teacher Effectiveness
Research: Moving from Investigating Personal
Characteristics of Teachers to Understanding
Effective Teaching Practices

Introduction

EER reveals that the teacher is an important component of the school effect upon
students’ progress (Scheerens & Bosker, 1997). A number of studies on effective
schools have revealed that the classroom level is more influential than the school
level, when examining students’ performance (Hextall & Mahony, 1998; Kyriakides,
Campbell & Gagatsis, 2000; Muijs & Reynolds, 2000; Wright, Horn & Sanders,
1997; Yair, 1997). Students’ academic outcomes are more heavily dependent on the
procedures and activities carried out in the classroom, than on those carried out at
the school level. In fact, without effective teacher guidance and instruction in the
classroom, learning and progress cannot be achieved (Creemers, 1997; Munro,
1999; Oser, Dick & Patry, 1992; Scheerens & Bosker, 1997). Caldwell and Spinks
(1993) also argue that while organisational aspects of schools provide the necessary
preconditions for effective teaching, it is the quality of teacher-student interactions
that principally determines student progress. In this context, this chapter is an attempt
to provide a critical review of research into teacher effectiveness. It is shown that
during the last century, we have gradually moved from studies focusing on the
teacher as a role model for his/her students, to studies aiming to understand effec-
tive teaching practices that promote student learning and learning outcomes. One
of the major contributions of this field of research is that some assumptions about
the importance of personal characteristics of teachers, such as teacher personality
and experience, for student learning are not empirically supported, whereas the
importance of teacher behaviour in the classroom has been demonstrated. However,
it is acknowledged that studies on teacher effectiveness have presented the teacher
factors as being in opposition to one another. In this way, a narrowly focused
perspective of effective teaching practice has been provided.

B. Creemers et al., Teacher Professional Development for Improving 65

Quality of Teaching, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-5207-8_5,
© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
66 5 Establishing the Field of Teacher Effectiveness Research…

Research into Teacher Effectiveness: Major Findings

Brophy and Good (1986) argue that research on effective teaching was slow to
develop because of historical influences on the conceptualisation and measurement
of teacher effectiveness. Medley (1979) identified five successive conceptions of the
effective teacher: (a) possessor of desirable personal traits, (b) user of effective
methods, (c) creator of a good classroom atmosphere, (d) master of a repertoire of
competencies and (e) professional decision-maker who has not only mastered
required competencies but also learned when to apply them and how to orchestrate
them. Table 5.1 provides a summary of the characteristics of effective teachers,
identified by the various phases of TER. More information regarding studies inves-
tigating the impact of these factors upon teacher effectiveness is provided below.

Table 5.1 The main factors associated with effective teacher examined by each phase of research
into teacher effectiveness
Studies on teacher effectiveness Factors examined
Presage–product studies Psychological characteristics
(a) Personality characteristics
(b) Attitude
(c) Experience
(d) Aptitude/achievement
Process-product model Teacher behaviour
(a) Quantity of academic activity
Quantity and pacing of instruction: Effective teachers
prioritise academic instruction and maximise amount of
curriculum covered but at the same time move in such
steps that each new objective is learnt readily and
without frustration
Classroom management: Effective teachers organise and
manage classroom environment as an efficient learning
environment, and thereby, engagement rates are
maximised
Actual teaching process: Students should spend most of
their time being taught or supervised by their teachers
rather than working on their own, and most of teacher
talk should be academic rather than managerial or
procedural
(b) Quality of teacher’s organised lessons
Giving information: The variables which were examined
referred to structuring and clarity of presentation
Asking questions: The variables which were examined
referred to the cognitive level of question, the type of
question (i.e. product vs. process questions), the clarity
of question and the length of pause following questions
Providing feedback: The variables which were examined
referred to the way teachers monitor students’
responses and how they react to correct, partly correct
or incorrect answers
Practice and application opportunities
(continued)
Research into Teacher Effectiveness: Major Findings 67

Table 5.1 (continued)

Studies on teacher effectiveness Factors examined
(c) Classroom climate
Businesslike and supportive environment
Beyond-classroom (a) Subject knowledge
behaviour model (b) Knowledge of pedagogy
(c) Teacher’s beliefs
(d) Teacher’s self-efficacy

Presage–Product Studies: The Early Phase of TER

Early studies concerned with teachers’ personal traits led to presage–product studies
and to an attempt to identify the psychological characteristics of an effective teacher,
such as personality characteristics (e.g. permissiveness, dogmatism, directness and
anxiety), even though gradually characteristics more related to education, like attitude
(e.g. motivation to teach, empathy towards children and commitment), experience
(e.g. years of teaching experience, experience in the subjects and in grade level
taught) and aptitude/achievement (e.g. professional recommendations, student
teaching evaluations), were also studied.
Although this approach produced some consensus on virtues considered
desirable in teachers, no information on the relations between these psychological
factors and student performance was provided (Borich, 1992; Rosenshine & Furst,
1973). In addition, even if some personality characteristics, such as emotional
stability or the way teachers deal with problems, are probably important for effective
teaching, there are no clear findings on which emotional or social characteristics, as
measured by personality tests, are actually essential. With regard to attitudes, the
fundamental problem is that teachers’ attitudes do not give much information as to
their actual classroom behaviours (Walberg, 1986). It is more problematic to measure
teacher attitudes in relation to effective teaching in a valid way than it is directly to
observe teacher behaviour that supposedly reflects attitudes. Teaching experience is
also too global a characteristic to be used to distinguish effective teachers. Research
shows that experience with specific curricula is more important than general teaching
experience (e.g. Schoen, Cebulla, Finn & Fi, 2003; Slavin, Lake & Groff, 2009).
Relationships between experience, achievement rates and the abilities of teachers,
on the one hand, and effective teaching, on the other hand, are weak and not very
meaningful with respect to actual classroom behaviour (Kyriakides, Campbell &
Christofidou, 2002).
Therefore, research has concentrated on the question of what an effective teacher
might be in terms of student knowledge and skills development. This research tradition
acknowledges the importance of teacher characteristics for teaching, but research
during the past four decades has ceased to concentrate on these ‘good qualities’ of
teachers. Actual teacher behaviour in classrooms was described, and a search began
for the behavioural characteristics of effective teachers.
68 5 Establishing the Field of Teacher Effectiveness Research…

The Process-Product Studies

The subsequent focus produced experimental studies attempting to investigate

the impact of specific teaching methods upon student achievement. However, the
majority of these studies produced inconclusive results because the differences
between teaching methods were not significant enough to produce meaningful
differences in student achievement (Medley, 1979). Furthermore, the significant
differences that did appear tended to contradict one another (Borich, 1992). In addition,
the 1950s and 1960s brought concern about creating a good classroom climate
and about the teaching competencies involved in producing student achievement.
This led to an emphasis on measurement of teacher behaviour through systematic
observation and, by 1970, to a proliferation of classroom observation systems
(Shavelson, 1973; Simon & Boyer, 1970). It was shown that certain teacher behaviours
were consistently correlated with student achievement. Thus, during the last four
decades, researchers have turned to teacher behaviour as predictor of student
achievement in order to build up a knowledge base on effective teaching. The paradigm
dominating research on teaching for several decades has been the process-product
paradigm, also known as the ‘criterion for effectiveness’ paradigm (Gage, 1963).
This approach looks for processes (teacher behaviour, such as teaching skills,
techniques or strategies) that predict or preferably cause products (educational results,
such as growth in student knowledge and skills). At first, most studies were of a
descriptive nature. Later, many correlational studies were conducted, but experimental
studies, which introduced certain behaviours and then checked whether these caused
the expected effects on students, were also undertaken (Gage & Giaconia, 1983).
This research has led to the identification of a range of behaviours which were
found to be positively related to student achievement (Borich, 1992; Brophy &
Good, 1986; Doyle, 1986; Evertson, Anderson, Anderson & Brophy, 1980; Galton,
1987; Muijs & Reynolds, 2000). Many of these findings have been validated experi-
mentally, but experimental findings are weaker and less consistent than correlational
findings (e.g. Griffin & Barnes, 1986). Additionally, it was not possible to record all
teacher behaviour, and therefore it was not possible to create a purely scientific
basis for teaching by extensively summing up factors, variables and the characteristics
of effective teachers. However, scientific evidence has been collected that shows
which behaviours can be effective. It is also shown that teachers themselves can
make a choice from behaviours that have proven to be effective, depending on their
classroom contexts.
Brophy and Good (1986) argue that the most consistently replicated findings in
American studies link student achievement to the quantity and pacing of instruction.
Amount learned is related to opportunity to learn, and achievement is maximised
when teachers prioritise academic instruction, expect their students to achieve the
curriculum aims and allocate available time to curriculum-related activities (Brophy
& Evertson, 1976). Opportunity to learn has also been found to be a significant
factor associated with both teacher and school effectiveness (e.g. Kyriakides et al.,
2000; Reynolds et al., 1994; Scheerens & Bosker, 1997). Consistent success is
another significant factor associated with student achievement. To learn efficiently,
Research into Teacher Effectiveness: Major Findings 69

students must be engaged in activities that are appropriate in terms of difficulty level
and suited to their current achievement levels and needs (Bennett, Desforges,
Cockburn & Wilkinson, 1984; Stallings, 1985). Thus, there is a tension between the
goal of maximising the amount of curriculum covered by pacing the students
through the curriculum as rapidly as possible and the need to move in small steps so
that each new objective can be learnt readily and without frustration. Brophy and
Good (1986) argue that the pace at which a class can move should depend on the
students’ abilities and developmental levels and the nature of the subject matter
since students’ errors should be held to a minimum.
Since opportunity to learn is related to student engagement and time on task and
engagement have been used as criterion variables in classroom management studies
(Emmer & Evertson, 1981), effective teachers are also expected to organise and
manage the classroom environment as an efficient learning environment and thereby
to maximise engagement rates (Creemers & Reezigt, 1996). Doyle (1986) points
out that key indicators of effective classroom management include the following:
good preparation of the classroom and installation of rules and procedures at the
beginning of the year, smoothness and momentum in lesson pacing, consistent
accountability procedures and clarity about when and how students can get help and
about what options are available when they finish a teaching task.
As far as the actual teaching process is concerned, research has revealed that
students achieve more in classes where they spend most of their time being taught
or supervised by their teachers rather than those where they work on their own
(Brophy & Good, 1986). Thus, effective teachers should spend most of their teaching
time presenting information and attempting to develop concepts through presen-
tation of information and demonstration. Moreover, research into classroom
discourse reveals that, although in the classes of effective teachers there is a great
deal of teacher talk, most of it is academic rather than managerial or procedural,
and much of it involves asking questions and giving feedback rather than extended
lecturing (Cazden, 1986).
The findings summarised above deal with factors associated with the quantity of
academic activity. The variables presented below concern the form and quality
of teachers’ organised lessons and can be divided into those that involve giving
information (structuring), asking questions (soliciting) and providing feedback
(reacting). As for structuring, Rosenshine and Stevens (1986) point out that achievement
is maximised when teachers not only actively present materials but also structure
it by the following: (a) beginning with overviews and/or review of objectives,
(b) outlining the content to be covered and signalling transitions between lesson
parts, (c) calling attention to main ideas and (d) reviewing main ideas at the end.
Summary reviews are also important since they integrate and reinforce the learning
of major points (Creemers & Kyriakides, 2008a). It can be claimed that these struc-
turing elements not only facilitate memorising of the information but allow for its
apprehension as an integrated whole with recognition of the relationships between
parts. Moreover, achievement is higher when information is presented with a degree
of redundancy, particularly in the form of repeating and reviewing general views
and key concepts (Kyriakides & Creemers, 2008, 2009).
70 5 Establishing the Field of Teacher Effectiveness Research…

Clarity of presentation is also a consistent correlate to student achievement

(Borich, 1992). Effective teachers are able to communicate clearly and directly to
their students without digression, speaking above students’ levels of comprehension
or using speech patterns that impair the clarity of what is being taught (Smith &
Land, 1981; Walberg, 1986). Muijs and Reynolds (2000) indicate that the focus
on teachers actively presenting materials should not be seen as an indication that
traditional lecturing and drill approach is an effective teaching approach. Effective
teachers ask a lot of questions and attempt to involve students in class discussion.
Although it was discovered that the cognitive level of questions was not consistently
correlated to students’ achievement (Redfield & Rousseau, 1981), it was pointed out
that question difficulty could be expected to vary with teaching context. There
should also be a mix of product questions (i.e. expecting a single response from
students) and process questions (i.e. expecting students to provide explanations),
but effective teachers are expected to ask more process questions (Askew & William,
1995; Creemers & Kyriakides, 2006; Evertson et al., 1980). Clarity of question is
also a factor, and length of pause following questions should vary according to their
difficulty level. For example, a question calling for application of abstract principles
should require a longer pause than a factual question. Once the teacher has asked a
question and called on a student to answer, the teacher has to monitor the student’s
response and react to it. Correct responses should be acknowledged for the purpose
of other students’ learning, while responses that are partly correct require affirmation
of the correct part and rephrasing of the question (Brophy & Good, 1986; Rosenshine
& Stevens, 1986). Following incorrect answers, teachers could begin by indicating
that the response is not correct, but avoid personal criticism and show why the right
answer is correct (Rosenshine, 1971). In general, effective teachers are expected
to answer relevant student questions or redirect them to the class and incorporate
relevant student comments into the lesson (Borich, 1992; Brophy & Good, 1986;
Flanders, 1970).
Effective teachers also use seatwork or small-group tasks since they provide
required practice and application opportunities (Borich, 1992; Creemers, 1994b).
The effectiveness of seatwork assignments is enhanced when the teacher explains
the work that students are expected to do and, once the students are released to work
independently, the teacher circulates to monitor progress and provide help and feed-
back (Brophy & Good, 1986; Creemers & Kyriakides, 2006).
Finally, Muijs and Reynolds (2000) point out that classroom climate is a factor
that TER has found to be significantly associated with student achievement. The
classroom environment should not only be businesslike but also supportive for
the students (Walberg, 1986). Effective teachers expect all students to be able to
succeed, and their positive expectations should be transmitted to students (Brophy
& Good, 1986).
The process-product paradigm was the leading model for research on teaching
for years, even though it was criticised from different angles. Because of the
definitions of both process and product variables, the process-product para-
digm preferred empirical research of a quantitative nature. Critical advocates
of the qualitative approach stated that the quantitative approach did not do
enough justice to the ‘richness’ of education at classroom level (Guba, 1978).
Research into Teacher Effectiveness: Major Findings 71

Ethnographic and detailed descriptions of education processes at classroom level,

paying very little attention to the outputs of education, were presented as an alternative.
The paradigm seems to concentrate on the frequencies of teacher behaviour,
which stems from a preference for the measurement of so-called ‘low-inference’
behaviour, which can be observed directly, without any interpretation by the observer.
Doyle (1986) suggests that too little importance is attached to what behaviour means for
the actors in education at classroom level. The process-product paradigm and the
quantitative approach also prefer to deal with teacher behaviour that is consistent
over time, although of course instability and inconsistency of behaviour are known to
occur and can be of great influence on classroom procedures and student achievement.
Results of research on teacher behaviour in the process-product paradigm might lead
to overly directive recommendations for educational practice, the same kind of direc-
tions observed formerly with ‘teacher-proof’ curricula. Alternative models or para-
digms, trying to meet the restrictions of the process-product paradigm, emphasise
the intermediary processes between teaching and learning (Doyle, 1986), the ecol-
ogy of classrooms (which leads to descriptions of classroom contexts) and the
necessity of finding out why students learn (Creemers, 1994b).

Beyond-Classroom Behaviour

The process-product paradigm emphasises the importance of directly observable

teacher behaviour, although other variables in the general area of teacher variables,
such as training and experience, have also been considered important. Research on
non-directly observable behaviour, related to the hidden factors of teacher thinking
and judging, has also taken place, and research on a more cognitive approach to
teaching, focusing on thinking, cognitive processes and decision-making has been
promoted, based on studies by Clark and Yinger (1979), Shavelson (1983) and
Shulman (1986). This approach concerns not only teachers but students as well and
shows some similarity to Doyle’s (1986) mediating paradigm.
Consequently, factors other than classroom behaviour have been the focus of
considerable research effort, especially during the last three decades. Although
these factors can be classified in a variety of ways, the category system adopted here
follows that used by Wang, Haertel, and Walberg (1990). Wang and his colleagues
evaluated 179 authoritative papers examining the factors associated with student
learning. The papers encompassed 228 items organised into 30 scales within six
categories. Four of the categories related to beyond-classroom factors and are
discussed below.

Subject Knowledge

Two kinds of professional knowledge have been identified: subject knowledge

and teachers’ general knowledge of pedagogy (Fennema & Loef-Franke, 1992).
Subject knowledge is widely perceived as a factor affecting teacher effectiveness
72 5 Establishing the Field of Teacher Effectiveness Research…

(Scriven, 1994), but the evidence is problematic (Monk, 1994). Borich (1992) points
out that teachers’ prior achievement, regardless of how it is measured, has rarely
correlated strongly with classroom practice and student achievement. Darling-
Hammond (2000) argues that a number of studies on the relationship between
teachers’ scores on the National Teacher Examinations and the performance of their
students have found little or no effect. Similar results are reported from a study
conducted recently (Konstantopoulos & Chung, 2011), which makes use of data
that emerged from an experimental study (i.e. the STAR project), in which subject
knowledge was not found to be associated with student achievement. This could
be attributed to the fact that subject knowledge could be treated as a minimum
requirement for effective teaching, but teachers with a high level of subject knowl-
edge may not necessarily have better teaching skills than others. Thus, those with a
high level of subject knowledge may not necessarily be more effective from those
who meet the minimum requirements for teaching (Monk, 1994).

Knowledge of Pedagogy

In addition to subject knowledge, teachers possess a body of specialised pedagogical

knowledge acquired through training and experience related to teaching methods,
subject matter and child behaviour, together with other information resulting from
their experience of working with children in numerous contexts (Calderhead, 1987).
Although it is unclear how pre-service or in-service training contributes to such
knowledge (Bednarz, Gattuso & Mary, 1996), two studies in England (Askew, Brown,
Rhodes, Johnson & William, 1997; Medwell, Wray, Poulson & Fox, 1998) have
shown that pedagogical knowledge is a more significant characteristic of effective
teachers than subject knowledge in itself. However, the impact of pedagogical
knowledge on student achievement is indirect since it has a relatively small impact
on quality of teaching and, through that, on student achievement. This can be attributed
to the fact that some teachers may be aware of effective teaching practices and of
the knowledge base of TER but may not be able to apply this knowledge in their
classroom practice. Although teacher training and professional development courses
should aim to improve teacher pedagogical knowledge, its impact on promoting
quality of teaching depends on the extent to which training courses help teachers to
improve not only their pedagogical knowledge but also their teaching skills.

Teacher’s Beliefs

Currently, an increasing amount of research into teacher effectiveness is focused on

the beliefs of teachers (Askew et al., 1997; Creemers, 2008). It is argued that teachers’
own beliefs about, and attitudes to, teaching and the subject they teach are more
important than immediately observable behaviours. The relationship between teachers’
beliefs and practice is expected to be a dynamic two-way relationship. It is assumed
that beliefs are also influenced by practical experience (Kyriakides, 1998; Rose,
Research into Teacher Effectiveness: Major Findings 73

Cousins & Gadalla, 1996; Thompson, 1992). Teachers’ beliefs were included as
one factor in the design of international studies under the auspices of IEA (e.g.
TIMSS and PIRLS) in order to investigate factors affecting student performance.
Teacher beliefs have been seen as an explanation for the high performance of East
Asian students (e.g. Philippou & Christou, 1999; Stevenson, Chen & Lee, 1993),
but secondary analyses of international studies have not shown that teacher beliefs
can explain variation in student outcomes (Kyriakides & Charalambous, 2005).
Schoenfeld (1992) argues that the area of beliefs is under-conceptualised and needs
new methodological and explanatory frames. This is reflected in the fact that instru-
ments measuring teacher beliefs do not usually have satisfactory psychometric
properties (Creemers, Kyriakides & Sammons, 2010). Another explanation has to
do with the fact that teacher beliefs do not have a direct impact on student outcomes,
and if there is any impact, this could be indirect through encouraging teachers to
take actions in order to improve their behaviour in the classroom. A teacher
could also have positive attitudes towards teaching as a profession but may not be
aware on how to improve his/her behaviour in the classroom. Thus, we argue here
that teacher professional development should be focused on improving quality of
teaching through providing opportunities to improve teaching skills. This might
have a positive side effect on teacher beliefs. Concentrating on improving teacher
beliefs is very unlikely to have an impact on improving the quality of teaching
since there is no clear relation between the development of teacher beliefs and the
improvement of their teaching skills.

Teachers’ Self-Efficacy

During the last 15 years, teachers’ sense of efficacy has become a focus for research.
Bandura (1997) defines perceived self-efficacy as ‘beliefs in one’s capabilities to
organise and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainment’
(p. 3). In the same sense, teaching efficacy can be defined as teachers’ beliefs in
their capabilities to organise and orchestrate effective teaching-learning environments.
Soodak and Podell (1996) found that teacher efficacy is composed of three factors:
personal efficacy (PE), outcome efficacy (OE) and teaching efficacy (TE). Self-
efficacy has been shown to be the best predictor of behaviour to accomplish the task
(Bandura, 1997; Guskey & Passaro, 1994; Hoy & Woolfolk, 1993; Pajares, 1996).
It is supported that self-efficacy influences several aspects of behaviour that are
important to teaching and learning. For example, Schunk (1991) revealed that
teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs were positively associated with their students’
achievement in mathematics and language. It was also found that students with
teachers who scored high on self-efficacy did better in standardised tests of achieve-
ment (Anderson, Greene & Loewen, 1988; Dembo & Gibson, 1985). Moreover, low
teacher efficacy beliefs have been linked to low expectations of students, which are
expected to predict student achievement. Further, teacher self-efficacy has been
found to be related to student self-efficacy and student motivation. However, effec-
tiveness studies conducted in different countries did not manage to demonstrate
74 5 Establishing the Field of Teacher Effectiveness Research…

a relation between teacher efficacy beliefs and their effectiveness as measured through
student learning outcomes (e.g. De Jong, Westerhof & Kruiter, 2004; Kyriakides &
Tsangaridou, 2008). Drawing on the literature on efficacy beliefs (e.g. Bandura,
1996, 1997; Marsh & Parker, 1984; Muijs, 1997; Pajares & Schunk, 2001), one may
also claim that this association could be negative. As Bandura (1997) argues, one
could be quite competent in a certain domain, but still harbour low-efficacy beliefs.

Concluding Comments

The review of the literature on factors of teacher effectiveness seems to reveal that
teacher behaviour in the classroom has a direct impact on student learning out-
comes. Searching for factors beyond teacher behaviour may help us to discover
those that may be related to teacher behaviour. Research on factors other than
the teacher behaviour, conducted during the last two decades, has not generated
empirical support to show that these factors have direct effect on student achievement.
In addition, those studies that reported indirect effects of these factors on student
outcomes managed to show that the teacher behaviour in the classroom was the
mediating variable, and thereby, the reported effect sizes of these factors on student
achievement were very small. Thus, in this book, the importance of focusing on
teacher behaviour in the classroom and improving teaching skills is stressed, and we
see the other factors as possible contributors (to a certain level) in improving teaching
skills. Establishing connections between the functioning of these factors and
the improvement of teaching skills is also an issue that needs to be investigated
further.

Conceptual Limitations of TER

The second part of this section deals with three conceptual problems of teacher
effectiveness in the research literature. These are the limited conceptions of teaching,
the need to search for relations among teacher factors and the disconnection of TER
from research on teachers’ professional development. We argue that a solution to these
problems can be found through establishing a dynamic approach to teacher profes-
sional development, and this approach is presented in the third part of this book.
Although students’ academic outcomes are of great importance for defining the
quality of education (Creemers, 1994a), measuring students’ progress can be criti-
cised as a one-sided quantitative approach to defining the characteristics of the
effective teacher (Thrupp, 2001), ignoring the fact that effective teachers may be
also expected to contribute to the improvement of the school community and to
the development of national educational policy. The existing approaches have
resulted in a list of traits of the effective teacher, which are mainly focused on
his/her abilities in teaching students, without taking into consideration other
important elements of the teacher’s behaviour and performance that might contribute
Conceptual Limitations of TER 75

to students’ development and progress across many dimensions. Schools in the

twenty-first century are expected to perform a wide range of functions to support
the new, rapidly occurring developments that are seen in individuals, local commu-
nities, societies and international relations. As a consequence, teachers are expected
to adopt expanded roles and responsibilities, such as those of curriculum develop-
ers, action researchers, team leaders and staff development facilitators. All these
roles suggest that the traditional conception of teacher effectiveness that focused
exclusively or mainly on the teaching performance of individual teachers in the
classrooms, has its limitations and cannot meet the needs of the school as a whole.
There is a need to develop a multimodel conception of teacher effectiveness. In
this context, Cheng and Tsui (1999) develop multiple conceptual models of teacher
effectiveness that are not concerned with the impact of the teacher on promoting
learning outcomes. The main models are briefly presented below, and their main
strengths and limitations are discussed.

Resource Utilisation Model

Teachers are often expected to accomplish complicated tasks and meet objectives
within a predetermined time frame. Consequently, the sources and support provided
constitute important facilitating factors for their work. Considering that in practice
resources and support are often limited, teachers could be considered effective if
they can maximally exploit allocated resources and support and also locate new
resources. Although researchers could make use of this model to develop criteria for
measuring teacher effectiveness, it is stressed here that this model is only useful
when there is evidence linking resource exploitation and the achievement of desir-
able outcomes. However, research taking into account the economic approach does
not provide empirical support for this argument. Specifically, effectiveness studies
of this approach are focused on estimating the relationship between the ‘supply of
selected purchased schooling inputs and educational outcomes controlling for the
influence of various background features’ (Monk, 1992, p. 308). The emerging
‘education production’ models (e.g. Brown & Saks, 1986; Coates, 2003; Elberts &
Stone, 1988) are based on the assumption that increased inputs will lead to incre-
ments in outcomes, and their main characteristics are concerned with the following:
(a) the selection of resource inputs as the major type of selection of antecedent
condition, (b) the measurement of direct effects and (c) the use of data at only
one level of aggregation {i.e. either at micro (e.g. student)-level or aggregated (e.g.
school) level}. However, the research done using these models has revealed that the
relation between input and outcomes is more complex than was assumed. For example,
studies by Hanushek and Hedges (e.g. Hanushek, 1986, 1989; Hedges, Laine &
Greenwald, 1994) show that reducing the student/teacher ratio and/or increasing the
amount of funding education per student does not necessarily result in higher student
outcomes. Unless the following questions are answered, one could not claim that
this model can be used to define effective teachers: What kinds of resources are
76 5 Establishing the Field of Teacher Effectiveness Research…

necessary to facilitate educational work? Are there sufficient and/or common

resources for all teachers? How are resources related to teacher performance and
education outcomes?

The School-Constituencies Satisfaction Model

In this model, teacher quality is related to client satisfaction (e.g. students, parents).
Teachers are thereby considered effective when their performance satisfies their
‘clients’ (Peterson, Caverly, Nicholson, O’Neal & Cusenbary, 2000). From this per-
spective, the model could satisfactorily meet the shortcomings of the aforemen-
tioned models, since it provides different criteria for evaluating teachers, based on
the different needs of the various ‘clients’ of the educational system. However, the
following questions arise: What are the key school constituencies that strongly
influence school functioning and teachers’ work? Whose needs and expectations
from the various ‘clients’ should teachers try to satisfy? Are those needs and expec-
tations related to the programmed objectives and duties of the teacher? How should
teachers react if there are conflicting client needs or if client needs fail to meet the
prescribed school objectives? A possible answer to the above questions is to form a
hierarchy of needs. The issue that remains, however, is who will determine this
hierarchy and according to what standards.

The Accountability Model

The accountability model is based on the assumption that employees (i.e. teachers)
should be held accountable to the public in order to ensure the quality of the educa-
tional system. It therefore links the measurement of teacher effectiveness with the
establishment of a central mechanism for assessing teacher performance. Thus,
teachers are required to demonstrate competence and responsibility in discharging
teaching and school activities, as well as in making related professional decisions.
The assumptions of this model seem to conform to those of the school-constituencies
model, since effectiveness is linked to the satisfaction of social or school constituencies
involved in the educational process. According to this model, teachers should provide
information to various school constituencies about their work, the decisions they
make and their standards. Therefore, the model is useful when teachers are requested
to show evidence of accountability or when the school constituencies exercise their
right to monitor and evaluate teacher performance and school outcomes.
The teachers’ accountability model introduces new factors to measuring teacher
effectiveness, such as keeping social or school constituencies informed of what is
done in school. These factors may evoke teachers’ negative reactions, since teachers
perceive their obligation to provide an account of their work as an intervention in
their professional role (Kyriakides & Demetriou, 2007). Consequently, before applying
Conceptual Limitations of TER 77

this model, evaluators should establish the highest possible level of teacher consent.
Moreover, the teacher role and responsibilities should be explicitly predetermined
(Helsby, 1995). One could therefore claim that unless the following questions are
answered, this model cannot be used for identifying teacher effectiveness factors
and informing research on teacher professional development: What systems of
accountability exist inside and outside the school, and what standards are used for
teacher evaluation in each of these systems? How significant and relevant are pro-
fessional accountability and reputation to the goals that teachers set and to their
working processes?

The Absence of Problems Model

This model assumes that teachers are effective if there are no problems, troubles,
defects, weaknesses or misbehaviour when teachers are discharging their duties.
Consequently, effective teachers are those who satisfy at least the minimal require-
ments, do not face problems or insufficiencies in their daily work and are able to
solve problems between teachers and parents or between teachers and school
directors. This model could be seen as useful when the criteria for measuring teacher
effectiveness refer to specific problems that certain groups of teachers encounter.
Usually this model is applied when evaluators or teacher trainers aim to evaluate/
identify learning needs of new and inexperienced teachers. However, the model
contains a number of deficiencies, as illustrated by the following questions: What
could be perceived as teachers’ major weaknesses, problems, defects and limitations,
bearing in mind that teachers are expected to work in different educational settings?
What are the key indicators and standards that can be used to monitor teachers’
problems? How are these problems and defects in teachers’ working processes
related to the achievement of prescribed goals and to students’ learning outcomes?
Finally, it should be emphasised that the absence of problems does not necessarily
mean that the objectives are met and student learning is promoted.

The Continuous Learning Model

The continuous learning model assumes that teachers are effective if they can
adapt to external and internal changes, cope with different challenges, meet diverse
expectations and develop themselves through continuous learning. Fullan (1991)
stresses that, as long as the need for change in the educational system exists, the
professional improvement of teachers is also imperative. Educational systems
should therefore develop mechanisms for teachers’ continuing professional improve-
ment. This model is particularly useful when teachers work in continuously changing
educational environments and need to adapt to changes and face internal and external
challenges. Therefore, the continuous learning model assumes that there is a link
78 5 Establishing the Field of Teacher Effectiveness Research…

between teacher development and school improvement (Fullan & Hargreaves, 1992)
and that professional development programmes can help teachers become more
effective. The model could also be useful in evaluating teachers’ pedagogical and
content knowledge. However, before employing this model, evaluators should
examine whether teacher adaptation to these changes and challenges is necessary
for school improvement and if these changes emerge from the existing programmed
objectives. One could claim that there may be a discrepancy between the inter-
mediate goal (adapting to the new environment) and the ultimate aim, which should
refer to the promotion of student learning and learning outcomes. Thus, we argue in
this book that TER should be focused on identifying factors concerned with teacher
behaviour, which are related to student achievement.

Concluding Comments

The historical review of TER seems to reveal that there has been a gradual move-
ment from investigating input variables to define teacher effectiveness, such as
personality traits and qualifications, to examining process variables concerned with
teacher behaviour in classrooms. It has also been possible to demonstrate that
specific variables concerned with teacher behaviour in the classroom are associated
with student learning outcomes. In this book, we therefore draw implications of the
findings of TER for the design of teacher professional development programmes.
The importance of focusing on improving teaching skills through teacher profes-
sional development is emphasised, especially since the input variables, such as
personality and qualifications, have not been found to be related to student out-
comes. Shulman (1986) acknowledges that alternative approaches, often proclaimed
with ardour and élan, like the cognitive approach, have not resulted in the further
development of theories to the extent that was suggested by their creators. This is a
further argument against a too rapid integration of diverse theoretical insights and
methodological approaches and paradigms, thereby eliminating contrasts. It may be
more useful to let contrasts crystallise and to check theoretical and methodological
pretensions of ideas and thoughts. Traditions which are invalid may then fall into
the background or even disappear, as has happened to research on the personalities
of teachers. In general, it is not detrimental to the development of science, and this
also applies to research on teaching, when scientific insights and methodological
traditions appear and disappear again after some time, sometimes leaving hardly
any discernable traces.
With regard to the conceptual models of TER presented above, we point out
some limitations of these models especially since there is little evidence supporting
the relationship of the factors addressed to quality of teaching. For example, the
focus of the resource model on teacher ability to use available resources and locate
new ones is not directly related to student outcomes. Although resources can have
an impact on teacher behaviour in the classroom, what actually matters is how
Concluding Comments 79

teachers make use of resources in their teaching practice. This implies that our focus
should be on teacher behaviour in the classroom since the skills of teachers to organise
a lesson are those that determine the impact (positive or negative) that using
resources could have on promoting learning outcomes. Similar arguments could
be made about the continuous learning model where the focus on learning has
an influence on learning outcomes only when it helps teachers to improve their
teaching skills and become more effective.
A second constraint of the existing approaches of TER is the fact that the process
has not managed to contribute significantly to teachers’ professional development
or to improving their effectiveness. This is partly due to the fact that correlational
research findings are based on variation in existing practices, and even most of the
experiments involved practices previously observed. Thus, even if most of the
results of TER are transferable to the classroom (Brophy & Good, 1986) and several
professional development programmes, such as the Active Mathematics Teaching
(Good, Grouws & Ebmeier, 1983) and the Teacher Effectiveness Enhancement
Project (Muijs & Reynolds, 2000), have been developed, prescriptions for applica-
tions derived from these studies usually remain within the ranges of teacher behav-
iour which were observed. Since the criteria for teacher effectiveness have been
primarily generated by the researchers through naturalistic classroom observations,
specific needs for professional development are not necessarily identified, and only
a few intervention studies that may have an impact on teacher professional develop-
ment have been conducted so far (see Kyriakides & Christoforou, 2011; Seidel &
Shavelson, 2007).
Thirdly, studies on teacher effectiveness have presented the factors concerned
with teacher behaviour in the classroom as being in opposition to one another
(Kyriakides, 2008). As a consequence, different teaching approaches, such as the
direct and active teaching approach (Joyce, Weil & Calhoun, 2000) and the new
learning approach (Schoenfeld, 1998), have been developed. These approaches are
presented in the next chapter, and it is shown that each of them places emphasis on
a single aspect of the teacher’s role. In this way, a narrowly focused perspective of
effective teaching practice is provided. However, recent meta-analysis of research
on teacher behaviour reveals that within each approach there are factors which are
associated with student achievement (Kyriakides & Christoforou, 2011; Seidel &
Shavelson, 2007). This implies that an integrated approach to defining quality of
teaching should be adopted in designing teacher training and teacher professional
development programmes (Creemers & Kyriakides, 2006). Moreover, the complex
nature of effective teaching can be described in a more comprehensive way by taking
into account the fact that some teacher factors may be interrelated. Recently, three
effectiveness studies have demonstrated the importance of defining types of teacher
behaviour, which refer to groupings of factors that explain student achievement
(Antoniou, 2009; Janosz, Archambault & Kyriakides, 2011; Kyriakides, Creemers
& Antoniou, 2009). By defining grouping of teacher factors, not only is the complex
nature of effective teaching illustrated but also specific strategies for teacher
improvement may emerge (see Chap. 7).
Chapter 6
Different Approaches to Teaching
Which Emerged from Teacher
Effectiveness Research

Introduction

In educational research, there is already a long tradition of research into teacher

effects. The major contribution of Gage (1963) was that he stressed the fact that the
characteristics of teachers and teaching activities (or teaching behaviour) should be
related to student learning outcomes. Gage’s statement was the start of a vast
amount of research on the effects of teaching, reviewed and summarised by, among
others, Rosenshine (1976) and Brophy and Good (1986). In the previous chapter,
the main findings which emerged from the process-product model of TER were
reported. This chapter moves a step forwards and refers to the main approaches to
teaching which are concerned only with specific teaching factors each time and
underestimate the importance of others. Specifically, mastery learning and the
direct and active teaching approaches are described in the first two parts of this
chapter, and their strengths and weaknesses are discussed. In the third part,
approaches to teaching associated with constructivism are presented. It is finally
stressed that an integrated approach to effective teaching should be adopted, refer-
ring to factors associated with student learning, irrespective of the approach to
which each of them belongs.

Mastery Learning

Mastery learning as an instructional model was developed by Bloom (1976) and is

theoretically based on Carroll’s model (1963) of school learning (see Chap. 7).
According to Anderson and Block (1987), mastery learning is in fact a modern
translation of a traditional optimistic philosophy about education and learning,
namely, that ‘the teacher can help “slow” and “unmotivated” students to learn like
“smart”, “fast” and “motivated” students’ (p. 58). Bloom tried to transform Carroll’s
key concepts into directions for the design of classroom instruction. His assumption

B. Creemers et al., Teacher Professional Development for Improving 81

Quality of Teaching, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-5207-8_6,
© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
82 6 Different Approaches to Teaching Which Emerged from Teacher…

is that although students’ capacities are normally distributed, the majority of students
can be helped to achieve at a criterion level when they are provided with sufficient
learning time and optimal instruction. The mastery criterion is the degree of mastery
students should achieve with respect to a given learning unit, before they are allowed
to start working on the next unit. While only 5 or 10% of highly achieving students
used to succeed in achieving these objectives having undergone traditional instruction,
mastery learning was supposed gradually to reach full achievement of objectives for
80% of the students (Warries, 1979). The order and quantity of learning units are
selected in such a way that they form a logical sequence: delays or cumulative
deficiencies are not supposed to occur. Block and Burns (1976, p. 12) define the
essential characteristics of mastery learning as follows:
1. A set of course objectives that students will be expected to master at some high
level is pre-specified.
2. The course is broken into a number of smaller learning units so as to teach only
a few of the course’s objectives at any one time.
3. Each unit is taught for mastery—all students are firstly exposed to a unit’s material
in a standard fashion: then they are tested for their mastery of the unit’s objec-
tives, and those whose test performance is below mastery level are then provided
with additional instruction.
4. Each student’s mastery over the course as a whole is evaluated on the basis of
what the student has and has not achieved, rather than on how well he or she has
achieved relative to classmates.
In addition, McNeil (1969, p. 308) describes the educational practice of mastery
learning, which includes quite concrete guidelines on how to proceed:
1. Students have to understand the nature of learning tasks, and they should know
the procedure they are to follow in learning their tasks.
2. Specific instructional objectives have to be formulated for these tasks.
3. Courses or extensive subjects should be broken down into smaller units, with a
test at the end of each unit.
4. After each test, teachers provide feedback to students on their errors and
difficulties.
5. Teachers should find ways to alter the time some individuals need to learn.
6. Alternative learning opportunities (e.g. materials other than the initial materials)
may be profitable.
7. Student effort will increase when small groups of two or three students meet
regularly, for about an hour, to review their test results and to help one another to
overcome the difficulties identified by means of the test.
Students of Bloom continued to develop the theory of, and research into, mastery
learning, as well as its applications for educational practice. The procedure devel-
oped by Bloom and his students is mostly directed at classrooms and small groups
of students. The individualised form of mastery learning, which had a different
origin, is known as the Keller Plan or Personalised System of Instruction (PSI)
(Keller, 1968). The Keller Plan also requires a mastery criterion, but it is adapted to
Mastery Learning 83

individual students to a greater extent, concerning curricular materials as well as

instructional time. Some whole-class instruction may occur but only to stimulate
and motivate students. In the United States and in other countries, such as the
Netherlands, the Keller Plan was popular in college courses for some years, espe-
cially because of its emphasis on students’ responsibility for their own programmes
(Braak, 1974; Plomp, 1974).
Mastery learning is widespread in the United States, becoming so when it became
clear that the implementation of mastery learning in individual classrooms was not
very effective and that mastery learning should be introduced and implemented at
the school level. The ideas of mastery learning were successively extended from
classrooms to schools and from schools to school districts. Eventually, a national
movement was involved in mastery learning, and both educational policy and edu-
cational practice were inspired by the thought that education should produce results
and, moreover, that the results could be produced by the design of education.
A lot of research on mastery learning is available, and several reviews have been
published (e.g. Bloom, 1984; Guskey & Pigott, 1988; Kulik, Kulik & Bangert-
Drowns, 1990; Slavin, 1987), although, the results reported in reviews are not very
consistent. Bloom (1984), for example, concluded very optimistically that group-
based mastery learning can improve achievement by one standard deviation. However,
his conclusion is based on a very limited set of studies (Creemers, 1994b). Sometimes
mastery learning was not implemented accurately, and the experimental and control
groups were not confronted with traditional instruction but with other individualised
programmes. The main problem, however, is that several studies did not control for
the sometimes large quantities of extra learning time involved in the mastery learning
condition. Such studies have made it impossible to attribute positive effects in the
experimental group to mastery learning, because the effects might have been caused
by the mere provision of extra time. Sometimes it is not clear whether the same
curricular content was offered to the control groups (Arlin, 1984).
The best-evidence synthesis of Slavin (1987) represents the other end of the
continuum. Slavin concludes that group-based mastery learning, although there is
an effect on experimenter-made tests, does not succeed in improving student
achievement, as measured by standardised norm-referenced tests. However, the pro-
cedure used by Slavin also reveals some problems. Kulik and Kulik (1989) criticise
the best-evidence approach because the number of studies included is so limited that
the reviews end up being highly speculative. In this best-evidence synthesis, Slavin
notes that the individualised form of mastery learning has produced positive effects.
However, this implies a contradiction in one of the essential elements of mastery
learning, as defined by Bloom (1976), namely, the aim to bring individual students
to mastery of learning tasks in a group context, by means of classroom organisation,
allocation of time, provision of curricular materials, tests and feedback. Mastery
learning in an individual context resembles tutoring and individual instruction for
each student. The teacher-student ratio is one-to-one in tutoring, which renders it
virtually impossible to implement in regular educational settings, even though the
effects are substantial: about two standard deviations (Bloom, 1984; Walberg, 1984).
In meta-analyses undertaken by Hartley (1977) and Kulik, Kulik, and Cohen (1979),
84 6 Different Approaches to Teaching Which Emerged from Teacher…

the effects of tutoring were not so strong. In the meta-analysis of Kulik et al., the
average effects of tutoring were even smaller than the effects of mastery learning
and the Keller Plan (Kulik & Kulik, 1989, pp. 286–287). Kulik et al. (1990) report
a mean effect size of 0.59. At higher levels of education, the effects are stronger
(0.68), and overall effect sizes on standardised tests are much lower than those
on experimenter-made tests. Guskey and Pigott (1988) selected 46 studies on group-
based mastery learning from primary, secondary and college education contexts.
A large variation in effect sizes was found, being largest in primary education,
contrary to the results of the meta-analysis of Kulik et al. (1990). According to
Guskey and Pigott (1988), an explanation is that the effects are likely to be cumula-
tive over the years. In contrast with Slavin, Guskey and Pigott conclude that group-
based mastery learning shows great potential.
Even though the results are not very consistent in terms of the size of effects,
generally speaking, there is sufficient evidence for the effectiveness of mastery
learning at the classroom level. However, it seems that the effectiveness of the
procedure depends heavily on other factors in the instruction process, which have
to be in synchronised with, or have to support, the essential elements of mastery
learning. Feedback and corrective measures on the part of teachers, based on tests,
are essential for the effectiveness of mastery learning. Guskey (1987) points to the
‘congruence among instructional components’ in that teachers teach what students
are supposed to learn and test what they have taught. Studies by Block (1970) and
Nordin (1979) support this conclusion. Specifically, Nordin distinguishes several
elements in the quality of instruction:
1. Giving cues or explanations
2. Participation of students in the learning process
3. Feedback and corrective measures based on tests
In an experiment, three groups were formed, one group for each element men-
tioned above. Students in the feedback and corrective measures group (i.e. group 3)
outperformed the other two groups. A meta-analysis on mastery testing by Kulik and
Kulik (1986–1987), which included studies on individualised instruction, and group-
based mastery learning, as defined by Bloom, supports these findings. When degree
of mastery was not assessed by tests, effects were reduced substantially. Testing, in
itself is not enough and should be followed by feedback and corrective measures to
overcome deficiencies in learning. Dutch studies (e.g. Westerhof, 1989) also report
the positive effects of corrective instruction, which means testing student achieve-
ment and subsequently adopting instruction. The effects were small, however. Dutch
research on the effects of mastery learning is summarised by Warries (1979). Several
authors (e.g. Slavenburg & Creemers, 1979) report the positive effects of mastery
learning in primary education. Dutch studies on mastery learning in secondary, and
post-secondary education that were published later (Nuy, 1981; Weeda, 1982) did
not support the results found in studies from the United States. However, Weeda’s
results partly supported the effectiveness of mastery learning because elements of
mastery learning (testing and corrective measures) turned out to be effective.
Direct and Active Teaching Approach 85

A combination that is now advocated integrates cooperative and mastery learning

(CML). Mastery learning is carried out in small cooperative situations in which
team members proceed at the same rate, provide instant help to each other as substi-
tute teachers, and so on. Research by Mevarech (1991) showed that pupils perform
better in CML than in traditional learning situations.

Direct and Active Teaching Approach

Because a single factor concerned with teacher behaviour is not expected to have a
large impact on student outcomes, isolated behaviours were integrated into an
instructional approach (Rosenshine, 1987a). Combining the findings on time, con-
tent covered, work groupings, teacher questions, student responses and teacher
feedback, Rosenshine indicated a general pattern of results that he labelled the direct
instruction model, sometimes called a structured approach. A slightly different
model is called active teaching, with more emphasis put on involvement of students
in the learning and teaching process. There is also in active teaching a great deal of
teacher talk, but most of it is academic rather than procedural or managerial, and
much of it involves ‘asking questions’ and ‘giving feedback’ rather than extended
lecturing (Brophy & Good, 1986, p. 361).
The term ‘direct instruction’ had already existed for some time. It was used to
describe teaching-learning processes, explicitly directed by teaching, in a stepwise
procedure. Other terms came into use later, such as explicit teaching, explicit
instruction and active teaching. Direct instruction is a form of explicit, stepwise
instruction, emphasising student learning and cognitive achievement: ‘Direct
instruction and the similar terms can be summarised in the phrase: If you want
students to learn something, teach it to them directly’ (Rosenshine, 1987a, p. 258).
Guidelines for direct instruction are based on results of correlation and experimental
studies on teaching (Rosenshine, 1983). Teachers were found to be most effective,
especially in teaching basic skills, when they:
1. Structure learning experiences
2. Proceed in small steps but at a brisk pace
3. Give detailed instructions, explanations and examples
4. Ask a large number of questions and provide overt student practice
5. Provide feedback and corrections, especially in the initial stages of learning new
material
6. Have a student success rate of 80% or higher, especially in initial learning
7. Divide assignments into smaller assignments and find ways to control
frequently
8. Provide for continued student practice (students may even learn more than is
necessary; they may have a success rate of 90–100% and may be able to learn
quickly and self-confidentially)
86 6 Different Approaches to Teaching Which Emerged from Teacher…

These guidelines were further developed through experimental studies. In these

studies, teachers were trained in real-life educational practice to demonstrate behav-
iours that can promote student achievement (see Rosenshine & Stevens, 1986).
Rosenshine made use of the guidelines of Good and Grouws (1979), developed for
the Missouri Mathematics Effectiveness Study. According to Rosenshine and Stevens
(1986), direct instruction can be adapted for use with all students. Veenman, who
introduced direct instruction in the Netherlands (Veenman, Lem & Nijssen, 1988;
Veenman, Lem, Roelofs & Nijssen, 1992), summarised the benefits of direct instruc-
tion on the basis of a large number of studies (Veenman, 1992). Direct instruction is
most appropriate for teaching well-structured school subjects, like mathematics,
where subjects can be divided into small units. In this area, the model is very success-
ful, especially for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. In several projects, like
the Missouri programme (Good & Grouws, 1979) and the Gersten and Carnine pro-
gramme (1986), direct instruction was used. Studies like What Works (1986) recom-
mended direct instruction. In educational practice, teachers look upon direct
instruction as an instructional approach that resembles their usual daily work.
Direct instruction in fact stems from the behaviouristic process-product tradition
in education. However, schools should not only focus on basic skills and basic
cognitive knowledge, they should also promote higher cognitive processes, such as
learning strategies, problem-solving and meta-cognitive behaviour. This requires
more strategic teaching from teachers, but it turns out that such forms as modelling
and scaffolding can be included in the direct instruction model (Veenman, 1992,
p. 265). Originally, direct instruction was used only to achieve a set of specific
objectives, such as acquiring knowledge or skills, but to achieve these objectives,
learning strategies are important and these strategies can be used in more complex
learning situations utilising the already-acquired information and skills. For that
purpose, in the different phases of the learning process, scaffolds are included in the
direct instruction model to structure such strategic learning. These scaffolds contain
elements that enable the acquisition of meta-cognitive knowledge and skills, such as
the knowledge of how to proceed, modelling, thinking aloud and obtaining social
support from peers. Many empirical studies provide evidence for the impact of
direct instruction upon achievement of not only advantaged but also disadvantaged
groups of students, as various reviews of TER seem to demonstrate (e.g. Adams &
Engelmann, 1996; Fischer & Tarver, 1997; Flores & Ganz, 2007; Grossen, 2004;
Klahr & Nigam, 2004; Kyriakides, 2004; Seidel & Shavelson, 2007).

New Learning and Teaching: A Constructivism Approach

Beyond Basic Knowledge and Skills

in Language and Mathematics

The emphasis on mathematics and language as criteria for educational effectiveness

resulted in a prime interest in theories about learning which stress the reproduction
of knowledge. Although it was mentioned frequently that there could be different
New Learning and Teaching: A Constructivism Approach 87

criteria for educational effectiveness such as higher-order knowledge and skills,

meta-cognition or outcomes in other domains like student well-being and social
skills, in the end criteria of effectiveness were mostly concerned with learning and
(reproductive) learning results/outcomes in the areas of mathematics and reading.
And in fact, as has become evident from educational policy outcomes, basic skills,
such as reading, writing, mathematics and science, are important in helping students
to become active citizens in society and to contribute to socio-economic develop-
ment. In society, the importance of these basic competencies is underlined. Next to
this, knowledge and skills and, probably based upon them, other competencies are
seen as prerequisites for participation in society, for example, the development of
moral values and social skills. Within the cognitive domains, higher-order knowl-
edge and skills, such as the application, evaluation and synthesis of knowledge, are
expected to be pursued by educative results in problem-solving and ‘creative thinking’
skills. Finally, it is expected that formal education will ‘create’ life-long learning.
For that purpose, learning to learn and self-regulated and self-responsible learning
are seen as important.
The final decision about the objectives of education, and thus the criteria for
educational effectiveness (and quality in general), is taken by the educational policy-
makers as the result of political and societal debate (Creemers, 1996). Educational
theory and research and the teaching profession in general, can contribute to the
debate and decision-making by addressing questions such as:
• What can be achieved by students and how can it be discerned according to their
ability?
• How much can be done within the limitations of time and other tasks that have to
be performed by the school?
• How do learning processes take place in these domains?
• How can teaching and instruction be provided to satisfy these educational
objectives?
Research seems to indicate that for higher-order cognitive outcomes and for
independent learning and meta-cognition to take place, another view is needed on
learning and instruction. This approach takes a different point of departure from the
one that is available in the current knowledge base on educational effectiveness,
especially at the instructional level. In the following part of this section, new ways
of learning and teaching will be described. In the last section of this chapter, we will
discuss the possibilities of combining the traditional ways of learning and teaching
with more constructivist approaches in order to address educational objectives in
general but especially higher-order goals and ways of independent learning.

A ‘New’ View on Learning

With the recognition that behaviourism provided an adequate explanation of human

cognition, cognitive psychology developed in the early 1960s. It was based, how-
ever, on the early work of, amongst others, Vygotsky, Piaget and the Würzburger
88 6 Different Approaches to Teaching Which Emerged from Teacher…

Schule and Gestalt psychology. Contrary to behaviourism, these theories were

especially interested in cognitive processes and later on in mental representation
and knowledge structures. Cognitive psychology paid special attention to the following
three main issues:
• The complex strategies for processing information. In this field, the attention was
focused on research into problem-solving, especially the difference between
expert and novice problem-solvers.
• Meta-cognition, especially the knowledge concerning one’s own cognitive pro-
cesses or products, and the skills to transform this knowledge into those needed
for fine-tuning the cognitive processes.
• Learners have already acquired some knowledge before they start to tackle new
tasks, and this initial knowledge structure provides the foundation for further
knowledge and learning. This knowledge base will expand over a long period of
learning and experience.
In the course of further development of cognitive psychology, new ideas arose,
most of them stressing the special features of cognitive psychology, such as
constructivism, which puts emphasis on the fact that human learning is active and
constructive, situated cognition in which the emphasis is placed on the contextual
character of human cognition. Constructivism and self-regulation of learning
processes put emphasis on the responsibility of the learner for his own learning
processes (Boekaerts, 1999). Different terms are used to describe new ideas, such as
constructivism and self-regulated learning, but they have in common specific char-
acteristics with respect to learning (De Corte, 1996; De Corte, Greer & Verschaffel,
1996) which are briefly presented below.
In order to learn, which means to change from a novice to an expert in a specific
domain, students have to acquire a learning disposition that integrates the following
elements (Perkins, 1991; Verschaffel & De Corte, 1998):
• A domain-specific knowledge base (knowledge about facts, symbols, conventions,
definitions, formulas, concepts, rules, etc., that constitute the contents of a domain
such as mathematics or reading)
• Cognitive strategies, such as heuristics (systematic searching strategies, e.g.
splitting a problem into sub-problems) and learning strategies (such as repeating
subject matter, making a summary)
• Meta-cognitive skills (skills that are needed for the self-regulative planning,
monitoring and evaluating of learning processes)
• Affective aspects (such as attitude towards a school subject)

New Ways of Teaching: A Constructivist Approach

According to Verschaffel and De Corte (1998), the first thing that teachers must be
aware of when they try to teach along the lines of constructivism is the expansion of
the goals of instruction. Teaching aims at the development of a learning disposition
New Learning and Teaching: A Constructivism Approach 89

instead of the transfer of knowledge. Knowledge is not the only goal of education,
but strategies, meta-cognitive skills and affective aspects are similarly important.
As a consequence, the content of school subjects and the materials that teachers use
must be expanded as well. Curricula, for example, must enable teachers to achieve
the new goals, and adequate tests or other diagnostic procedures must permit
teachers to monitor the development of students in relation to these new goals. They
should encompass all four elements of the learning disposition, preferably elaborated
in a domain-specific as well as in a cross-curricular way in order to achieve transfer
of specific skills to a wider area of learning. Constructivism therefore forces teachers
to expand not only their goals but also the scope of their subject content and their
materials. Teachers who want to practise constructivism must also be aware of
changing requirements for the classroom organisation. Traditional teaching is often
performed by the teacher in front of the class while the students sit in. This type of
organisation is appropriate when all students are supposed to listen to the teacher
and when they are not intended to interact with each other. Constructivism, however,
requires quite different settings because of the emphasis on student interactions and
those between the teacher and the students (see also below).
In recent years, constructivist authors have developed a set of instructional tech-
niques that are supposed to enhance the learning disposition of students (Bolhuis
& Kluvers, 1996; Choi & Hannafin, 1995; Collins, Brown & Newman, 1989; Savery
& Duffy, 1995; Verschaffel & De Corte, 1998; Von Glasersfeld, 1998). These
techniques include the following:
• Modelling: This occurs when an expert (the teacher) carries out complex tasks
and informs students about the processes that are required to accomplish these
tasks. Modelling can refer to physical processes and to thought processes that
underlie the actual performance.
• Coaching: This refers to all the supportive actions that a teacher can use to raise
the attainment levels of students. Coaching is meant to help students to solve
problems or find their own ways to accomplish tasks and not to simply provide
them with the correct answers or procedures. Examples of coaching are offering
help, contingent feedback and modelling problems closely related to those the
students are dealing with.
• Scaffolding and Fading: These techniques refer to the provision of help that
students need to carry out parts of tasks that they cannot yet master on their own.
Scaffolding creates a match between the cognitive level of the student and the
characteristics of instruction in such a way that the student achieves (with the
assistance of the teacher or others) what he could not achieve on his own. Fading
means that the assistance is gradually withdrawn as the self-regulative skills of
students develop. Fading denotes the gradual transition from teacher-regulated
instruction to student-regulated learning.
• Articulation: Articulation means that teachers invite students to articulate their
ideas, solutions to problems, suggestions and thoughts. In this way, tacit knowl-
edge is made explicit. By means of articulation, teachers can find out what students
know and which skills they possess.
90 6 Different Approaches to Teaching Which Emerged from Teacher…

• Reflection: Reflection refers to the process of students comparing their solutions

to those offered by experts (the teacher or other students). Students are encour-
aged to test their ideas against alternative views and contexts.
• Exploration: By means of exploration, the teacher ‘pushes’ students in a variety
of problem-solving activities.
• Generalisation: This technique decontextualises domain-specific knowledge and
skills and aims at the transfer of these knowledge and skills to a higher non-
specific level.
• Collaboration: From the perspective of learning as an interactive and co-
operative process, teachers must create ample opportunities for students to
interact with each other and with the teacher. Activities such as classroom
conversation and working in co-operative groups are examples of collaboration.
• Provision of Anchors: Anchors refer to the importance of the prior knowledge of
students. For successful learning, students need to relate new knowledge to
anchors in their prior knowledge. Teachers must check whether these anchors are
already present and, if not, provide them.
• Goal Orientation and Situation: The goals of learning must be clear to the
students. Preferably students are stimulated to formulate their own goals, but, if
this is not possible, teachers should clarify the goals. In relation to this, tasks and
problems that students perform must be authentic and situated in a meaningful
context.

Research on ‘New’ Learning and Teaching

Even after 25 years, there is still an ongoing debate about the advantages and disad-
vantages of new learning and teaching, as described in the previous section (see, e.g.
Van der Werf, 2005). The positive results of studies on new learning and teaching
are criticised for several reasons (see Seidel & Shavelson, 2007; Van der Werf,
2006), for example:
• The intervention is provided by the researcher who is advocating new learning
and teaching.
• The intervention study is mostly a small-scale study involving few students.
• The implementation of the intervention is not controlled.
• The intervention is not compared with other modes of instruction.
In recent years, however, studies have been carried out which meet the standards
of research. In the following section, two studies will be summarised. The studies
indicate that some elements of new learning and teaching promoting active involve-
ment, such as problem-solving and a self-regulated learning (meta-cognition), can
contribute to educational outcomes, especially in combination with more traditional
evidence-based instructional methods. The studies presented, implemented instruc-
tion carefully in schools and classrooms because, as became clear from earlier studies,
New Learning and Teaching: A Constructivism Approach 91

teachers face problems in the implementation of new ways of teaching whether or

not they are in combination with more traditional ways of teaching, such as direct
or active teaching.

A Comparison Between Direct (Interactive)

and Constructivist Instruction

In the previous sections, two didactic approaches were presented, direct instruction
and the constructive approach for teaching. Direct instruction is based on the
research evidence that is related to the effectiveness of teaching that combines com-
ponents of teacher behaviour which have been shown to be effective with respect to
learning outcomes. In direct teaching, different teacher activities are placed in a
certain logical and didactical order. The approach as such has received quite a lot of
empirical support as a recent meta-analysis has also shown (see Kyriakides &
Christoforou, 2011). The constructivist approaches in teaching depart from a different
view of how learning takes place. Knowledge and skills are not learned through
instruction in which they are delivered by teachers and mastered by students but
constructed by students themselves during the learning process. The constructive
approach to teaching has also received empirical support, although to a lesser extent.
It should be mentioned that most of the small-scale research studies were carried out
in short-term experimental situations in which the researchers fairly often acted as
teachers themselves.
It seems that the two approaches stem from different backgrounds: the construc-
tivist approach from research on learning and the direct instruction approach from
research on teaching. Perhaps they also have different objectives in mind, namely,
consolidation of knowledge and development of abilities and skills. Therefore, the
two are often presented as opposites. A possible means of discovering the strengths
and weaknesses of the two approaches is to compare traditional ways of teaching
related to student achievement in the basic school subjects and those related to, for
example, meta-cognitive skills. A relevant secondary analysis came to the conclusion
that traditional effectiveness characteristics are important for the development of
meta-cognitive skills, and these characteristics are seen to be even more important
for these skills than those of new instructional models, although such models were
especially designed for the development of meta-cognitive skills (Creemers, Reezigt,
Van der Werf & Hoeben, 1997). This created the starting point for an experimental
study in which two didactic approaches were offered with respect to their imple-
mentation by teachers and their impact on student achievement and were compared
(De Jager, 2002). The direct instruction model was chosen as the more traditional
model. There is substantial empirical evidence that teachers can use this model in a
regular classroom setting. Furthermore, the direct instruction model proved to have
a positive effect on achievement in basic skills. The cognitive apprenticeship model
(Collins et al., 1989) that takes new ideas about learning and instruction into account
92 6 Different Approaches to Teaching Which Emerged from Teacher…

was selected as the second instructional model. The cognitive apprenticeship model
focuses on the active involvement of pupils and on the development of meta-cognitive
skills. This model combines effective elements of instruction-psychological models,
such as reciprocal teaching, procedural facilitation and modelling. However, this
model has rarely been studied in regular classroom settings. In this study, both the
direct instruction model and the cognitive apprenticeship model were implemented
in regular classroom settings. Furthermore, both models focused on the development
of basic skills and meta-cognitive skills. The implementation and effectiveness of
the two models were studied and compared. To make a clear comparison, a quasi-
experiment was developed in which one group of teachers learned to implement the
direct instruction model, and another group was trained to apply characteristics of
the cognitive apprenticeship model. A control group of teachers was not trained.
The implementation of the two models was studied, as well as the effects on the
achievement of pupils in relation to basic skills and meta-cognition. The highest
effect sizes were found with respect to meta-cognition. In terms of meta-cognitive
skills, both experimental groups showed a high effect size. Students in both experi-
mental groups scored about one standard deviation higher than the pupils in the
control group. The effect size of meta-cognitive knowledge in both groups was 0.38.
The remaining significant differences between the cognitive apprenticeship
(CA-group) and the control group revealed low-to-moderate effect sizes. Similarly,
on the output measures the CA-group scored between 0.28 and 0.54 standard
deviation higher than the direct instruction group (DI-group). In a further study into
effectiveness for pupils with different intelligence, cognitive apprenticeship appeared
to be more effective for achievement in reading comprehension of highly intelligent
pupils, whereas direct instruction had more positive effects on the achievement
of pupils of low intelligence. Only the effects on meta-cognitive skills could be
attributed to specific characteristics of the two instructional models. The general
characteristics, preparatory discussion and attention for developing skills showed a
positive effect. In addition, the CA characteristic ‘modelling’ showed a negative
effect and ‘discovery learning’, a positive effect. We can conclude that in general,
the CA model is more effective than the DI model, especially in the follow-up.
The way the models were constructed and implemented supports the argument
for a well-structured approach to cognitive apprenticeship; actually, cognitive
apprenticeship was introduced in classrooms following the procedures of direct
instruction. In this sense, the results also confirm the basic principles of direct
instruction as well.

Effective School Improvement in Mathematics (MIP)

Houtveen, Van der Grift, and Creemers (2004) sought to identify the key elements
of a school improvement programme, which facilitate effective teaching, and to
work out how each of these elements should be designed so that they operate
effectively and in alignment with each of the other elements. This resulted in the
New Learning and Teaching: A Constructivism Approach 93

MIP-programme design for effective school improvement. School design models

are rarely used in the Netherlands, although they have become highly significant in
the USA (Berends, Bodilly & Kirby, 2000; Herman, 1999; Stringfield, Ross &
Smith, 1996), as well as in the Australian context (Hill & Crévola, 1999). Several
key elements refer to the quality of teaching. Some are more related to traditional
instruction such as:
• Giving high-quality instruction (in this case, extended direct instruction)
• Optimising instruction time
• Supporting self-confidence of students
Key elements that are more related to ‘new’ learning and teaching are:
• Self-regulated learning
• Explorative learning environment
The key elements are described as follows.

High-Quality Instruction

The most important aspect of instructional quality is the degree to which the lesson
makes sense to the pupils. This includes presenting information in an orderly way
(Kallison, 1986), noting transitions to new topics (Smith & Cotton, 1980), using
clear and simple language (Land, 1987), using many vivid images and examples
(Hiebert, Wearne & Taber, 1991; Mayer & Gallini, 1990) and frequently restating
essential principles (Maddox & Hoole, 1975). Lessons should be related to pupils’
background knowledge, using such devices as advanced organisers (Nunes &
Bryant, 1996; Pressley et al., 1992) or simply reminding pupils of previously learned
material at relevant points in the lesson. Use of media and other visual representa-
tions can also contribute to quality of instruction (Hiebert, Wearne & Taber, 1991;
Kozma, 1991).
Clear specification of lesson objectives to pupils (Melton, 1978) and a substantial
cohesion between what is taught and what is assessed (Cooley & Leinhardt, 1980;
Creemers, 1994b) contribute to instructional quality, as does frequent formal or
informal assessment to see that students are mastering what is being taught (Crooks,
1988; Kulik & Kulik, 1988) and immediate feedback to students on the correctness
of their performance (Barringer & Gholson, 1979).
Instructional pace is also partly an issue of quality of instruction. Frequent assess-
ment is critical for teachers to establish the most rapid instructional pace consistent
with the preparedness and learning rate of all pupils. Furthermore, speed of pace
will prevent pupils from becoming disengaged and bored and thus will help to keep
them actively engaged in learning (Muijs & Reynolds, 2000; Pressley, Goodchild,
Fleet, Zachowski & Evans, 1989). So, in short, teachers who explicitly model, scaf-
fold and explain strategies, give corrective feedback and practise mastery contribute
highly to the academic success of their pupils (for meta-analyses of the research,
see Brophy & Good, 1986; Carnine, Dixon & Silbert, 1998; Dixon, Carnine &
94 6 Different Approaches to Teaching Which Emerged from Teacher…

Kameenui, 1992; Dixon, Carnine, Lee & Wallin, 1998; Ellis & Worthington, 1994;
Rosenshine & Stevens, 1986; Slavin, 1996; Veenman, 1992).
Although most Dutch schools use methods based on realistic mathematics
education, teaching practices have not changed accordingly (Gravemeijer, 1990;
Harskamp, 1988; Willemsen, 1994). Therefore, in the MIP programme, the following
domain-specific instruction principles have been formulated: sound preparation of
formal calculation, context-bound instruction, action, verbalisation, use of models,
focus on essential understanding and skills and finally attending automation
(especially for struggling learners) (Van de Vijver & Dijkstra, 1999).

Instruction Time

In the theoretical models of learning at school (Bloom, 1976; Carroll, 1963;

Harnischfeger & Wiley, 1978), instruction and its efficient use are considered
important determinants for learning. The connection between time spent and pupils’
results has been established in a large number of empirical research projects
(e.g. Carnine, Dixon & Silbert, 1998; Dixon et al., 1998; Scheerens & Bosker,
1997). In the MIP programme, optimal use of time in terms of classroom manage-
ment as well time spent on explicit instruction in skills and integration of skills
is stressed.

Supporting Self-Confidence of Students

The third aspect of optimising instruction stresses the relationship between learning
and emotion. A certain amount of self-confidence turns out to be a prerequisite for
learning. Self-confidence is built upon the base of experienced success. This implies
that teachers have to provide experience of success for all learners (Ellis &
Worthington, 1994). For initially less-successful students, it is vital to give second
chances to demonstrate success after corrective feedback (Guskey, 2003).

Self-Regulated Learning

Since learning is an active process of knowledge acquisition and construction,

teachers should take measures that make it possible for pupils to adopt an active
learning attitude and then gradually pass on responsibility for the learning process
to them (Boekaerts, 2002; Ellis & Worthington, 1994).

Explorative Learning Environment

Heterogeneous grouping is not enough to help pupils at risk of school failure.

Extended learning and instruction time for these pupils is necessary. In all cases,
extension of instruction time for struggling learners demands a classroom organisation
New Learning and Teaching: A Constructivism Approach 95

in which all pupils are able to manage their own learning process. In the MIP
programme, this classroom organisation is referred to as an ‘explorative learning
environment’. Apart from organisational reasons, an explorative learning environ-
ment has a value in itself because it contributes to school success and the intrinsic
motivation of pupils (Carver & Scheier, 2000; Ryan & Deci, 2000).
In the improvement project, the elements were implemented in the experimental
schools. This implementation was especially successful for the elements of ‘direct
instruction’ and ‘instruction time’ since a relatively large effect size was identified
(see Houtveen et al., 2004). In the further analysis of the positive results of the proj-
ect with respect to student outcomes, it turned out that not only direct instruction but
also supporting self-confidence and creating an explorative learning environment
contributed significantly to the explanation of the learning outcomes. The results
underline the importance of both ‘traditional’ instructional approaches as well ‘new’
ways of learning and teaching. This implies that adopting an integrated approach to
teaching can have better results than focusing on a single approach.

The Implementation of ‘New’ Teaching

The ultimate value of ‘new’ teaching for educational practice depends on the pos-
sibilities for actual implementation and the effects on different groups of students.
Teachers must be able to succeed in the implementation of this type of teaching,
and the desired effects on students must be achieved, that is, the development of a
learning disposition (Sleegers, 2000). Because of the strong focus of constructivists
on learning processes, as yet there is not much empirical evidence on implementation
and effects in regular educational settings. A survey in Dutch secondary education
(Bolhuis, 1997; Bolhuis & Kluvers, 1996), however, has shown that teachers find it
hard to transfer responsibilities to students and to promote self-regulative learning.
They also find it hard to tolerate the mistakes and errors of students and to interpret
these as starting points for further learning. They are constantly inclined to provide
correct answers instead of stimulating students to find their own answers and
solutions. In the content of their lessons, they tend to focus strongly on knowledge
and to forget the importance of strategies, skills and affective aspects in the processes
of learning. Moreover, they offer isolated knowledge instead of situated knowledge.
Teachers do not provide sufficient opportunities for student co-operation. It was also
found that mathematics teachers practise more elements of constructivist teaching
than language teachers do or teachers of subjects like geography and history.
Unfortunately, this survey did not study the actual effects of teaching practices on
students. Literature on the implementation of innovations consistently shows that
teachers in general do not easily implement major innovations that require a change
in vision, materials and behaviour. The implementation of constructivist teaching
certainly can be considered a major innovation. Teachers have to change their vision
about the goals that they are trying to achieve and the techniques they are using to
achieve them. Teachers will need new materials in order to cover the full range of
goals bringing together the concept of a learning disposition.
96 6 Different Approaches to Teaching Which Emerged from Teacher…

The implementation of innovations promoting constructivism is likely to be

influenced by the culture of teaching in a country. This culture is reflected in the
initial teacher training and teacher professional development and has to be taken
into account when designing courses aiming to promote constructivist approaches
to teaching. Most of all, the culture will be reflected in the ideas that teachers form
about their profession and the activities that they are required to perform on a daily
basis. If the culture of teaching holds notions that strongly oppose the basic con-
cepts of constructivism, it will be much harder for teachers to implement this
new way of teaching.
Finally, the implementation of new ways of teaching and learning will be
influenced by the training and support offered to teachers. When teachers are given
specific training for their new practices, in-service or otherwise, implementation
will be enhanced. The same holds for support in the form of collegial coaching or
feedback from external agents, such as school advisors or specialists from national
resource centres (Reezigt, 2000). Training and support in general should include the
concepts described by Joyce and Showers (1980): theory, demonstration, practice,
feedback and coaching. Also, the perception of teachers of the school conditions
will influence the implementation.
Constructivist theories in general do not pay very much attention to the conse-
quences for teaching, but the consequences for the school organisation are even less
apparent. In an attempt to define some of the changes that constructivist teaching
brings about in the school organisation, several authors (Bolhuis & Kluvers, 1996;
Scheerens, 1994; Scheerens & Bosker, 1997) mention practical as well as more
conceptual changes. The practical changes include the following:
• Changes in the time schedule. So far, schools are used to a uniform time schedule
that allocates a certain amount of time (measured in number of lessons, approxi-
mately 1 h per lesson) to each school subject. When teaching procedures change,
the schedule must be more flexible to allow for formats other than the 1-h lesson,
for example, when students need time for independent learning or problem-solv-
ing activities.
• Changes in the physical environment of schools. In general, most schools
provide a number of classrooms, a canteen, a library and so on. Most educational
activities during the school day take place in the classroom setting. When teaching
changes, the environment will have to change too. Students, for example, will
need small, quiet rooms for independent study or group work.
The conceptual changes come about when the main concepts of constructivism
are extrapolated from the student to the teacher level. When teachers are seen as
learning professionals and their learning processes are defined in a similar way to
students’ learning processes, the following changes are needed in the school:
• Changes in the co-operation between teachers. Constructivists should consider
learning as a social and interactive process. For teachers to learn, they should
co-operate and interact more than they are used to doing. However, teaching
in most schools is a rather isolated effort. Even within subject departments, co-
operation and reflection cannot be taken for granted.
The Combination of Different Approaches to Learning and Teaching 97

• Changes in the relation between teachers and the school direction. Constructivists
focus on the teacher as a facilitator of learning processes and a coach. When
teachers are seen as learning professionals, the more senior staff in the school,
such as the school directorate, are supposed to provide facilitative leadership.
The school directorate, for example, should promote teacher training and devel-
opment and peer-coaching procedures. Strict hierarchical relations between
the school level and the teachers do not seem to fit the main notions of
constructivism.
• Major innovations, such as the introduction of constructivist teaching in schools,
will not succeed when the school organisation does not fit the new way of teach-
ing. In general, for innovations to succeed, the school should provide favourable
conditions for the implementation and incorporation of new ways of teaching.
When the school conditions hinder the innovation efforts of teachers, implemen-
tation will either not occur at all or fade quickly away. In addition, research in the
field of school improvement has made abundantly clear the fact that innovations
will fail to yield any sustained effects on students when they are not incorporated
in the school organisation in some way or other (Teddlie & Reynolds, 2000).

The Combination of Different Approaches

to Learning and Teaching

In educational practice, combinations of the two approaches can be found. In fact, a

more interactive learning (and instruction) in which students play an important role
in the acquisition of knowledge and skills, replaces the original direct instruction
approach, which places less emphasis on the role of the learners. Students are
actively involved in the learning and teaching processes. Also, the social aspects of
learning have received more attention and resulted in developing means of co-oper-
ation between students and teachers within direct instruction. In the constructivist
approach, elements of direct instruction are included when knowledge and skills are
required before more constructivist ways of learning can begin and also in the way
that procedures for knowledge construction are presented. For example, modelling
by the teachers could take place in a well-structured way (Creemers & Kyriakides,
2006). Effective instruction can combine direct instruction elements, especially
those that are most directed towards active learning, as well as elements of construc-
tivist instruction, especially when elements that foster the effectiveness of the
constructivist approach are included. This argument is supported by empirical
studies investigating the impact of factors associated with different approaches to
teaching upon student outcomes (Kyriakides & Creemers, 2008, 2009). Although
the two approaches remain different from one another, they are not in opposition to
each other. The choice between the two approaches depends upon the particular
educational objectives being pursued. For knowledge and skills, it seems that direct
active learning/teaching approaches can provide an effective and efficient way to
achieve these objectives. On the other hand, for higher-order knowledge and skills
98 6 Different Approaches to Teaching Which Emerged from Teacher…

and meta-cognitive objective factors associated with constructivist approaches may

have larger effects than factors promoting direct and active teaching. Research into
differential teacher effectiveness seems to reveal that the choice between the two
approaches partly depends on the characteristics of the learner, such as their age,
abilities and learning styles (Kyriakides, 2007). For example, it is shown that
the more structured ways of teaching included in direct and active instruction
(e.g. structuring, application) are more suitable for younger students in the earlier
stages of learning and for more disadvantaged students who benefit from more
structured ways of teaching (Kyriakides & Creemers, 2009; Muijs, Ainscow &
West, 2006). Self-regulation of learning, including the more constructivist
approaches, is more appropriate for students of high ability and in the later stages of
learning (see, e.g. Tynjälä, 1999). Finally, the choice between the two approaches
depends on the conditions and context of learning. A more constructivist learning
environment requires teachers who can organise an ‘open’ learning situation and
guide students’ learning. Furthermore, constructive ways of learning require a
context-rich learning environment, with appropriate learning material available for
students (Hyerle, 1996). In a programme of research concerning ‘structured inde-
pendence’ (Scheerens & Creemers, 1999), these issues are pursued in more depth.
The two traditions of educational effectiveness and constructivism are compared in
order to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the two traditions. One aspect of
the attempt to integrate the traditions is a multilevel comprehensive mapping of the
research domain, distinguishing levels of individual learners, groups of learners,
teachers and school context.
This careful analysis of the two traditions related to input, context and output
may result in guidelines for the choice between the two traditions based on the
conditions for learning and expected outcomes. It might be that one of the two
traditions is more appropriate for certain kinds of outcomes, given a particular set of
conditions (with respect to the input and the context). There exist examples of this
delineation between the two traditions, as presented by Veenman (1992), Marzano,
Pickering and Pollock (2001) and Sharpe and Gopinathan (2001). Based on experi-
ence in educational practice and research results with examples of merging reflecting
the original position of the designers in Singapore (Sharpe & Gopinathan, 2001), a
more technical approach to these higher-order outcomes and independent learning
has been designed (making use of elements of constructivist ways of teaching). It
might be that constructivist ways of teaching and elements of it, as described in
earlier sections, are more effective for higher-order outcomes than a technical,
structured approach to higher-order cognitive processes.
Rather than making a choice between different didactical approaches according
to criteria concerning the objectives, students’ background and the conditions within
the classroom and the school, a further step might be the combination of approaches
within one comprehensive framework of effective instruction. Evidently, this cannot
be a definite blueprint for instruction that will always remain the same and should
be followed by teachers and students in the same way all the time. Many instruc-
tional tools for teaching and learning can be used according to the objectives, input
and the conditions/contexts of teaching and learning. The combination of approaches
The Combination of Different Approaches to Learning and Teaching 99

consists of process characteristics of instruction which turn out to be effective in

relation to the ultimate goal of education, that is, to make students independent
learners and participants in society. This implies that elements of structuring are
combined with the final goal of independent learning. In the next chapter, we refer
to one of the recent models of EER which adopts an integrated approach to effective
teaching by referring to factors found to be associated with student achievement,
irrespective of whether they belong to the direct and active teaching approach or to
the constructivist approach. The dynamic model refers to factors operating at differ-
ent levels that need to be addressed in order to improve quality of teaching, and its
implications for teacher training and professional development are discussed in the
third part of this book.
Chapter 7
Establishing Theoretical Frameworks
to Describe Teacher Effectiveness

Introduction

In the last chapter of the second part of this book concerned with TER, we present
the main theoretical frameworks which have been developed in order to describe
effective education. It is argued that by moving from Carroll’s model (1963) for
school learning to the comprehensive model of educational effectiveness, which is
a multilevel model that places emphasis on instruction and ultimately on the dynamic
model of educational effectiveness, the complex nature of educational effectiveness
can be described more precisely. Thus, the comprehensive model is described in the
first part of this chapter, and some limitations of the model are identified. In the
second part, we refer to the dynamic model of educational effectiveness, and it is
shown that this model takes into account the dynamic perspective of education.
The dynamic model also incorporates the results of differential teacher effectiveness
research into a generic model describing effective teaching practice. Furthermore, it
is acknowledged that previous studies on teacher effectiveness have not been able to
make a significant impact upon teacher training and professional development,
whereas the establishment of the dynamic model of educational effectiveness may
contribute significantly to addressing these weaknesses of the field. For this reason,
the next part of this book discusses the use of the dynamic model to establish a
theory-driven and evidence-based approach to teacher training and professional
development.

The Comprehensive Model of Educational Effectiveness:

General Characteristics

A model specifies or visualises complex phenomena in a simplified or reduced

manner. In more abstract terms, it is described in terms of a set of units (facts, concepts,
variables) and a system of relationships between these units. A distinction should

B. Creemers et al., Teacher Professional Development for Improving 101

Quality of Teaching, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-5207-8_7,
© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
102 7 Establishing Theoretical Frameworks…

also be made between conceptual and formal models. In the case of conceptual
models, only verbal descriptions and diagrams are used, while the formal models
consist of mathematical equations. The comprehensive model of educational effec-
tiveness belongs to the category of conceptual models, and its main characteristics
are described below.
Creemers’s model distinguishes between levels in education (see also Scheerens,
1992; Slavin, 1996; Stringfield, 1994; Stringfield & Slavin, 1992) and is therefore
multilevel in nature. Specifically, the model has four levels: the student level, the
classroom level, the school level and the context level. Higher levels are expected to
provide conditions for the operation of lower levels. Therefore, outcomes result
from the combined effects of levels. With regard to the factors included in the model,
it is important to note that the model is based on the Carroll model of school learning
(Carroll, 1963), which is briefly described below.

The Carroll Model for Learning in Schools: A Starting

Point for Developing the Comprehensive Model

A favourite model within EER was Carroll’s model for learning in schools (Carroll,
1963). It was popular because it related individual student characteristics important
for learning to characteristics of education important for instruction. In addition,
Carroll indicated the factors of time and the quantity and quality of instruction as
important concepts for learning in schools.
The concepts of time/opportunity and quality are rather vague and can be made
more concrete by looking at other characteristics of effective instruction related to
learning outcomes. The Carroll model states that the degree of student mastery is a
function of the ratio of the amount of time spent on learning tasks to the total amount
of time needed. Time actually spent on learning is defined as equal to the smallest
of three variables: (1) opportunity (i.e. time allowed for learning), (2) perseverance
(i.e. the amount of time during which students are willing to engage actively in
learning) and (3) aptitude (i.e. the amount of time needed to learn in optimal instruc-
tional conditions). This last amount of time may be increased in the case of poor
quality of instruction and lack of ability to understand less than optimal instruction
(Carroll, 1963).
The Carroll model can be criticised for being more of an instructional than a
teaching model since it does not provide information about how learning itself takes
place. Rather, it emphasises that learning takes time and depends on multiple-level
interrelated factors. The relationship between time, perseverance, aptitude and quality
of the instruction was further elaborated by Bloom, using Carroll’s model to develop
mastery learning (see Chap. 6). Because of the elaboration Bloom provided within
a broadly instructional framework (although some of Carroll’s writings make clear
that he thinks that this is a rather technical and mechanical elaboration of his original
intentions), the influence of this learning theory on educational practice has been
substantial. However, it is acknowledged that one of Carroll’s intentions was to raise
The Comprehensive Model of Educational Effectiveness: General Characteristics 103

new and better questions for research, and he certainly succeeded in this respect,
because there has been a lot of research on variables that were included in the model
(see Creemers & Kyriakides, 2008b). In addition, the Carroll model has made sub-
stantial contributions to educational practice, for example, in the development of the
model of mastery learning (see Chap. 6), the Keller Plan for individualised instruction,
research on the length of school days and school years (Wiley & Harnischfeger,
1974) and research on teaching related to learning time (see Creemers, 1994b).
A consistent line of reasoning has been developed in models and theories of
educational effectiveness concerning learning outcomes and learning theories
relating instructional processes at a classroom level and school and contextual
conditions necessary to facilitate quality of instruction. Specifically, the concept of
time, central to Carroll’s model, has been systematically complemented by the
concept of opportunity to learn, and the only classroom factor in the Carroll model,
quality of instruction, has been elaborated in more detail and put at the core of the
comprehensive model of educational effectiveness. Combining the key concepts
and the hierarchical structure of the levels, Creemers’s model defines the key concepts
at each educational level by outlining specific selected factors on the basis of a
theoretical criterion, namely, that these factors should have demonstrated their
impact on outcomes. Most factors represent the alterable behaviours of teachers and
school teams. The model shows how the levels influence student outcomes, but
since the model places more emphasis on the classroom-level factors, the relation of
the model to the various instructional theories is first of all elaborated in the next
section of this chapter.

Instructional Theories as the Basis for the Development

of Creemers’s Model

Theories about effective education that start at the classroom level focus on the
instructional elements of learning theories. In fact, these theories, taking into account
the background characteristics at the student level, try to explain how the instruc-
tional factors can contribute to the outcomes of education or, more precisely, how
differences in educational outcomes can be explained by differences in instruction
at the classroom level. These theories emphasise instructional factors that are
changeable. In addition to the student background characteristics, instructional
theories take into account elements or components of instruction at the classroom
level, such as the methods used at the classroom level, other learning methods, the
learning environment and especially teacher behaviour in the classroom. Based on
the distinction between the different components of instruction at the classroom
level, one can discover correlates that are associated with effectiveness in research,
and indeed, these correlates for effectiveness from past research are rearranged in
a conceptual framework (Creemers & Reezigt, 1996). It is important to note that
in various instructional theories developed in the 1970s (e.g. Bloom, 1976;
Carroll, 1963; Cooley & Lohnes, 1976; Glaser, 1976; Harnischfeger & Wiley, 1976),
104 7 Establishing Theoretical Frameworks…

the theoretical constructs are almost the same. Specifically, a distinction between
‘the quality of instruction’ and ‘time on task and opportunity to learn’ is often
made. Like Carroll (1963), they merge together time and opportunity to learn.
However, time and opportunity to learn can be discerned in several categories.
For example, Harnischfeger and Wiley (1976) distinguish seven categories of
time. In this context, Creemers (1994b) made a distinction between time on task,
on the one hand, and opportunity to learn, on the other. Thus, Creemers developed
Carroll’s model of learning by adding to the general concept of opportunity the
more specific notion of opportunity to learn. Moreover, in Creemers’s model, time
and opportunity are discerned both at the classroom level and at the school level.
In this way, Creemers made a distinction between available and actually used time
and opportunity.
Similarly, quality of instruction can be identified in quite a lot of different
elements, especially when quality is distinguished for different components within
the instructional process, such as curricula, grouping procedures and teacher behav-
iours (Creemers, 1994b). Each of these three components of instruction can contribute
to the quality of instruction and have characteristics that are correlated with the
effectiveness of education at the classroom level (Kyriakides, Campbell & Gagatsis,
2000). Creemers claims that these components can influence learning outcomes
directly but may also influence time and opportunity, and therefore learning out-
comes, indirectly.
It is apparent that there is a difference between what is offered to students and the
actual use students make of that offer. That holds true, according to Creemers’
model, both for time and opportunity. Therefore, the quality of instruction can
influence the use that students make of time and opportunity, as well as the amount
they need before mastering the objectives of education. With respect to time,
Creemers (1994b) argues that the distinction between planned time and used time is
obvious in terms of allocated and engaged time. With respect to opportunities, the
distinction between the opportunity that is offered (planned) and the opportunity
that is used is rarer, but it can provide a useful tool for explaining differences in
student outcomes.
In summary, Creemers’s model concentrates on the classroom level since most
studies on educational effectiveness have supported the idea of the predominance of
classroom-level factors over school-level factors (Teddlie & Reynolds, 2000).
Moreover, the classroom factors most directly related to time on task and opportu-
nities to learn used at the student level are the corresponding factors used at the class
level: ‘time for learning’ and ‘opportunity to learn’. Furthermore, Creemers (1994b)
distinguishes three components of quality of classroom instruction: curriculum,
grouping procedures and teacher behaviour. However, teachers are considered to be
the central component in instruction. They make use of curricular materials, and
they carry out grouping procedures (such as mastery learning, ability grouping
and co-operative learning). These three components of quality of instruction are
elaborated in the specific effectiveness-related variables in the model. In curriculum
and teacher behaviour, similar kinds of variables are distinguished, such as clarity
of goals, structuring of content and evaluation and feedback to produce corrective
The Comprehensive Model of Educational Effectiveness: General Characteristics 105

instruction. Additional teacher behaviour characteristics refer to high expectations,

homework, presentational skills and class management (Creemers). Finally, it could
be claimed that the model in its concentration on education emphasises learning and
instruction but, as articulated below, the model is less developed in relation to the
organisational part of the school and the educational system.

The Conditional Role of the School Level

Creemers takes as his point of departure the fact that student learning, and espe-
cially differences in learning outcomes, has to be explained by the primary pro-
cesses at the classroom level. These primary processes directly influence time on
task and opportunities to learn used by students and indirectly influence student
achievement. However, it is not expected that the school level directly contributes to
time on task and opportunities used by the students or to student achievement.
Creemers (1994b) claims that the school provides conditions for quality of instruction,
time on task and opportunity to learn at the classroom level. It is also postulated
that at the school level, the conditional factors can be related to the overarching
categories mentioned above: quality, time and opportunity. The conditional role of
the school level is depicted in Fig. 7.1 which illustrates the comprehensive model of
educational effectiveness.

Quality, Time and Opportunity at the School Level

Figure 7.1 shows that school-level factors are expected to directly influence the
quality of instruction, time for learning and opportunity to learn at the classroom
level. Their influence on student achievement is mediated by time on task and
by opportunities used at the student level. Therefore, school-level factors are
categorised within the same conceptual notions of quality, time and opportunity as
the classroom-level factors. However, the school-level factors include not only the
organisation of the school (teachers, students, parents) but also the educational
system beyond the school level (i.e. the context/national level). This relates to the
curriculum of the school in terms of effects on the textbooks and the timetable.
Thus, Creemers (1994b) makes a distinction between the school level as an organi-
sational and as an educational system. The two systems are related to each other, but
the first—the school level—can create and sustain the situation in which education
takes place to some extent, comparable with what management of classroom ‘does’
for instruction. According to the comprehensive model of educational effectiveness,
the factors at the school level are seen as conditions for what goes on at the class-
room level. However, conditions can be either clear (e.g. the curriculum) or less
clear (e.g. the structure of the organisation). The latter factors can also affect the
instructional process by, for example, influencing what happens between head
teachers and teachers (see, e.g. Rosenholz, 1989; Teddlie & Stringfield, 1993).
106 7 Establishing Theoretical Frameworks…

School level Quality/educational

Quality/organisational
Time
Opportunity

Classroom level Quality of instruction

- curriculum
- grouping procedures
- teacher behaviour

Time for learning

Opportunity to learn

Student level Time on task Student

Opportunities used achievement

Motivation

Aptitudes
Social background

Fig. 7.1 The comprehensive model of educational effectiveness (Adopted from Creemers and
Reezigt (1996))

A distinction is also made between the educational and organisational aspects of

the quality of instruction (see Fig. 7.1). With respect to the educational aspects, the
rules and agreements in the school concerning the instructional process at the class-
room level are of the utmost importance, especially those related to curricular
materials, grouping procedures and teacher behaviour. For example, it is expected
that there should be a school policy which defines educational goals that have to be
achieved in the classroom. This does not imply that wide range of goals may be
difficult for students to achieve; however, the school policy should refer to realistic
goals that can be achieved, as well as those that are in line with the educational
needs of the students and can provide guidance to teacher behaviour in the class-
room (Campbell & Kyriakides, 2000). Moreover, effective schools are expected to
have an evaluation policy that directs activities at the classroom and the student
levels by means of a student monitoring system. Therefore, effective schools pro-
mote the testing of students and stimulate teachers to disseminate their assessment
results to students and parents, to take corrective measures and to act as necessary
The Comprehensive Model of Educational Effectiveness: General Characteristics 107

on the basis of their students’ progress, providing opportunities for rehearsal, cor-
rective materials and remedial teaching. This implies that effective schools place
more emphasis on the formative purposes of assessment than on the summative
purposes (Kyriakides, 2005a).
The organisational aspects of quality at the school level are related to the inter-
connectedness (mutual supervision) of teachers and the professionalisation of
teachers and head teachers. These aspects refer not only to the structure of the
organisation but also to the collaboration among teachers and their head teacher,
which contributes to the improvement in both classroom practices and the school
as a whole. In this respect, the effective head teacher is expected to act as an ‘instruc-
tional leader’ who takes responsibility for the professional development of the
teachers in his/her school. Creemers (1994b) also argues that team consensus about
the mission of the school and the way to fulfil this mission through shared values
will support the activities of individual teachers and will result in continuity and
consistency. This can create a school culture amongst head teachers, teachers, stu-
dents and parents that promotes effectiveness (Cheng, 1993).
Conditions for the use of time at the school level are connected with the time-
table. For all grade levels, this timetable spells out how much time should be devoted
to different subjects. Apart from this, it is important to keep track of the time utilisation.
In less effective schools, a lot of scheduled time is wasted, because there is no
system to ensure time in the classroom is used effectively.
The time available for learning can be expanded by a homework policy. For this
reason, such a policy is seen as an important school-level factor. When homework
assignments are well controlled and structured and constructive feedback is given,
such assignments can expand effective learning time outside the school. Moreover,
contacts between schools and parents and agreements about school policies and
activities may lead to the effective use of time spent on homework. Furthermore,
when parents expect their children to achieve goals set by the school, the effective-
ness of education increases.
Creemers (1994b) also argues that measures taken at the school level can main-
tain an orderly environment that facilitates teaching and learning at the classroom
level. Several studies on school effectiveness reveal that learning time is increased by
an orderly classroom climate (Teddlie & Reynolds, 2000). At a school level, such a
climate can be fostered; therefore, it is necessary to establish order, a quiet atmosphere
and structure, and to support teachers trying to achieve this in their classes.
According to the comprehensive model of educational effectiveness, at the school
level, conditions can be created that contribute to the opportunity to learn at the
classroom level. At the school level, the opportunity to learn is provided by the
development and the availability of documents, such as a formal curriculum, a
school working plan and an activity plan for what has to be done to pursue the goals
of the curriculum. In this document, the school management team can explain its
vision of education and make clear how effectiveness will be pursued in the school.
Effective schools are expected to feel responsible for student achievement: it is their
‘mission’ to contribute to achievement. A school policy based on these principles
can yield important effects (Creemers, 1994b).
108 7 Establishing Theoretical Frameworks…

In summary, the following conditions at the school level are necessary to ensure
quality of instruction:
• Rules and agreements about all aspects of classroom instruction, especially
curricular materials, grouping procedures and teacher behaviour, and the consis-
tency between them.
• An evaluation policy and a system at school level to check on student achieve-
ment, to prevent learning problems or to correct those that might have emerged
at an early stage. This includes regular testing, remedial teaching, student coun-
selling and homework assistance.
With respect to the organisational aspects at the school level, important condi-
tions for quality of instruction are as follows:
• A school policy on supervision of teachers, heads of departments and head teachers
by higher ranking persons and a school policy to support and further professionalise
teachers who do not live up to the school/national standards
• A school culture promoting and supporting effectiveness
As far as the conditions relating to time at the school level is concerned, the
model refers to the following school-level factors:
• The development and provision of a timetable for subjects and topics
• Rules and agreements about time utilisation, including the school policy on
homework, student absenteeism and cancellation of lessons
• The maintenance of an orderly and quiet atmosphere in the school
Finally, factors which provide conditions for the opportunity to learn are as
follows:
• The development and availability of a curriculum and a school working plan or
activity plan
• Consensus about the mission of the school
• Rules and agreements about how to proceed and how to follow the curriculum,
especially with respect to transition from one grade to another
However, it is important to note that it is not the intention of Creemers (1994b)
to refer to all kinds of school factors mentioned in review studies of school
effectiveness research (e.g. Levine & Lezotte, 1990; Sammons, Hillman &
Mortimore, 1995) but rather to show that the school-level factors which refer to the
conceptual notions of quality, time and opportunity are the most important predic-
tors of effectiveness. For example, the variable ‘resources’ is mentioned in several
review studies but is not regarded as a separate category of school factors. This is
attributed to the fact that Creemers does not assume that just providing additional
finance and resources to schools is likely to improve their effectiveness status.
On the contrary, resources should be defined in such a way that their relationship
to effectiveness is clarified. In other words, the influence of resources on the quality
of curricular materials and on teacher behaviour or other factors in the model that
support education should be identified.
The Comprehensive Model of Educational Effectiveness: General Characteristics 109

The Main Assumptions of the Comprehensive Model

The comprehensive model of educational effectiveness does not refer only to factors
operating at different levels. Creemers’ model also shows how the levels in the
model influence student outcomes. Specifically, the model is based on four
assumptions which help us identify the nature of interactions shown in the model
and also how the student and the context levels are defined. Firstly, time on task and
opportunity used at the student level are directly related to student achievement.
Secondly, the quality of teaching, the curriculum and the grouping procedures
influence the time on task and opportunity to learn. For example, some teachers
spend more time actually teaching, while others spend more time on classroom
management and keeping order. Therefore, teachers are seen as the central component
in instruction at the classroom level. Thirdly, teaching quality, time and opportunity
at the classroom level are also influenced by factors at the school level that may or
may not promote these classroom factors. The school level is also influenced by
factors at the context level. Outcomes therefore cannot be seen as a result of class-
room factors only, as in many studies of effectiveness. The influences of the context
and school levels are indirect and mediated by the classroom level. Finally, it is
acknowledged that although teachers are able to influence the amount of time spent
on learning and the provision of opportunities to learn in their classrooms through
the quality of their instruction, it is the students who decide how much time they
will spend on their school tasks and how many tasks they will complete. Thus,
achievement is also determined by student factors such as aptitudes, social back-
ground and motivation.

The Four Formal Principles of the Model

Although focusing on the effects of various factors, the fully elaborated model of
Creemers (1994b) makes tentative statements about their joint impact on student
outcomes by introducing the formal principles of consistency, cohesion, constancy
and control. These formal principles were considered a major improvement
compared with those of other models, because they hold together the other factors
in the model and can explain the joint cumulative impact of factors, which together
constitute learning environments. The formal principles concern the relationships
between the factors of instruction, (textbooks, grouping procedures and teaching
behaviour) the stability of factors over time and mechanisms to put the factors into
practice. The idea behind the notion of formal principles is that the influence of the
factors at a particular level, and between factors at different levels, can be enforced
or can take place if these factors are pursued for a longer period of time and are in
line with each other. Research on effective education at the classroom level shows
that individual components of effective teaching do not result in strong effects on
student achievement (Creemers & Reezigt, 1996). For example, good curricula
need teachers who can make adequate use of them and who will show effective
110 7 Establishing Theoretical Frameworks…

Table 7.1 School-level factors and formal principles operating in generating effectiveness
School-level effectiveness factors: characteristics of quality,
time and opportunity Formal principles
Quality/educational Rules and agreements about classroom Consistency
instruction
Evaluation policy/evaluation system
Quality/organisational Policy on intervision, supervision Cohesion
and professionalisation
School culture inducing effectiveness
Time Timetable Constancy
Rules and agreements about time use
Orderly and quiet atmosphere
Opportunity School curriculum Control
Consensus about mission
Rules and agreements about how
to implement the school curriculum

instructional behaviour. The same holds true for grouping procedures. It is integration
of components that is necessary to achieve substantial effects. An integrated
approach to education rather than exclusive use of the direct instruction or the
mastery learning approach is necessary (Creemers, 1994b). In this integrated
approach, the educational components of curricula, grouping procedures and teacher
behaviour are adapted to each other. To achieve time and opportunity to learn,
Creemers argues that the three components in general should have the same effec-
tiveness characteristics. This is called consistency of the effectiveness characteris-
tics and is based on the assumption that effectiveness characteristics that are in line
with each other mutually reinforce each other and can have a synergistic effect that
exceeds the effectiveness of the separate components (e.g. Kyriakides, 2008;
Scheerens & Bosker, 1997). As mentioned above, like consistency at the classroom
level, there are four formal principles at the school level which, when they operate,
ensure that educational effectiveness is generated (see Table 7.1).
Formal principles cannot be seen easily or immediately in schools, and for this
reason, it is difficult to test the validity of the model in relation to these four
principles. However, we can assume that they exist, based on the fact that the same
factors are seen across instructional components, subjects, grades and classes.
Moreover, Table 7.1 reveals that consistency, which is based on the assumption that
the effectiveness of classrooms, schools and contexts is enhanced when the factors
at these levels are in line with each other and support each other, is seen as an impor-
tant condition for instruction. Thus, conditions for effective instruction related to
curricular materials, grouping procedures and teacher behaviour are expected to be
in line with each other. When all members of a school team take care of consistency,
cohesion is created, which means that every team member is aware of the need for
consistency and acts according to school-wide agreements in this respect. In this
way, effective instruction between classes can be guaranteed. To maximise outcomes,
The Dynamic Model of Educational Effectiveness 111

schools should not change rules and policies every other year. For this reason,
Creemers (1994b) argues that there should be constancy, meaning that effective
instruction is provided throughout the school career of the student. Thus, constancy
implies that consistency and cohesion are guaranteed over long periods of time.
Finally, the control principle refers not only to the fact that student outcomes and
teacher behaviour should be evaluated but also to the importance of evaluating
school climate, since an orderly and quiet school climate is necessary to achieve
results. Moreover, control refers to teachers holding themselves and others respon-
sible for effectiveness.
Although greater emphasis is placed on the formal principles operating at the
school level, the model also applies to the context level, taking into account the
same elements of quality, time and opportunity, and the formal principles which are
expected to operate in order to generate effectiveness. Therefore, Creemers (1994b)
argues that at the context level, consistency, constancy and control are again formal
characteristics emphasising the importance of context factors (e.g. national policy
on evaluation or testing, training and support systems) over time and of mechanisms
to ensure effectiveness.

The Dynamic Model of Educational Effectiveness

National Studies Testing the Validity

of the Comprehensive Model: A Starting Point
for the Development of the Dynamic Model

During the last 15 years, six studies testing the main aspects of Creemers’s model
(i.e. De Jong, Westerhof & Kruiter, 2004; Driessen & Sleegers, 2000; Kyriakides,
2005b; Kyriakides et al., 2000; Kyriakides & Tsangaridou, 2004; Reezigt,
Guldemond & Creemers, 1999) were conducted in two European countries, one
with a more, the other with a less centralised educational system (i.e. the Netherlands
and Cyprus). A comparison of the results of these studies helps us identify the
extent to which the model can be used to explain effectiveness in both centralised
and less centralised educational systems. Table 7.2 illustrates the main results of
these studies and helps us identify the extent to which empirical support for the
Creemers model has been provided.
It is first of all important to note that these studies revealed that the influences on
student achievement are multilevel. Classrooms had unique effects on student learn-
ing, independently of factors operating at the school and individual levels. Moreover,
by controlling for both student factors and classroom contextual factors, variables at
the school level explained some variation in achievement at that level. This finding
is in line with the findings of most studies on educational effectiveness conducted in
various countries during the last two decades (Teddlie & Reynolds, 2000) and
provides support for the argument that models of educational effectiveness should
112 7 Establishing Theoretical Frameworks…

Table 7.2 A summary of the findings of the six studies conducted in the Netherlands and Cyprus
in order to test the validity of the Creemers’s model
The Netherlands Cyprus
Main assumptions of the model Study 1 Study 2 Study 3 Study 1 Study 2 Study 3
(a) Multilevel in nature + + + + + +
(b) Factors of the model
Student level
Socio-economic status + + + + + 0
Aptitude + + + + +
Motivation
Perseverance 0 0 0 +
Self-confidence +
School motivation 0
Subject motivation + + + +
Expectations + + +
Time on task + + + +
Opportunity used 0 0 + +
Teacher/class level
Time for learning − 0 0 0 + +
Opportunity to learn + 0 + + +
(homework assigned)
Grouping 0 +
Quality of teaching
Quality curriculum +
Implementation curriculum +
Task directness + +
Clear goal-setting +
Corrective instruction +
Feedback M +
Assessment/test frequency + +
Emphasis on basic skills +
High expectations 0
Clarity of instruction 0 +
Giving information + +
Practice and application +
Teacher’s treatment of pupils 0 +
Supportive environment +
Maintaining attention on lesson +
Maintaining appropriate +
classroom behaviour
Classroom management +
Classroom climate +
Motor appropriately engaged +
Grouping 0 +
School level
Orderly atmosphere +
Education policy + −
(continued)
The Dynamic Model of Educational Effectiveness 113

Table 7.2 (continued)

The Netherlands Cyprus
Main assumptions of the model Study 1 Study 2 Study 3 Study 1 Study 2 Study 3
Implementation curriculum 0
Classroom instruction M + +
Rules about time use − + +
Professionalisation policy −
Grouping (school track) 0
Evaluation policy M +
Curriculum 0
Opportunity to learn: + +
school mission
School facilities (gymnasium) +
(c) Cross-level interactions 0 0 0 0
(d) Principles: Consistency 0 0
(e) Differential effects + + +
(f) Factors not in the model
Student level
Gender M 0 + M M
Personality +
Thinking style +
Self-efficacy 0
Teacher level
Teacher personal characteristics 0 0
Teacher knowledge 0 +
0: No statistically significant effects at 0.05 level were identified, +: Positive effects were identified,
−: Negative effects were identified, M: Both positive and negative effects were identified

be multilevel in nature. This also implies that the models of educational effectiveness
should refer to multiple factors of effectiveness, which operate at different levels.
Secondly, the six studies revealed that most of the student-level factors included
in the Creemers model, such as aptitudes, social background and motivation, showed
effects in the expected directions. However, the need to expand the model at the
student level was pointed out since most of the unexplained variance was found to be
located at this level. The importance of looking within studies in the field of psychol-
ogy to identify student-level factors has already been stressed (Kyriakides, 2005b).
Nevertheless, researchers within the field of EER should be critical about the exten-
sion of the current models and select only variables that have stable effects and can
help us establish a model that is in line with the parsimony principle. At the same
time, it should be acknowledged that looking at the student-level factors is not a
critical issue for the development of the theoretical framework of EER. The main aim
of EER is to identify effective education factors that could be introduced or changed
through school improvement projects (Creemers, 2002). Therefore, it is important to
identify student-level variables which not only are related to student achievement but
also interact with other effectiveness factors operating at the classroom and/or school
114 7 Establishing Theoretical Frameworks…

level. For example, a factor concerned with the thinking styles of students, which
emerged from the theory of mental self-government (Sternberg, 1988), was found to
be associated with student achievement (see Kyriakides, 2005b). Given that thinking
styles are seen as dynamic, it can be claimed that it is possible to design projects
attempting to help students develop ‘optimal’ styles in order to improve their achieve-
ment. It can also be argued that high-quality teaching will help students develop
optimal thinking styles. This argument reveals the importance of including this stu-
dent-level factor in the models of educational effectiveness. It has also been shown
that there is an interaction between measures of quality of teaching and measures of
the personal characteristics of students. For example, one of these studies revealed
that generic teaching skills, found to be consistently correlated with student achieve-
ment, have a general effect across all students but to differing degrees because of
students’ different thinking styles and personality traits.
Thirdly, the figures of Table 7.2 reveal that these six studies provided support for
the importance of the main classroom-level factors of the Creemers model. At the
same time, no empirical support was provided for classroom-level factors not
included in the model, such as teacher characteristics and knowledge. These findings
seem to reveal that at the classroom level, the teacher is an important actor. Teacher
background characteristics, such as gender, age, education, beliefs and motivation,
are important in educational theory and research because these characteristics may
explain the differences between teachers in the way they behave in the classroom.
However, these characteristics should not be included in the models of educational
effectiveness. This argument is not only supported by the fact that these teacher
characteristics were not found to be related to achievement. It is also argued here
that the models of effectiveness should concentrate on the teaching activities teachers
perform in order to initiate, promote and evaluate student learning (see Chap. 5).
Fourthly, in each of these six studies, the concept of quality of teaching was
treated in a different way since each one was searching for the impact of different
aspects of quality of teaching upon student achievement. This can be attributed to
the fact that although the comprehensive model places more emphasis on the
process of teaching than the other integrated models do (e.g. Scheerens, 1992;
Stringfield & Slavin, 1992), the concept of quality of teaching is not defined
precisely. The lack of clarity in defining quality of teaching might be attributed
to one of the major weaknesses of EER, namely, its assumption that quality is
guaranteed whenever an aspect of teaching is able to explain part of the variance in
student achievement. However, researchers in the area of effectiveness should
develop a parsimonious model at classroom level, which will provide a clear
definition of the quality of teaching by referring to the most important aspects of
effective teaching.
Table 7.2 also reveals that the aspects of quality of teaching taken into account by
the six studies testing the validity of the Creemers model mainly referred to the direct
teaching approach. However, in recent years, constructivist and others who support
the ‘new learning’ approach (e.g. Choi & Hannafin, 1995; Savery & Duffy, 1995;
Simons, van der Linden & Duffy, 2000; Vermunt & Vershaffel, 2000) have developed
a set of instructional techniques that are supposed to enhance the learning disposition
The Dynamic Model of Educational Effectiveness 115

of students, such as modelling, coaching, scaffolding and fading, articulating,

reflection, exploration, generalisation, collaborative teaching, provision of anchors,
goal orientation and self-regulated learning (see Chap. 6). Researchers attempting
to develop models which illustrate the complexity of educational effectiveness at
classroom level should refer not only to skills associated with direct teaching and
mastery learning but also to factors which are in line with new theories of learning.
Fifthly, in contrast to the classroom-level factors, no large variation in the aspects
of school factors taken into account by these six studies can be identified (see
Table 7.2). However, different measurement frameworks were used in order to
define similar aspects of school-level factors. For example, one study was looking
at the frequency dimension of school evaluation policy to identify the effect of this
factor on achievement and revealed both negative and positive effects, whereas
another study was looking at the emphasis placed on the formative aspect of evaluation
and revealed positive effects. A similar problem can also be identified in the way the
classroom-level factors were measured by these six studies. For example, different
aspects of clarity of instruction were measured in the studies conducted in Cyprus,
and different results concerning the importance of this factor emerged. The fact that
these six studies made use of different approaches to measure effectiveness factors
can be attributed to the fact that the Creemers model (as well as all the other models
of educational effectiveness) does not explicitly refer to the measurement of each
effectiveness factor. On the contrary, it is often assumed that these factors represent
unidimensional constructs. The synthesis of studies testing the Creemers model
reported here seems to reveal that models of educational effectiveness should not
only illustrate the various effectiveness factors but also identify the dimensions
of each factor which can be measured. Considering effectiveness factors as
multidimensional constructs provides a better picture of what makes teachers
and schools effective and may help us develop specific strategies for improving
educational practice.
Sixthly, none of the studies presented in this chapter were able to illustrate statis-
tically significant cross-level interactions between school- and classroom-level fac-
tors. The Creemers model is based on the assumption that school factors are able to
influence classroom-level factors, especially teaching practice. The model refers to
factors at school and context level which are related to the same key concepts of
quantity of teaching, provision of learning opportunities and quality of teaching
used to define the classroom-level factors. However, the fact that such cross-level
interactions were not identified may have to do with the fact that the comprehensive
model does not take into account the dynamic perspective of effectiveness. For
example, at those schools where teacher and/or student absenteeism rarely occur,
change in their policy on absenteeism is not expected to be associated with only
improvement in the effectiveness status of the school; only changes in those factors
in relation to which schools face significant problems are expected to be associated
with improvement in school effectiveness.
Seventhly, the first two Dutch studies did not provide support for one of the main
principles of the model. Consistency was not found to be associated with student
achievement. Table 7.2 also reveals that none of these six studies investigated the
116 7 Establishing Theoretical Frameworks…

validity of any other formal principle of the comprehensive model. As been

mentioned above, although focusing on the effects of various individual factors,
the fully elaborated model of Creemers (1994b) makes tentative statements about
their joint impact on student outcomes by introducing the formal principles of
consistency, cohesion, constancy and control. These formal principles were consid-
ered a major improvement when compared with those of other models, because they
bring together the other factors in the model and can explain the joint cumulative
impact of factors, which together constitute learning environments. The idea behind
the notion of formal principles is that the influence of the factors at a particular
level, and between factors at different levels, can be enforced or can take place by
virtue of the fact that these factors are pursued over a longer period of time and are
in line with each other. However, the fact that there has been no study which has
attempted to test the validity of the four principles of the Creemers model might be
attributed to the fact that these principles are very difficult to observe directly and
their importance may need to be reconsidered.
Eighthly, Table 7.2 reveals that some support for differential effectiveness was
provided by the studies which tested the Creemers model. The importance of treat-
ing differentiation as a separate dimension of measurement of effectiveness factors
arises not only from the results of the studies that tested the Creemers model but
also from the fact that students of any age and in any culture will differ from
one another in various intellectual and psychomotor skills, in both generalised and
specialised prior knowledge, in interests and motives, in their socio-economic back-
ground and in personal styles of thoughts and work during learning (Dowson &
McInerney, 2003). Researchers in the area of educational effectiveness have shown
that these differences are related to differences in students’ progress in learning
(e.g. Kyriakides, 2005b; Slavin, 1987; Teddlie & Reynolds, 2000). These relations
imply individual predispositions that somehow condition student readiness to profit
from the particular instructional environments provided. Despite the fact that
educational practice has remained basically fixed and non-adaptive in most
countries, research into differential effectiveness seems to reveal that teachers and
schools may be differentially effective in promoting the learning of different groups
of students (Campbell, Kyriakides, Muijs & Robinson, 2004). Thus, generic mod-
els of educational effectiveness, which are able to incorporate the results of research
into differential teacher and school effectiveness, should be developed.
Based on the above analysis of the comprehensive model and the studies testing
its validity, the dynamic model of educational effectiveness (Creemers & Kyriakides,
2008b) has been developed. The model takes into account the strengths and limita-
tions of the comprehensive model and attempts to illustrate the dynamic nature of
educational effectiveness. By doing so, it is expected that stronger links between
EER and improvement practice may be developed. The dynamic model is described
in this section. It is, however, important to note in advance that the comprehensive
model of educational effectiveness is in line with at least two of the starting points
upon which the dynamic model is based. Specifically, the Creemers model is based
on the assumption that the influences on student achievement are multilevel and
therefore it refers to factors at different levels (i.e. student, classroom, school, system),
The Dynamic Model of Educational Effectiveness 117

which are related to student achievement. Direct and indirect relations between
the levels and the outcomes are also identified. These characteristics of the compre-
hensive model can be seen as starting points for the development of the dynamic
model. The observations arising from Table 7.2 reveal that the findings of the studies
conducted in order to test the validity of Creemers’s model provide support for the
importance of establishing a multilevel integrated model of educational effectiveness,
such as the Creemers model. It has also been argued above that the results of these
studies reveal four weaknesses in the comprehensive model, which have been taken
into account in the establishment of the dynamic model. Firstly, the dynamic model
provides a clear definition of quality of teaching by focusing on eight classroom-
level factors, which refer not only to the direct teaching approach but also to the new
theories of learning. Secondly, the dynamic model assumes that a measurement
framework should be used to measure the functioning of effectiveness factors. It is
argued that considering effectiveness factors as multidimensional constructs not
only provides a better picture of what makes teachers and schools effective but also
helps us develop specific strategies for improving educational practice. Thirdly, the
dynamic model treats differentiation as a separate dimension of measuring each
effectiveness factor. In this way, it is acknowledged that the impact of effectiveness
factors on different groups of students/teachers/schools may vary. It also is expected
that adaptation to the specific needs of each subject or group of subjects will increase
the successful implementation of a factor and ultimately maximise its effect on
student learning outcomes. Thus, although the dynamic model is expected to be a
generic model, it takes into account the findings of research into differential effec-
tiveness. This suggests that the concept of differential teacher/school effectiveness
ought not to be polarised against a generic concept. Rather, the former should be
incorporated as a refinement into the latter. Finally, the dynamic model assumes that
the impact of the school- and context-level factors has to be defined and measured
in a different way from that of the classroom-level factors. According to the dynamic
model, the impact of school and context factors depends on the current situation of
the school/system and especially on the type of problems/difficulties that the school/
system is facing.

The Essential Characteristics of the Dynamic Model

The main characteristics of the dynamic model are as follows. Firstly, the dynamic
model takes into account the fact that effectiveness studies conducted in several
countries reveal that the influences on student achievement are multilevel (Teddlie
& Reynolds, 2000). Therefore, the model is multilevel in nature and refers to factors
operating at the four levels shown in Fig. 7.2. Figure 7.2 reveals the main structure
of the dynamic model. The teaching and learning situation is emphasised, and the
roles of the two main actors (i.e. teacher and student) are analysed. Above these two
levels, the dynamic model also refers to school-level factors. It is suggested that
school-level factors influence the teaching-learning situation by encouraging the
118 7 Establishing Theoretical Frameworks…

National/regional policy
for education
Evaluation of policy
The educational environment

School policy
Evaluation of school policy

Quality of teaching
- Orientation
Outcomes
- Structuring
Cognitive
- Modelling
- Application Affective
- Questioning Psychomotor
- Assessment New learning
- Management of time
- Classroom as a learning environment

Aptitude SES

Perseverance Gender Expectations

Time on task Ethnicity Thinking style
Opportunity to learn Personality traits Subject motivation

Fig. 7.2 The dynamic model of educational effectiveness

development and evaluation of school policies on teaching and on creating a learning

environment in the school. The context level refers to the influence of the educa-
tional system in a more formal way, especially the development and evaluation of
educational policy at the national/regional level. It is also taken into account that the
The Dynamic Model of Educational Effectiveness 119

teaching and learning situation is influenced by the wider educational context in

which students, teachers and schools are expected to operate. Factors such as the
values of the society regarding learning and the importance attached to education
play an important role both in shaping teacher and student expectations and in the
development of the perceptions of various stakeholders about effective teaching
practice.
Secondly, Fig. 7.2 does not only refer to the four levels of the dynamic model and
each level’s association with student outcomes, the interrelations between the
components of the model are also illustrated. In this way, the model supports the
view that factors at the school and context level have both direct and indirect effects
on student achievement since they are able to influence not only student achieve-
ment but also the teaching and learning situations. This assumption is supported
by the findings of effectiveness studies conducted in order to test the validity of the
comprehensive model (e.g. De Jong et al., 2004; Kyriakides, 2005b), which reveal
that the relationships between factors at different levels might be more complex
than assumed in the current integrated models. This is especially true for interaction
effects among factors operating at classroom and student level, which reveal the
importance of investigating differential effectiveness (Strand, 2010).
Thirdly, the dynamic model also assumes that the definition and measurement of
the impact of the school- and context-level factors has to be done in a different way
from that of the impact of classroom-level factors. Policy on teaching and actions
taken to improve teaching practice must be measured over time and in relation to the
weaknesses that exist in a school. The assumption is that schools and educational
systems which are able to identify their weaknesses and develop a policy on aspects
associated with teaching and the school learning environment (SLE) are also able to
improve the functioning of classroom-level factors and their level of effectiveness.
Only changes in those factors in relation to which schools face significant problems
are expected to be associated with the improvement of school effectiveness. This
implies that the impact of school- and context-level factors depends on the current
situation of the objects under investigation. This characteristic of the dynamic model
not only reveals an essential difference between the nature of this model and all
other current models of educational effectiveness but also has some significant
implications for designing studies attempting to use the dynamic model for improve-
ment purposes (see Creemers, Kyriakides & Sammons, 2010).
Fourthly, the dynamic model is based on the assumption that the relation of
some effectiveness factors to achievement may not be linear. This assumption is
supported by results of quantitative syntheses investigating the effect of some effec-
tiveness factors upon student achievement. These studies revealed that although
these variables have been perceived as factors affecting teacher or school effective-
ness, the research evidence is problematic. For example, teacher subject knowledge
is widely perceived as a factor affecting teacher effectiveness (Scriven, 1994), but
teachers’ subject knowledge, regardless of how it is measured, has rarely correlated
strongly with student achievement (Darling-Hammond, 2000). The explanation
may be, as Monk (1994) reports, that the relationship is curvilinear: a minimal level
of knowledge is necessary for teachers to be effective, but beyond a certain point,
120 7 Establishing Theoretical Frameworks…

a negative relation is observed. Similar findings have been reported with regard
to the impact of classroom emotional climate and teacher management upon
effectiveness. A negative emotional climate usually shows negative correlations,
but a neutral climate is at least as supportive as a warm climate. Beyond an optimal
level of teacher direction, drill or recitation becomes dysfunctional (Soar & Soar,
1979). Rosenshine (1971) suggests inverted-U curvilinear relationships with student
learning for verbal praise, difficulty level of instruction, teacher questions and
amount of student talk. The possibility of interaction with student individual differ-
ences is also supported. Therefore, the dynamic model of educational effectiveness
is based on the assumption that the relation of some effectiveness factors with
achievement may not be linear. This implies that optimal points for the functioning
of factors in relation to student outcomes have to be identified. In doing so, different
strategies focusing on the improvement of specific factors relating to each teacher/
school could emerge.
Fifthly, the model assumes that there is a need to examine carefully the relation-
ships between the various effectiveness factors which operate at the same level.
Such an approach to modelling educational effectiveness reveals grouping of factors
that make teachers and schools effective. Therefore, specific strategies for improving
effectiveness, which are more comprehensive in nature, are expected to emerge
(see Kyriakides, Creemers & Antoniou, 2009).
Finally, the dynamic model is based on the assumption that different dimensions
for measuring the functioning of effectiveness factors are used. The use of different
measurement dimensions reveals that looking at just the frequency of an effective-
ness factor (e.g. the extent to which an activity associated with an effectiveness
factor is present in a system/school/classroom) does not help us identify those
aspects of the functioning of a factor, which are associated with student achieve-
ment. Considering effectiveness factors as multidimensional constructs not only
provides a better picture of what makes teachers and schools effective but may also
help us develop more specific strategies for improving educational practice
(Kyriakides & Creemers, 2008). The dimensions of measuring effectiveness factors
are described in the next part.

Dimensions of Measuring Effectiveness Factors

In principle, each factor, which refers to the classroom, school and system, can be
measured by taking into account the following five dimensions: frequency, focus,
stage, quality and differentiation. Table 7.3 illustrates the operational definition of
these five dimensions, which reveal the importance of collecting both quantitative
and qualitative information about the functioning of each factor. The importance of
taking each dimension into account is also illustrated below by explaining how one
of the teacher factors included in the model, namely, orientation, is defined.
Table 7.3 Operational definitions of the five dimensions of measuring each effectiveness factor and ways of measuring each dimension
Dimensions Operational definitions Ways of measuring
Frequency This refers to the quantity that an activity associated Two indicators are used
with an effectiveness factor, which is present in (a) How many tasks are used?
a system, school or classroom (b) How long does each task take?
Focus This reveals the function of the factor at classroom,
school and system level. The following two aspects
of focus of each factor are measured
(a) Specificity (a) Specificity is measured by investigating the extent to which
activities are too specific or too general.
(b) The number of purposes of an activity (b) How many purposes are expected to be achieved?
The Dynamic Model of Educational Effectiveness

Stage This refers to the period over which they take place. When does the task take place? (Based on the data which
It is assumed that the factors need to take place emerged from the above question, data about the continuity
over a long period of time to ensure that they have of the existence of a factor are collected)
a continuous direct or indirect effect on student learning
Quality This refers to the properties of the specific factor itself, (a) What are the properties of tasks associated with a factor
as are discussed in the literature which reveal the functioning of each factor?
(b) To what extent is the function of each task in line
with the literature?
Differentiation This refers to the extent to which activities associated To what extent are different tasks associated with each factor
with a factor are implemented in the same way provided to different groups of subjects involved with this
for all the subjects involved with it factor?
121
122 7 Establishing Theoretical Frameworks…

Frequency

Orientation refers to teacher behaviour in terms of providing the objectives which a

specific task or lesson or series of lessons aim to fulfil and/or to challenging students
to identify the reason for which an activity takes place in the lesson. The engage-
ment of students with orientation tasks may encourage them to actively participate
in the classroom since the tasks that take place are meaningful for them. As a
consequence, the frequency dimension is measured by taking into account the
number of orientations tasks that take place in a typical lesson as well as how long
each task takes to complete. These two indicators help us identify the importance
that the teacher attaches to this factor.

Focus

The effectiveness factors are also measured by taking into account the focus of the
activities which are associated with each factor. Two aspects of focus for each factor
are measured. Firstly, it is taken into account that each task associated with the
functioning of an effectiveness factor may not take place by chance but for certain
reasons. Thus, according to the dynamic model, the first aspect of the focus dimension
of each factor addresses the purpose(s) for which an activity takes place and the
fact that it may be expected to achieve single or multiple purposes. The importance of
measuring this aspect of focus dimension can be attributed to research findings which
reveal that if all the activities are expected to achieve a single purpose, then the chances
of achieving that purpose are high, but the effect of the factor may be small due to the
fact that other purposes are not achieved and/or synergy may not exist since the
activities are isolated (Schoenfeld, 1998). On the other hand, if all the activities are
expected to achieve multiple purposes, there is a danger that specific purposes are not
addressed in such a way that they can be implemented successfully (Pellegrino, 2004).
In the case of orientation, this aspect of focus is measured by examining the extent
to which there is a single or multiple reasons for carrying out a particular task in an
activity. The second aspect of this dimension refers to the specificity of the activities,
which can range from particular to general. The specificity of the orientation tasks
is measured by taking into account the fact that such a task may refer to a part of a
lesson or to the whole lesson or even to a series of lessons (e.g. a lesson unit).

Stage

Activities associated with a factor can be measured by considering the stage at which
they take place. There is support for the idea that the factors need to take place over a
long period of time to ensure that they have a continuous direct or indirect effect on
student learning (Creemers, 1994b). This assumption is partly based on the fact that
evaluations of programmes aiming to improve educational practice reveal that the extent
to which these intervention programmes have any impact on educational practice is
partly based on the length of time that the programmes are implemented in a school
The Dynamic Model of Educational Effectiveness 123

(e.g. Gray et al., 1999). Moreover, the importance of using the stage dimension to
measure each effectiveness factor arises from the fact that it has been shown that
the impact of a factor on student achievement partly depends on the extent to which
activities associated with this factor are provided throughout the school career of the
student (Slater & Teddlie, 1992). Although measuring the stage dimension gives
information about the continuity of the existence of a factor, activities associated with
the factor may not necessarily be the same. Therefore, using the stage dimension to
measure the functioning of a factor can help us identify the extent to which there is
constancy at each level and flexibility in using the factor during the period in which
the investigation takes place. In the case of orientation, tasks may take place in different
parts of a lesson or series of lessons (e.g. introduction, core, ending of the lesson).
Effective teachers are expected to offer orientation tasks at different points in the
lesson (Killen, 2007). Further, it is expected that effective teachers are able to take
others’ perspectives into account during this orientation phase. For example, students
may come with suggestions about the reasons for doing a specific task, which an
effective teacher is expected to consider (Gijbels, Van de Watering, Dochy & Van den
Bossche, 2006).

Quality

The quality dimension refers to the properties of the specific factor itself, as
discussed in the literature. This implies that the quality dimension deals with the
process of teaching and is not concerned with the effects of teaching in terms of
student outcomes. We assume that this dimension, as well as all the others, may help
us explain variation in student outcomes and for this reason is included in the model.
The importance of using this dimension also arises from the fact that looking at the
quantitative elements of a factor ignores the possibility that the functioning of the
factor may vary. The measurement of the quality dimension refers to the properties
of the orientation task and especially whether it is clear to the students. It also refers
to the impact that the task has on student engagement in the learning process.
For example, teachers may present the reasons for doing a task simply because it
has to be done and is part of their teaching routine even though it has little effect
on student participation, whereas others may encourage students to identify the
purposes that can be achieved by carrying out a task which therefore increases their
motivation in relation to a specific task/lesson/series of lessons.

Differentiation

The dynamic model takes into account the findings of research into differential
educational effectiveness (Campbell, Kyriakides, Muijs & Robinson, 2003).
Specifically, it is acknowledged that the impact of teaching factors on different
groups of students may vary. As a consequence, differentiation is treated as a
measurement dimension and is concerned with the extent to which activities associ-
ated with a factor are implemented in the same way for all the subjects involved.
124 7 Establishing Theoretical Frameworks…

It is expected that adaptation to the specific needs of each group of students will
increase the successful implementation of a factor and ultimately maximise its effect
on student outcomes. Although differentiation could be considered a property of an
effectiveness factor, it was decided to treat differentiation as a separate measure-
ment dimension of each effectiveness factor rather than incorporating it into the
quality dimension. In this way, the importance of considering the special needs of
each group of students is stressed. Thus, the dynamic model is based on the assump-
tion that it is difficult to deny that persons of all ages learn, think and process infor-
mation differently.
One way to differentiate instruction is for teachers to teach according to individual
student learning needs, as are defined by their background and personal character-
istics, such as gender, socio-economic status, ability, thinking style and personality
type (Kyriakides, 2007). However, the differentiation dimension does not imply that
these groups of students are not expected to achieve the same purposes. On the
contrary, adapting the functioning of each factor to the special needs of each group
of students may ensure that all of them will be enabled to achieve the same purposes.
This argument is partly supported by research into adaptive teaching and the evaluation
projects of innovations concerned with the use of adaptive teaching in classrooms
(e.g. Houtveen, van der Grift & Creemers, 2004; Noble, 2004). However, the use of
differentiation as a measurement dimension does not imply that all instructions have to
be individualised since findings on aptitude treatment interaction research reveal
that in real classroom situations, it is neither feasible nor effective to offer only
individual tasks throughout the teaching time (Corno & Snow, 1986; Good & Stipek,
1983). On the contrary, all the factors of the dynamic model and their measurement
dimensions can be observed irrespective of the use of specific classroom organisation
procedures, and the majority of the factors can easily take place in whole-class
teaching.
In the case of orientation, differentiation is measured by looking at the extent to
which teachers provide different types of orientation tasks for students according to
their learning needs and especially by acknowledging differences in the personal
and background characteristics of students. Using different orientation tasks is
expected to help all students to discover the reasons for which specific tasks take
place in their classroom. Moreover, taking into account the different types of objectives
that are supposed to be fulfilled during the course of instruction, teachers are also
expected to use different orientation tasks in order to introduce students to the
importance of different objectives that have to be acquired (Gijbels et al., 2006).
Finally, teachers may differentiate the orientation tasks in relation to the organisa-
tional and cultural context of their school or classroom in order to facilitate the
students’ understanding of the purposes of learning tasks (Kyriakides, 2007).

Classroom Factors of the Dynamic Model

Based on the main findings of teacher effectiveness research (e.g. Brophy & Good,
1986; Muijs & Reynolds, 2001; Rosenshine & Stevens, 1986), the dynamic model
refers to factors which describe teachers’ instructional role and are associated with
The Dynamic Model of Educational Effectiveness 125

student outcomes. These factors refer to observable instructional behaviour of

teachers in the classroom rather than on factors that may explain such behaviour
(e.g. teacher beliefs, knowledge and interpersonal competences). The eight factors
included in the model are as follows: orientation, structuring, questioning, teaching
modelling, application, teacher role in making the classroom a learning environ-
ment, management of time and classroom assessment. These eight factors do not
refer only to one single teaching approach, such as structured or direct teaching
(Joyce, Weil & Calhoun, 2000), or to approaches associated with constructivism
(Schoenfeld, 1998); an integrated approach in defining quality of teaching is
adopted. Specifically, the dynamic model refers not only to skills associated with
direct teaching and mastery learning, such as structuring and questioning, but also
to orientation and teaching modelling, which are in line with the theories of teach-
ing associated with constructivism. These two factors also are in keeping with
the principles of teaching for understanding. Moreover, they promote the achieve-
ment of the new goals of education, such as the development of metacognitive
skills. Furthermore, collaborative learning (Slavin, 1983; Slavin & Cooper, 1999) is
included under the overarching factor ‘teacher role in making the classroom a learn-
ing environment’. Table 7.4 provides a description of the main aspects of each
teacher factor included in the model (for further information, see Creemers &
Kyriakides, 2008b) and shows how the main findings of TER (see Chap. 5) were
taken into account in defining these factors. The essential characteristics of these
factors are also described below.

Orientation

Orientation refers to teacher behaviour in terms of providing the objectives which a

specific task, lesson or series of lessons aims to fulfil and/or challenging students to
identify the reason for which an activity takes place in the lesson. It is expected that
the engagement of students with orientation tasks may encourage them to partici-
pate actively in the classroom since the tasks are meaningful for them (Kyriakides
& Creemers, 2008). Additionally, teachers are expected to provide different types of
orientation tasks for students according to their learning needs (differentiation).

Structuring

Rosenshine and Stevens (1986) point out that achievement is maximised when
teachers not only actively present materials but structure their teaching by (a) begin-
ning with overviews and/or review of objectives, (b) outlining the content to be
covered and signalling transitions between lesson parts, (c) calling attention to main
ideas and (d) reviewing main ideas at the end. Summary reviews are also important
since they integrate and reinforce the learning of major points (Brophy & Good,
1986). It can be claimed that these structuring elements not only facilitate memorising
of the information but allow for its apprehension as an integrated whole with
recognition of the relationships between parts. Moreover, achievement is higher
when information is presented with a degree of redundancy, particularly in the form
126 7 Establishing Theoretical Frameworks…

Table 7.4 The main elements of each teacher factor involved in the dynamic model
Factors Main elements
1. Orientation (a) Providing the objectives for a specific task/lesson/series
of lessons and
(b) challenging students to identify the reason that an
activity is taking place in the lesson
2. Structuring (a) Beginning with overviews and/or review of objectives,
(b) outlining the content to be covered and signalling
transitions between lesson parts and
(c) drawing attention to, and reviewing, main ideas
3. Questioning (a) Raising different types of questions (i.e. process and
product) at appropriate difficulty level,
(b) giving time for students to respond and
(c) dealing with student responses
4. Teaching modelling (a) Encouraging students to use problem-solving strategies
presented by the teacher or other classmates,
(b) inviting students to develop strategies and
(c) promoting the idea of modelling
5. Application (a) Using seatwork or small-group tasks in order to provide
necessary practice and application opportunities and
(b) using application tasks as starting points for the next
step in teaching and learning
6. The classroom as a learning (a) Establishing on-task behaviour through the interactions
environment it promotes (i.e. teacher-student and student-student
interactions) and
(b) dealing with classroom disorder and student competi-
tion by establishing rules, persuading students to
respect them and using the rules
7. Management of time (a) Organising the classroom environment and
(b) maximising engagement rates
8. Assessment (a) Using appropriate techniques to collect data on student
knowledge and skills,
(b) analysing data in order to identify student needs and
report the results to students and parents and
(c) evaluating their own practices

of repeating and reviewing general views and key concepts. Structuring tasks should
not only be clear for the students but also help them understand the structure of the
lesson. Finally, teachers are expected to organise their lessons or series of lessons in
such a way that students move from easier tasks to more complicated ones. Different
types of structuring tasks to students according to their learning needs should also
be provided.

Questioning

Muijs and Reynolds (2000) indicate that the focus of TER on the teacher actively
presenting materials should not be seen as an indication that traditional lecturing
The Dynamic Model of Educational Effectiveness 127

and the drill method are effective teaching approaches. Effective teachers ask a lot
of questions and attempt to involve students in class discussion. Although the data
on cognitive level of questions yield inconsistent results (Redfield & Rousseau,
1981), optimal question difficulty is expected to vary with context. There should
also be a mix of product questions (i.e. those requiring a single response from
students) and process questions (i.e. those expecting students to provide
explanations), but effective teachers ask more process questions (Askew & William,
1995; Evertson, Anderson, Anderson & Brophy, 1980). The clarity of a question
and especially the extent to which students understand what they are expected to
find out is an important element of this factor. In addition, the appropriateness of the
difficulty level of the question is taken into account, since it is possible that students
may understand the question but still be unable to answer it because it is too difficult
for them. Moreover, the factor refers to the way the teacher deals with student
responses to his or her questions. Correct responses should be acknowledged for the
purpose of other students’ learning, while responses that are partly correct require
affirmation of the correct part and rephrasing of the question (Brophy & Good,
1986; Rosenshine & Stevens, 1986). Following incorrect answers, teachers should
begin by indicating that the response is not correct but avoid personal criticism
and show why the correct answer is the right one (Rosenshine, 1971). It is also
assumed that the feedback that effective teachers give to students’ answers varies
according to their needs.

Teaching Modelling

Although there is a long tradition in research on teaching higher-order thinking

skills, especially problem-solving, these teaching and learning activities have
received more attention during the last two decades due to the emphasis given in
policy to the achievement of new goals of education. Thus, TER has shown that
effective teachers are expected to help pupils to use strategies and/or develop their
own strategies, which can help them solve different types of problems (Kyriakides,
Campbell & Christofidou, 2002). As a result of this, it is more likely that students
will develop skills that will help them organise their own learning (e.g. self-regulation,
active learning). This factor is also concerned with the properties of teaching-
modelling tasks and especially with the role that the teacher is expected to play in
order to help students use a strategy to solve their problems. Teachers may either
present a strategy with clarity or they may invite students to explain how they might
solve a problem and use that information to promote the idea of modelling. The latter
may encourage students not only to use but also to develop their own strategies for
solving problems. Another element of this factor has to do with the impact that an
orientation activity has on student behaviour. Students may either become able to
use a strategy in an effective way (i.e. finding the solution to a problem) or the use
of the strategy may become an obstacle to dealing with a problem (e.g. causes more
confusion about the problem). Finally, effective teachers may adopt teaching
modelling to meet the specific needs of a group of students. This might result in
128 7 Establishing Theoretical Frameworks…

more emphasis on using a single strategy with a group of students to help them
solve problems or using multiple strategies or even developing new ones with other
groups of students.

Application

Effective teachers also use seatwork or small-group tasks since they provide neces-
sary practice and application opportunities (Borich, 1992). This factor can be linked
to the direct teaching model (Rosenshine, 1983), which emphasises immediate
exercise relating to topics taught during the lesson. It is important to examine whether
students are simply being asked to repeat what they have already covered with their
teacher or whether the application task is more complex than the content covered
in the lesson. Effective teachers provide application tasks that can be used as start-
ing points for the next step of teaching and learning. In addition, they provide more
opportunities for application for students who need them. This factor also refers to
teacher behaviour in monitoring, supervising and giving corrective feedback during
application activities. Brophy and Good (1986) argue that once the students are
released to work independently, effective teachers circulate to monitor progress and
provide help and feedback.

Teacher Role in Making the Classroom a Learning Environment

Muijs and Reynolds (2000) point out that classroom climate is a factor that TER
has found to be significant. The climate is usually seen as being associated with the
behaviour of the stakeholders, whereas culture is seen to measure the values and
norms of the organisation (Heck & Marcoulides, 1996; Hoy, 1990). It is asserted
that a healthy organisation deals effectively with outside forces while directing its
energies towards its goals. Classroom climate research is described as the stepchild
of psychological and classroom research (Creemers & Reezigt, 1996). The class-
room effects research tradition initially focused on climate factors defined as
managerial techniques (e.g. Doyle, 1986). Management is necessary to create
conditions for learning and instruction, but management itself is not sufficient for
student results (Creemers, 1994b). On the other hand, the psychological tradition of
classroom environment research has paid a lot of attention to instruments for
the measuring of students’ perceptions of climate. Many studies report on their
psychometric characteristics (Fraser, 1991), but climate factors (such as the way a
teacher behaves towards the students) and effectiveness factors (e.g. quality of
teaching) were studied as isolated constructs (Johnson & Johnson, 1993; Wubbels,
Brekelmans & Hooymayers, 1991). In this context, EER has to take the first steps
to integrate elements of different research traditions. The dynamic model of educa-
tional effectiveness concentrates on measuring the teacher’s contribution in creating
a learning environment in his or her classroom, and five elements of the classroom
The Dynamic Model of Educational Effectiveness 129

as a learning environment are taken into account: teacher-student interaction,

student-student interaction, students’ treatment by the teacher, competition between
students and classroom disorder. The first two elements are important components
of the measurement of classroom climate as classroom environment research has
shown (Cazden, 1986; Den Brok, Brekelmans & Wubbels, 2004; Fraser, 1991), but
we concentrate on the type of interactions that exist in a classroom rather than on
how students perceive teacher interpersonal behaviour. The other three elements
refer to the attempt of teachers to create a businesslike and supportive environment
for learning (Walberg, 1986), and classroom effectiveness research has shown their
importance in promoting student learning (Brophy & Good, 1986; Hextall &
Mahony, 1998; Scheerens & Bosker, 1997). The immediate impact that teacher
initiatives have on establishing relevant interactions is also examined. We are
mainly interested to see the extent to which a teacher is able to establish on-task
behaviour through the interactions she or he promotes since Creemers’s model
emphasises the importance of keeping students on task. Finally, the factor refers to
the extent to which the different teaching strategies the teacher is able to use in
order to keep different groups of students involved in the classroom interactions
promote student learning. As far as the other three elements of the classroom as a
learning environment are concerned, they are measured by taking into account the
teacher’s behaviour in establishing rules, persuading students to respect and use
the rules and maintaining them in order to create a learning environment in their
classroom. The first element refers to more general problems that can arise when
students do not believe that they are treated fairly or respected as individuals by
their teacher, whereas the other two deal with specific situations in the classroom
which might create difficulties in promoting learning (i.e. competition between
students and classroom disorder). The impact that the teacher behaviour has on
solving the problems that arise, as measured through students’ behaviour, is an
important feature of this factor. For example, a teacher may not use any strategy at
all to deal with a classroom disorder problem or may use a strategy which only
solves the problem temporarily or, alternatively, one that has a long-lasting effect.
Finally, effective teachers use different strategies to deal with problems which are
caused by different groups of students. For example, individual student(s) may
cause a problem in order to gain attention from classmates and/or the teacher. It is
probably a better strategy to pay no attention when the problem is small, since any
reaction from the teacher may promote the continuation of the problem (Kyriakides
& Creemers, 2008, 2009).

Management of Time

Creemers’s model considers opportunity to learn and time on task as two of the
most significant factors of effectiveness that operate at different levels. Opportunity
to learn is also related to student engagement and time on task (Emmer & Evertson,
1981). Therefore, effective teachers are expected to organise and manage the
130 7 Establishing Theoretical Frameworks…

classroom environment as an efficient learning environment and thereby to maximise

engagement rates (Creemers & Reezigt, 1996). In this study, management of time is
considered to be one of the most important indicators of teacher ability to manage
the classroom in an effective way.

Classroom Assessment

Evaluation is seen as an integral part of teaching (Stenmark, 1992), and in par-

ticular, formative evaluation is one of the most important factors associated with
effectiveness at all levels, especially at the classroom level (e.g. De Jong et al., 2004;
Kyriakides, 2005b; Shepard, 1989). Information gathered from assessment can be
used to enable teachers to identify their students’ needs as well as to evaluate their
own practice. Quality is measured by looking at the properties of the evaluation
instruments used by the teacher, such as validity, reliability, practicality and the
extent to which the instruments cover the teaching content in a representative way
(see Cronbach, 1990). This dimension is also measured by investigating the type
of feedback that the teacher gives to the students and the way students use such
feedback. Specifically, effective teachers provide constructive feedback, which has
positive implications for teaching and learning (Muijs & Reynolds, 2001). Finally,
effective teachers are expected to use different techniques for measuring student
needs and/or different ways to provide feedback for groups of students by taking
into account their needs.

School Factors of the Dynamic Model

School factors are expected to influence classroom-level factors, especially the

teaching practice. Therefore, the dynamic model places emphasis on the following
two main aspects of school policy, which affect learning at the level of both students
and teachers: (a) school policy concerning teaching and (b) school policy regarding
the creation of a learning environment at school. Guidelines are seen as one of the
main indications of school policy, and this is reflected in the way each school-level
factor is defined. However, in using the term ‘guidelines’, we refer to a range of
documents, such as staff meeting minutes, announcements and action plans, which
make the policy of the school more concrete for the teachers and other stakeholders.
These two factors do not imply that each school should simply develop formal
documents to establish its policy. The factors concerned with the school policy
mainly refer to the actions taken by the school to help teachers and other stake-
holders gain a clear understanding of what is expected of them. Support offered to
teachers and other stakeholders to implement the school policy is also an aspect of
these two school factors (Creemers & Kyriakides, 2010a).
Based on the assumption that the essence of a successful organisation in the
modern world is the search for improvement, the dynamic model is also concerned
The Dynamic Model of Educational Effectiveness 131

with the processes and activities which take place in the school in order to improve
the teaching practice and the school’s learning environment. For this reason, the
processes which are used to evaluate the school policy on teaching and the SLE are
investigated. It is expected that evaluation mechanisms will generate data that will
help schools to take decisions on how to improve the functioning of school factors.
Thus, the following four overarching factors at the school level are included in the
model:
a. School policy on teaching and actions taken to improve teaching practice
b. Evaluation of school policy on teaching and actions taken to improve teaching
c. Policy on creating a SLE and actions taken to improve the SLE
d. Evaluation of the SLE
Figure 7.3 illustrates the interrelations among the school factors which are
briefly described below (for more information, see Creemers & Kyriakides,
2008b). The inclusion of these factors is also based on the results of a synthesis of
123 studies on school effectiveness conducted in different countries since 1986
(see Kyriakides, Creemers & Charalambous, 2008). This meta-analysis has pro-
vided support for the importance of the factors included in the model and also
revealed that the effect sizes of other factors not taken into account by the dynamic
model are extremely low.

School Policy on Teaching and Actions Taken to Improve Teaching

Since the definition of the dynamic model at the classroom level refers to factors
related to the key concepts of quality, time on task and opportunity to learn, the
model attempts to investigate aspects of school policy on teaching associated with
quantity of teaching, provision of learning opportunities and quality of teaching.
Actions taken to improve the above three aspects of teaching practice, such as the
provision of support for teachers to help them improve their teaching skills, are also
taken into account. Specifically, the following aspects of school policy on quantity
of teaching are considered:
• School policy on the management of teaching time (e.g. lessons starting and
finishing on time; there is no interruption of lessons for staff meetings and/or for
preparation of school festivals and other events)
• Policy on student and teacher absenteeism
• Policy on homework
• Policy on lesson schedule and timetable
School policy on provision of learning opportunities is measured by looking at
the extent to which the school has a mission concerning the provision of learning
opportunities, which is reflected in its policy on curriculum. We also examine school
policy on long-term and short-term planning and on providing support for students
with special needs. Furthermore, the extent to which the school attempts to make
good use of school trips and other extracurricular activities for teaching/learning
132 7 Establishing Theoretical Frameworks…

SCHOOL - LEVEL FACTORS

School policy on teaching and actions

taken for improving teaching: Evaluation of school policy on
Quantity of teaching teaching and actions taken for
Provision of learning opportunities improving teaching
Quality of teaching

Policy on the learning environment of

the school and actions taken for
improving the school learning
environment:
Student behaviour outside the
classroom Evaluation of the learning
Collaboration and interaction environment of the school
between teachers
Partnership policy
Provision of sufficient learning
resources to students and teachers
Values in favour of learning

Fig. 7.3 Factors of the dynamic model operating at the school level

purposes is investigated. Finally, school policy on the quality of teaching is seen as

closely related to the classroom-level factors of the dynamic model, which refer to
the instructional role of teachers.
Therefore, the way school policy on teaching is examined reveals that effective
schools are expected to make decisions regarding maximising the use of teaching
time and the learning opportunities offered to their students. In addition, effective
schools are expected to support their teachers in their attempt to help students learn
by using effective teaching practices. In this context, the definition of this factor
implies that we should measure the extent to which: (a) the school makes sure that
The Dynamic Model of Educational Effectiveness 133

teaching time is provided for students, (b) learning opportunities beyond those
offered by the official curricula are made available for the students and (c) the school
attempts to improve the quality of teaching practice.

School Policy on Creating the SLE and Actions

Taken for Improving the SLE

School climate factors have been incorporated in effectiveness models in different

ways. Stringfield (1994) defines the school climate very broadly as the total envi-
ronment of the school. This makes it difficult to study specific factors of the school
climate and examine their impact on student achievement. The dynamic model
refers to the extent to which a learning environment has been created in the school.
This element of school climate is seen as the most important predictor of school
effectiveness since learning is the key function of a school (Linnakyla, Malin &
Taube, 2004). Moreover, EER has shown that effective schools are able to respond
to the learning needs of both teachers and students and to be involved in systematic
changes in the school’s internal processes in order to achieve educational goals
more effectively in conditions of uncertainty (Harris, 2001). In this context, the
following five aspects which define the SLE are taken into account:
a. Student behaviour outside the classroom
b. Collaboration and interaction between teachers
c. Partnership policy (i.e. relations of school with community, parents and advisors)
d. Provision of sufficient learning resources for students and teachers
e. Values in favour of learning
The first three aspects refer to the rules which the school has developed in order
to establish a learning environment inside and outside the classroom. Here the term
‘learning’ does not refer exclusively to student learning. For example, collaboration
and interaction between teachers may contribute to their professional development
(i.e. learning of teachers) but may also have an effect on their teaching practice
and thereby may improve student learning. The fourth one refers to the policy on
providing resources for learning. The availability of learning resources in schools
may not only have an effect on student learning but may also encourage the learning
of teachers. For example, the availability of computers and software for teaching
geometry may contribute to teacher professional development since it encourages
teachers to find ways to make good use of the software in their teaching practice and
thereby to become more effective. The last aspect of this factor is concerned with
the strategies which the school has developed in order to encourage teachers and
students to develop positive attitudes towards learning.
Following a similar approach to the one concerned with school policy on teach-
ing, the dynamic model attempts to measure school policy on creating an SLE.
Actions taken to improve the SLE beyond the establishment of policy guidelines
are also taken into account. Specifically, actions taken to improve the SLE can be
134 7 Establishing Theoretical Frameworks…

directed at (a) changing the rules in relation to the first three aspects of the SLE
factor mentioned above, (b) providing educational resources (e.g. teaching aids,
educational assistance, new posts) and/or (c) helping students/teachers develop
positive attitudes towards learning. For example, a school may have a policy on
promoting teacher professional development, but this may not be enough, especially
if some teachers do not consider professional development to be an important issue.
In this case, actions should be taken to help teachers develop positive attitudes
towards learning, which may help them become more effective.

Evaluation of Policy for Teaching and Evaluation of the SLE

The last two overarching school factors of the dynamic model refer to the mecha-
nisms used to evaluate the functioning of the first two such factors. Creemers
(1994b) claims that control is one of the major principles operating in the generation
of educational effectiveness. This implies that goal attainment and the school
climate should be evaluated (Grosin, 1993; Torres & Preskill, 2001). It was there-
fore considered important to treat evaluation of policy on teaching and of other
actions taken to improve teaching practice, as well as evaluation of the SLE, as
overarching factors operating at school level. Data which have emerged from these
evaluation mechanisms are expected to help schools develop their policies and
improve teaching practice at the classroom level as well as their SLE (see Creemers
& Kyriakides, 2008b).

Main Conclusions Emerging from the Second

Part of This Book

The main arguments emerging from the second part of this book are presented in the
final section of this chapter. The second part of this book provides a critical review
of research on teacher effectiveness. The main phases of this field of research are
analysed in Chap. 5. Since teacher factors are presented as being in opposition to
one another, an integrated approach in defining quality of teaching is adopted.
Specifically, this approach refers not only to factors associated with direct teaching
and mastery learning such as structuring and questioning but also to orientation and
teaching modelling which are in line with theories of teaching associated with con-
structivism. Moreover, we argue for the importance of taking into account findings
of studies investigating differential teacher effectiveness. Finally, a significant limi-
tation of this field of research is that the whole process of searching for teacher
effectiveness factors has not revealed any significant impact upon teacher training
and professional development. During the last century, we gradually moved from
studies focusing on the teacher as a role model for his/her students to studies aiming
to understand effective teaching practices that promote student learning and learning
Main Conclusions Emerging from the Second Part of This Book 135

outcomes. One of the major contributions of this field of research is that some
assumptions about the importance of the personal characteristics of teachers, such
as teacher personality and experience of student learning, are not empirically sup-
ported, and the importance of teacher behaviour in the classroom is demonstrated.
We also provide a critical review of studies conducted over the last two decades
investigating the impact of variables that may explain observable teacher behaviour
in the classroom, such as teacher knowledge and teacher beliefs. The limitations of
this approach are discussed and the importance of training teachers to develop their
teaching skills in order to become more effective is stressed. Finally, it is acknowl-
edged that studies on teacher effectiveness have presented the teacher factors as
being in opposition to one another. In this way, a narrowly focused perspective of
effective teaching practice has been provided. To demonstrate this argument, Chap. 6
is concerned with the main approaches to teaching, namely, the mastery learning
approach, the direct and active teaching approach and the new learning approach
associated with constructivism. Teacher effectiveness research has provided support
for some factors associated with each of these approaches. This implies that an
integrated approach to effective teaching should be adopted which will refer to factors
associated with student learning, irrespective of the approach to which each of
them belongs.
Chapter 7 looks at the two main theoretical models of EER, which place
emphasis on the instructional role of teachers and the importance of teacher factors
in explaining school effectiveness. The comprehensive model of educational effec-
tiveness is described, and the main findings of studies testing its validity are
presented. It is shown that the studies which have investigated the validity of the
model provide support for the importance of establishing a multilevel integrated
model of educational effectiveness, such as that of Creemers. The importance of
the main effectiveness factors has also been demonstrated. However, empirical
support for the importance of cross-level interactions and for the main principles
of the model has not been provided. In this context, a dynamic model of educational
effectiveness has been established. The main assumptions of the model and the
teacher and school-level factors of the model are presented. It is argued that by
moving from Carroll’s model of school learning to the comprehensive model of
educational effectiveness and ultimately to the dynamic model of educational
effectiveness, the complex nature of educational effectiveness is described more
precisely. Moreover, the latter theoretical model takes into account the dynamic
perspective of education and incorporates the results of research on differential
teacher effectiveness into a generic model describing effective teaching practice.
Furthermore, it is acknowledged that previous studies on teacher effectiveness
have not been able to have a significant impact upon teacher training and profes-
sional development, whereas the establishment of the dynamic model of educational
effectiveness may contribute significantly to addressing these weaknesses of the
field. For this reason, the next part of this book refers to the use of the dynamic
model to establish a theory-driven and evidence approach to teacher training and
professional development.
 Part III
Combining Teacher Effectiveness
Research with Research on Teacher
Training and Professional Development

This part advocates the use of an evidence-based and theory-driven approach to

teacher training and professional development. Specifically, we argue that the
dynamic model can be used to establish such an integrated approach, combining
research on teacher effectiveness with research on teacher training and professional
development. The main characteristics of this approach are described in Chap. 8. In
Chaps. 9 and 10, we present two studies conducted in different countries illustrating
how the proposed approach can be used as a matter of policy and practice in teacher
training and professional development. In the final chapter of this book, suggestions
for the development of this approach and for further research on using this approach
for teacher training and professional development are presented.
Chapter 8
Using the Dynamic Model to Develop
an Integrated Approach to Teacher Training
and Professional Development

Introduction

In this chapter, it is advocated that teacher training and professional development

should be focused on how to address specific groupings of teacher factors associated
with student learning rather than with an isolated teaching factor or with the whole
range of such factors without considering the professional needs of student teachers
and teachers. In order to test this element of the dynamic model and identify groupings
of factors, we refer to the results of studies which made use of the Rasch model to
identify the stages of effective teaching. These studies show that each grouping of
factors refers to the different developmental stages of teacher professional behaviour,
and the dimensions used to measure their functioning can help us develop pro-
grammes designed to enable student teachers and teachers to improve their teaching
skills by moving from easier to more complicated stages. The stages of effective
teaching are described in the second part of this chapter. In the last part, we present
the main characteristics of the proposed dynamic approach to teacher professional
development. In this way, the dynamic model is used to establish an evidence-based
and theory-driven approach to teacher training and professional development by
providing suggestions regarding how to move from one stage to the next and dem-
onstrating the relationship of these to student learning and learning outcomes.

Studies Seeking to Identify Stages of Effective Teaching

The research findings on the importance of teacher effect (e.g. Kyriakides, Campbell
& Gagatsis, 2000; Muijs & Reynolds, 2000; Opdenakker & Van Damme, 2000;
Scheerens & Bosker, 1997; Wright, Horn & Sanders, 1997; Yair, 1997) were taken
into account in the development of the dynamic model (Kyriakides, 2008). Teaching
is emphasised in the model (see Chap. 7), and teacher behaviour in the classroom
and its impact on student learning are taken into account in defining the classroom-
level factors. Thus, the dynamic model refers to eight teacher factors, which were

B. Creemers et al., Teacher Professional Development for Improving 139

Quality of Teaching, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-5207-8_8,
© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
140 8 Using the Dynamic Model to Develop…

found to be associated with student achievement: structuring, orientation, questioning,

application, management of time, assessment, teaching modelling and classroom
learning environment (see Chap. 7). These factors do not refer to just one approach
to teaching, such as the direct and active teaching approach (e.g. structuring, appli-
cation) or the constructivist approach (e.g. orientation, modelling). An integrated
approach to effective teaching is adopted, and both longitudinal studies and a relevant
meta-analysis (Kyriakides & Christoforou, 2011; Kyriakides & Creemers, 2008, 2009)
support the importance of these factors. In addition, these eight factors are measured
using the five dimensions which describe both the quantitative and qualitative char-
acteristics of these factors (see Chap. 7).
The use of the dynamic model for improvement purposes at the teacher level
assumes that teacher factors refer to knowledge and skills which can be developed.
The model is also based on the assumption that teacher factors and their dimensions
may be interrelated, and thus, the importance of grouping specific factors to explain
achievement gains is emphasised (see Chap. 7). In this way, not only is the complex
nature of effective teaching illustrated but also specific strategies for teacher
improvement may emerge. In order to investigate the significance of the teacher
level of the dynamic model, especially its potential to improve teaching practices
and student attainment, the concept of ‘groupings’ of factors which operate at the
same level and are interrelated has been further explored in a recent longitudinal
study (Kyriakides, Creemers & Antoniou, 2009). This study is briefly presented
below because it provides empirical evidence supporting the importance of grouping
factors.

A Study Seeking to Identify for Stages: Levels

of Effective Teaching Conducted in Cyprus

All the grade 5 students (n = 2,503) from each class (n = 108) in 50 primary schools
in Cyprus participated in this study. Student achievement in mathematics, Greek
language and religious education was measured, both at the beginning and at the
end of grade 5. In order to collect data on the teacher factors of the dynamic model,
972 observations of the 108 teachers of the student sample were conducted. Two
low-inference and one high-inference observational instruments were used. These
instruments were designed to collect data concerned with all the eight factors of the
teacher level, in relation to the five measurement dimensions which are included in
the dynamic model of EER. Specifically, one of the low-inference observation
instruments is based on Flanders’s system of interaction analysis (Flanders, 1970).
However, we developed a classification system of teacher behaviour which is based
on the way that each factor of the dynamic model is measured. Moreover, the
observer is expected to identify the students who are involved in classroom interac-
tion. As a consequence, the use of this instrument enables us to generate data about
teacher-student and student-student interaction (see Creemers & Kyriakides, 2012).
The second low-inference observation instrument refers to the following five factors
Studies Seeking to Identify Stages of Effective Teaching 141

of the model: orientation, structuring, teaching modelling, questioning techniques

and application. This instrument is designed in such a way that it enables collection
of more information in relation to the quality dimension of these five factors. Thus,
the two instruments helped us generate data for all eight factors and their dimensions.
The high-inference observation instrument covers the five dimensions of all eight
factors of the model, and observers are expected to complete a Likert scale to indicate
how often each teacher behaviour was observed (e.g. the teacher spent time on
explaining the objectives of the lesson).
Observations were carried out by six members of the research team who attended
a series of seminars on how to use the three observation instruments. During the
school year, the external observers visited each class nine times and observed three
lessons per subject by using both types of low-inference observation instruments.
After each occasion, the observers completed the rating scale of the high-inference
observation instrument. For each scale of the three observation instruments, the
alpha reliability coefficient was higher than 0.83 and the inter-rater reliability
coefficient r2 was higher than 0.81.
The eight factors and their dimensions were also measured by administering a
questionnaire to students. Specifically, students were asked to indicate the extent to
which their teacher behaved in a certain way in their classroom (e.g. at the beginning
of the lesson the teacher explained how the new lesson was related to previous
ones). A Likert scale was used to collect data. A generalisability study on the use of
students’ ratings revealed that the data collected from almost all the items could be
used to measure the quality of teaching of individual teachers in each separate subject.
However, three items in the questionnaire concerned with assessment in religious
education, and one item dealing with the differentiation dimension of learning
strategies in both Greek language and religious education had to be removed. Thus,
the score for each teacher in each of the questionnaire items found to be generalisable
was the mean score of the grade 5 students of the class she/he taught.
For each subject, separate confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) for each factor
were conducted in order to identify the extent to which data that emerged from
different methods could be used to measure each factor in relation to the five dimen-
sions of the dynamic model. The main results which emerged from using CFA
approaches to analyse the multitrait, multimethod matrix concerned with each class-
room-level factor of the dynamic model in relation to each subject provided support
for the construct validity of the proposed five measurement dimensions of most
effectiveness factors (see Creemers & Kyriakides, 2008b). The two exceptions which
were identified reveal the difficulty of defining the quality dimension. In the case of
questioning, aspects of quality were found to belong to two separate factors, whereas
in the case of teaching modelling, the differentiation and the quality dimensions were
found to belong to the same factor. Moreover, the results of this study seem to reveal
that the classroom as a learning environment cannot be treated as a single factor but
as two interrelated factors in the learning environment, namely, relations among
students and relations between the teacher and his/her students. Furthermore, the
comparison of CFA models used to test each factor confirmed convergent and dis-
criminant validity for the five dimensions. Convergent validity for most measures
142 8 Using the Dynamic Model to Develop…

was demonstrated by the relatively high (i.e. higher than 0.60) standardised trait
loadings, in comparison to the relatively lower (i.e. lower than 0.40) standardised
method loadings. These findings support the use of multimethod techniques to
increase measurement validity, construct validity and thus stronger support for the
validity of subsequent results. Therefore, based on the results of the structural equation
modelling (SEM) analyses, 44 factor scores for the performance of each teacher in
teaching each subject were estimated. Each factor score was estimated by calculating
the average score which emerged from the various methods used to measure the factor
(i.e. the observation instruments and the student questionnaire).

The Scaling and Structure of Teaching Skills Included

in the Dynamic Model

Having established the construct validity of the framework used to measure the
functioning of the teacher-level factors of the dynamic model, it was decided to use
the Rasch model in order to identify the extent to which the five dimensions of these
factors (i.e. the 44 first-order factor scores) could be reducible to a common unidi-
mensional scale. The Rasch model not only tests the unidimensionality of the scale
but is also able to find out whether the tasks can be ordered according to the degree
of their difficulty; at the same time, the people who carry out these tasks can be
ordered according to their performance in the construct under investigation. This
procedure is justified theoretically and is used in studies on teacher evaluation (e.g.
Burry & Shaw, 1988; Wang & Cheng, 2001; Wright & Linacre, 1989). Specifically,
the Rasch model puts people and tasks on the same scale and enables the researcher
to examine the range of the teaching practice scale to see if the items/tasks within it
form a continuum of teaching practice from ‘easy to perform’ to ‘difficult to per-
form’, that is, devoid of gaps in construct coverage (Green & Frantom, 2002).
Furthermore, the reliability of persons and items is calculated, indicating how well
the scale discriminates among people on the basis of their estimated teaching prac-
tice and how well items/tasks can be distinguished from one another in terms of
their difficulty (Andrich, 1988). Finally, Rasch analysis provides a basis for assess-
ment of the validity of a measurement tool and provides information that may indi-
cate the limitation of the reliability and validity of measures made with the instrument
(Sampson & Bradley, 2004). In the case of this study, specifying the position of one
factor score (i.e. teaching skill) on the scale provided exact information about the
individuals (teachers) who could perform at a sufficient level (i.e. those scoring
higher than the position of this teaching skill on the scale) or insufficient level (those
scoring lower than the position of this teaching skill). This analysis also made it
possible to make statements about the relative difficulty of each teaching skill.
Similarly, specifying an individual teacher’s position on this continuum provided
information about the probability of this teacher demonstrating teaching compe-
tence below or above this position (Bond & Fox, 2001).
Thus, the Rasch model was applied on the whole sample of teachers and all 44
measures concerned with their teaching skills together, using the computer program
Studies Seeking to Identify Stages of Effective Teaching 143

Quest (Adams & Khoo, 1996). It is important to note that we treated teacher behav-
iour in each subject separately, meaning that 324 person estimates (i.e. for each of
the 108 classrooms, three estimates of the performance of teachers to teach each
subject) were generated. Two teaching skills (i.e. the focus dimension of the struc-
turing factor and the quality dimension of time management) but no individual fitted
the model. The results of the various approaches used to test the fitting of the Rasch
model with our data revealed that there was a good fit with the model when teach-
ers’ performance in the other 42 teaching skills was analysed. Moreover, by using
the Rasch model to analyse teacher performance in relation to these 42 teaching
skills included in the dynamic model, it was found that these skills were well tar-
geted against the teachers’ measures since teachers’ scores ranged from −2.96 to
3.04 logits and the difficulties of the 42 teaching skills ranged from −2.69 to 3.05
logits. Moreover, the indices of persons and of teaching skills separation were found
to be higher than 0.93 indicating that the separability of the scale was satisfactory.
This implies that the reliability of the scale was very high and that five levels repre-
senting different types of teacher behaviour could be discerned (Bond & Fox,
2001).
Having established the reliability of the scale, one might ask if the various teach-
ing skills were systematically grouped into levels of difficulty that might be taken to
stand for types of teacher behaviour which move from relatively easy to more
difficult and span the five dimensions of the eight teacher-level factors included in
the dynamic model. As such, the procedure for detecting pattern clustering in mea-
surement designs developed by Marcoulides and Drezner (1999) was used. This
procedure enabled us to segment the observed measurements into constituent groups
(or clusters) so that the members of any one group were similar to each other,
according to a selected criterion that stands for difficulty. Applying this method to
segment the 42 teaching skills on the basis of their difficulties that emerged from the
Rasch model showed that they were optimally clustered into the five clusters shown
in Table 8.1 These five clusters were further explored and specified by using the
Saltus model described below.
The Saltus model (Mislevy & Wilson, 1996; Wilson, 1989) allows the researcher
to differentiate between major and less pervasive changes in moving from one
level to the other without sacrificing the idea of one common underlying contin-
uum. To apply the Saltus model, we had to assume that the 42 teaching skills
included in the dynamic model were structured in the five groups of teaching
skills identified through the cluster analysis. The Saltus solution was found to
represent a better fit with the actual data than the Rasch model and offered a sta-
tistically significant improvement over the Rasch model, which was equal to 1,121
chi-square units at the cost of 30 additional parameters (i.e. 16 ts, 5 means, 5
standard deviations and 4 independent proportions). Table 8.1 presents the
difficulty parameters of the 42 teaching skills for teachers in the easiest type of
teacher behaviour (i.e. level 1 shown in column 3) and the implied within-level
difficulty (i.e. columns 4, 5, 6 and 7). The Saltus parameter estimates (i.e. t val-
ues) are shown at the bottom of the table. The following observations arise from
this table.
 144

Table 8.1 Rasch and Saltus parameter estimates for factor scores measuring the classroom-level factors of the dynamic model of educational effectiveness
Rasch Implied within-stage difficulty (Saltus)
Classroom-level factors All Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Level 5
Frequency management time −2,69 −3,76 −3,76 −3,76 −3,76 −3,76
Stage management of time −2,62 −3,65 −3,65 −3,65 −3,65 −3,65
Frequency structuring −2,58 −3,45 −3,45 −3,45 −3,45 −3,45
Frequency application −2,45 −3,35 −3,35 −3,35 −3,35 −3,35
Frequency assessment −2,40 −3,00 −3,00 −3,00 −3,00 −3,00
Frequency questioning −2,38 −2,96 −2,96 −2,96 −2,96 −2,96
Frequency teacher-student relation −2,16 −2,50 −2,50 −2,50 −2,50 −2,50
Stage structuring −1,56 −1,40 −2,34 −2,31 −2,28 −2,30
Quality application −1,50 −1,36 −2,32 −2,22 −2,23 −2,28
Stage questioning −1,48 −1,30 −2,19 −2,12 −2,06 −2,17
Frequency student relations −1,42 −1,35 −2,26 −2,15 −2,16 −2,20
Focus application −1,37 −1,37 −2,29 −2,09 −2,08 −2,21
Stage application −1,33 −1,25 −2,25 −2,19 −2,09 −2,20
Quality of questions −1,30 −1,21 −2,20 −2,08 −2,00 −2,15
Stage student relations −0,74 −0,29 −1,10 −1,89 −1,82 −2,03
Stage teacher-student relation −0,71 −0,22 −0,94 −1,86 −1,75 −1,97
Stage assessment −0,62 −0,12 −0,88 −1,83 −1,74 −1,82
Frequency teaching modelling −0,60 0,08 −0,92 −1,80 −1,68 −1,70
Frequency orientation −0,50 0,15 −0,75 −1,93 −1,60 −1,63
Focus student relations −0,36 0,29 −0,63 −1,73 −1,43 −1,50
Quality: feedback −0,32 0,24 −0,64 −1,55 −1,45 −1,55
Focus questioning −0,31 0,25 −0,55 −1,39 −1,32 −1,52
Focus teacher-student relation −0,31 0,18 −0,72 −1,62 −1,51 −1,54
Quality structuring −0,29 0,26 −0,64 −1,53 −1,40 −1,53
8 Using the Dynamic Model to Develop…

Quality assessment −0,26 0,30 −0,48 −1,38 −1,30 −1,48

 Rasch Implied within-stage difficulty (Saltus)
Classroom-level factors All Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Level 5
Differentiation structuring 0,59 1,02 0,36 0,28 −1,12 −1,21
Differentiation time management 0,61 1,08 0,42 0,34 −1,05 −1,15
Differentiation questioning 0,71 1,09 0,39 0,31 −1,04 −1,09
Differentiation application 0,88 1,12 0,43 0,35 −1,02 −1,12
Focus assessment 0,94 1,06 0,36 0,29 −1,06 −1,17
Differentiation assessment 1,17 1,13 0,43 0,40 −1,01 −1,09
Stage teaching modelling 1,21 1,19 0,49 0,42 −0,97 −1,05
Stage orientation 1,29 1,23 0,53 0,44 −0,95 −1,03
Quality teacher-student relation 2,32 2,10 1,50 1,40 1,12 −0,93
Quality student relations 2,39 2,21 1,61 1,42 1,15 −0,82
Dif teacher-student relation 2,50 2,25 1,64 1,44 1,17 −0,78
Differentiation student relations 2,72 2,38 1,77 1,63 1,31 −0,69
Focus orientation 2,89 2,27 1,66 1,57 1,21 −0,75
Quality orientation 2,95 2,42 1,82 1,72 1,41 −0,59
Differentiation orientation 3,00 2,55 2,00 1,88 1,58 −0,42
Quality of teaching modelling including 3,04 2,78 2,19 1,99 1,69 −0,32
differentiation
Studies Seeking to Identify Stages of Effective Teaching

Focus teaching modelling 3,05 2,91 2,21 2,10 1,80 −0,10

Note 1: Empty lines in the body of Table 8.1 above are used to separate the five levels/types of teacher behaviour as indicated by cluster analysis
Note 2: The Saltus parameter estimates (i.e. t values) are shown below
Examinee stage
Item class 1 2 3 4 5
1 0.00a 0.00a 0.00a 0.00a 0.00a
2 0.00a 0.94 0.85 0.81 0.90
3 0.00a 0.85 1.78 1.65 1.76
4 0.00a 0.69 0.76 2.14 2.23
5 0.00a 0.61 0.75 1.05 3.03
a
Fixed at zero for model identification
145
146 8 Using the Dynamic Model to Develop…

Firstly, difficult parameters of teaching skills for teachers in level 1 (i.e. the
values shown in the third column of Table 8.1) are more spread out than those of
the Rasch model (shown in the second column). This finding reveals that for
teachers in level 1, a large gap between the teaching skills of level 1 and those in
levels 2, 3, 4 and 5 can be observed. On the other hand, for teachers who belong
to level 2, the skills of level 2 are as easy as those of level 1. With regard to the
difficulty of skills in level 3, these are relatively difficult for level 2 teachers, but
for level 3 teachers, these skills are as easy as level 2 skills. Similar observations
can be made in relation to the skills of levels 4 and 5. Secondly, using the figures
of Table 8.1 and calculating the asymmetry and segmentation indices, we observe
that the gappiness between levels 1 and 2 and between levels 2 and 3 is much
smaller than the gappiness between levels 3 and 4 and levels 4 and 5. This implies
that the transition from one level to the other is not linear, and, moreover, the
transition from level 3 to 4 and from level 4 to 5 is much more difficult than the
transition between the first three levels. A description of the different levels/types
of teacher behaviour is given below.

Type 1: Basic Elements of Direct Teaching

The seven teaching skills situated in this type of teacher behaviour (see Table 8.1)
refer to the quantitative characteristics of factors associated with the direct teaching
approach. All but one are concerned with the frequency dimension. The stage
dimension of management of time is also quantitative in character and closely asso-
ciated with the frequency dimension of this factor. It is interesting to note that the
first two skills with the lowest difficulty estimates are concerned with management
of time. This could be attributed to the fact that quantity of teaching is a prerequisite
for instruction. Moreover, these seven teaching skills reveal that teachers demon-
strating this type of behaviour are able to use effectively the daily routines of teaching,
such as keeping students on task, structuring the content of the lesson, asking
questions, giving application tasks and administering assessment tasks.

Type 2: Putting Aspects of Quality in Direct Teaching and Touching on Active

Teaching

In the second type of teacher behaviour, these are skills which are concerned with
qualitative aspects of three factors associated with the direct teaching approach
(i.e. structuring, application and questioning). Specifically, three dimensions of
the application factor are included in this type of behaviour, indicating that teach-
ers at this level are able to demonstrate competences in relation to each aspect of
the application factor except differentiation. This indicates that application is a
basic and relatively simple teacher competence. The other factor situated in this
type of teacher behaviour is concerned with the questioning skills of teachers.
Teachers are expected not only to use questions throughout the lessons but also to
Studies Seeking to Identify Stages of Effective Teaching 147

articulate both process and product questions appropriately. Finally, a factor con-
cerning the role of the teacher in establishing interactions among students is situ-
ated in this level. Although this factor is not exclusively associated with direct
teaching, only the frequency dimension of this factor is included in this level. This
implies that teachers at this level are not only able to put aspects of quality in the
easiest factors associated with the direct teaching approach but are also able to
facilitate interactions among students, which may encourage active involvement
of students in learning.

Type 3: Acquiring Quality in Active Teaching and Reaching Out

The 11 teaching skills situated in this type of behaviour mainly refer to the qualita-
tive characteristics of active teaching, which reveal that teachers at this level are
able to engage students actively in the teaching and learning processes. Moreover,
teachers can create a learning environment in their classroom since all the dimen-
sions of the two aspects of this overarching factor, other than differentiation, are part
of this type of teacher behaviour. Furthermore, teachers provide constructive feed-
back on students’ answers, and this dimension of the questioning factor also con-
tributes to the establishment of the classroom as an active learning environment.
Similar observations can be made in relation to the quality dimension of assess-
ment, which reveals that teachers conduct assessment for formative reasons and
thereby integrate assessment into teaching and learning. A new element of this level
is concerned with the frequency dimension of two factors associated with the new
teaching approach, namely, teaching modelling and orientation. This implies that
teachers at this level are not only able to use strategies related to direct and active
teaching effectively but also employ techniques in their instruction associated with
constructivism.

Type 4: Differentiation of Teaching and Putting Aspects of Quality

in New Teaching

The eight teaching skills situated in this level are mainly concerned with the
differentiation dimension of factors associated with direct teaching. Teachers at this
level are able to differentiate their teaching practice according to their students’
needs and offer appropriate application and structuring tasks to each group of
students. In addition, different questions and assessment techniques are used with
each group of students, which are in line with their learning needs. Another element
of this level is concerned with the stage dimension of two factors associated with the
new teaching approach. Thus, teachers at this level are able not only to differentiate
their instruction but also to incorporate some qualitative characteristics of teaching
modelling and orientation. Specifically, they are not only able to provide sufficient
tasks associated with these two factors, but they also offer them at appropriate
occasions.
148 8 Using the Dynamic Model to Develop…

Type 5: Achieving Quality and Differentiation in Teaching Using

Different Approaches

Finally, the nine teaching skills of this level are concerned with the most difficult
qualitative characteristics of factors related to both active teaching and the new teaching
approach. Specifically, the first four skills are concerned with the quality and differ-
entiation dimensions of the classroom as a learning environment factor, stressing
both teacher-student and student-student interactions (Den Brok, Brekelmans &
Wubbels, 2004). The other five skills are associated with the focus, quality and
differentiation dimensions of the new teaching approach. Therefore, teachers at this
level use a variety of teaching approaches effectively and are also able to incorporate
the qualitative characteristics of these approaches in their teaching practice. One may
assume that teachers at this level are the most effective, and this assumption is tested
in the next part of this section.
Looking at the description of these five types of teacher behaviour in terms of the
teaching skills and approaches situated in each type, we can see that the first three
levels are mainly related to the direct and active teaching approach, moving from
the basic requirements concerning the quantitative characteristics of teaching
routines to the more advanced requirements concerning the appropriate use of these
skills as measured by the qualitative characteristics of these factors. One may also
observe that these skills gradually change from the use of teacher-centred approaches
to the active involvement of students in teaching and learning. The last two types of
teacher behaviour are more demanding since teachers are expected to differentiate
their instruction and also to demonstrate their ability to use instructional techniques
associated with the new teaching approach. Again, a progression from the quantitative
characteristics of factors associated with the new teaching approach to their qualita-
tive aspects can be observed in levels 4 and 5. The content description of these five
types of teacher behaviour and the distinction between levels 1–3 and levels 4 and 5
can be seen to be a justification for the results that emerged from the Saltus model,
which shows the gap between the levels/types of teacher behaviour in general and
also the relatively higher gappiness in moving from type 3 to type 4 and from type
4 to type 5 of teacher behaviour. Considering these five stages and the properties of
the Rasch scale which were developed, one can conclude that it is more difficult to
accomplish some stages than others. This supports the conclusion that the five stages
are not just a grouping of effectiveness factors but represent equivalent developmental
stages of teaching proficiency.
Not only should the construct validity of the developmental scale, which refers to
the teaching skills included in the dynamic model, be demonstrated, but its significance
and relevance to the field of teacher effectiveness should also be investigated. For this
reason, it was decided to examine the extent to which the classification of teachers
into these five stages explains variation in the achievement in each of the four types
of outcomes of schooling. Thus, separate multilevel analysis for each dependent
variable was performed. The first step in each analysis aimed to determine the variance
Studies Seeking to Identify Stages of Effective Teaching 149

at individual, class and school level without explanatory variables (i.e. baseline
model). In subsequent steps, explanatory variables were added at different levels.
Explanatory variables (except grouping variables) were centred as Z-scores with a
mean of 0 and a standard deviation of 1. Grouping variables were entered as dummies
with one of the groups as a baseline (e.g. boys = 0). The models presented in
Table 8.2 were estimated without the variables that had no statistically significant
effect at 0.05 level.
In model 1, the context variables at student, classroom and school levels
were added to the baseline model. The following observations arise from the
figures of model 1 in each analysis. Firstly, model 1 explains approximately 50%
of the total variance of student achievement in each outcome, and most of the
explained variance is at the student level. However, more than 30% of the total
variance remains unexplained at the student level. Secondly, the effects of all
contextual factors at student level (i.e. SES, prior knowledge, sex) are significant,
but the SES was not found to be associated with the achievement of affective aims
in religious education. Moreover, gender was not found to be consistently associ-
ated with student achievement in each outcome. Girls were found to have better
results in relation to every outcome, except mathematics. Finally, prior knowledge
(i.e. aptitude) has the strongest effect in predicting student achievement at the end
of the school year. Aptitude was the only contextual variable which had a consis-
tent effect on achievement when aggregated either at the classroom or the school
level.
In the next step of the analysis, we examined whether classification of teachers
into the five levels presented above was able to help us explain the variance in student
achievement in each outcome of schooling. For this reason, teachers at level 3 were
treated as a reference group, and four dummy variables were entered in model 1. We
can observe that the students of teachers at level 1 had the lowest achievement in
each outcome measure, whereas students of teachers at levels 4 and 5 had higher
achievement than those of the first three levels. One can also observe that students
of teachers who were found to belong to higher levels performed better than those
of teachers at lower levels. The only exception to this rule is concerned with the fact
that in mathematics, students of teachers at level 3 did not outperform students
whose teachers were at level 2. In religious education, no teacher was found to
belong to level 5, and it was therefore not possible to compare the performance in
religious education of students of teachers belonging to level 4 with those of teachers
at level 5.
The results of the multilevel analysis reveal that by taking student outcomes as
criteria, teachers who demonstrated competencies at the higher stages were more
effective than those situated at the lower stages, and thus, students of teachers
situated at the former showed better outcomes. This association is found in rela-
tion to achievement in different subjects and both cognitive and affective
outcomes.
Table 8.2 Parameter estimates and (standard errors) for the analyses of achievement in Greek language, mathematics and religious education (cognitive and affective aims)
Greek language Mathematics Religious education (cognitive) Religious education (affective)
Factors Model 0 Model 1 Model 2 Model 0 Model 1 Model 2 Model 0 Model 1 Model 2a Model 0 Model 1 Model 2
Fixed part −0.39 (0.08) −0.33 (0.08) −0.30 (0.08) 0.36 (0.05) 0.30 (0.05) 0.13 (0.02) −0.79 (0.11) −0.63 (0.09) −0.61 (0.08) 0.61 (0.08) 0.50 (0.07) 0.43 (0.07)
(intercept)
Student level
Prior knowledge 0.49 (0.05) 0.48 (0.05) 0.71 (0.12) 0.70 (0.12) 0.51 (0.05) 0.4 (0.05) 0.41 (0.10) 0.40 (0.10)
Sex (boys = 0, 0.23 (0.10) 0.19 (0.09) −0.18 (0.07) −0.15 (0.07) 0.23 (0.09) 0.19 (0.09) 0.18 (0.07) 0.15 (0.07)
girls = 1)
SES 0.32 (0.06) 0.27 (0.05) 0.60 (0.25) 0.55 (0.24) 0.12 (0.05) 0.10 (0.05) N.S.S. N.S.S.
Classroom level
Context
Average prior 0.15 (0.05) 0.10 (0.04) 0.31 (0.11) 0.28 (0.10) 0.25 (0.07) 0.21 (0.07) 0.21 (0.08) 0.18 (0.07)
knowledge
Average SES 0.09 (0.04) 0.06 (0.03) 0.15 (0.04) 0.13 (0.04) 0.09 (0.04) 0.08 (0.04) N.S.S. N.S.S.
Percentage N.S.S.a N.S.S. −0.05 (0.02) −0.05 (0.02) N.S.S. N.S.S. 0.05 (0.02) 0.04 (0.02)
of girls
Quality of teaching/teacher behaviour
Type 1 −0.22 (0.05) −0.24 (0.07) −0.19 (0.04) −0.18 (0.03)
Type 2 −0.12 (0.04) N.S.S. −0.10 (0.04) −0.11 (0.05)
Type 4 0.16 (0.06) 0.18 (0.04) 0.15 (0.06) 0.12 (0.04)
Type 5 0.29 (0.05) 0.28 (0.05) N.A.b N.A.
School level:
context
Average SES N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
Average prior 0.13 (0.05) 0.11 (0.05) 0.11 (0.05) 0.08 (0.04) 0.13 (0.05) 0.12 (0.05) 0.08 (0.02) 0.06 (0.02)
knowledge
Percentage N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
of girls
Variance
components
School (%) 9.5 7.7 7.6 11.5 8.1 7.5 8.0 7.7 7.6 7.5 7.0 6.7
Class (%) 15.2 11.1 5.7 15.4 9.3 6.0 13.2 11.1 7.5 10.4 9.3 6.3
Student (%) 75.3 31.5 28.9 73.1 30.9 29.7 78.8 34.5 29.3 82.1 32.6 31.7
Explained (%) 49.7 57.8 51.7 56.8 46.7 55.6 51.1 55.3
Significance test
X2 1015.6 686.7 521.5 1224.3 984.9 875.9 1823.6 1457.1 1307.6 1024.5 835.1 725.2
Reduction 328.9 165.2 239.4 119.0 366.5 149.5 189.4 109.9
Degrees of freedom 6 4 7 3 6 3 5 3
p-value 0.001 0.001 0.001 0.001 0.001 0.001 0.001 0.001
a
N.S.S. = no statistically significant effect; bN.A. = since there was no teacher of RE who was situated at type 5, this dummy variable was not entered in model 1
152 8 Using the Dynamic Model to Develop…

The findings of this study are in line with theories related to the stage models of
professional development (e.g. Berliner, 1988, 1992, 1994; Dreyfus & Dreyfus,
1986; Feiman-Nemser & Remillard, 1996; Sternberg et al., 2000). The five stages
proposed by Kyriakides, Creemers and Antoniou (2009) build on previous stage
models by specifically determining the content of each stage (in terms of teaching
skills), whereas previous stage models often lacked clarity about what might constitute
each developmental stage.

Seeking for Stages of Effective Teaching in Different Contexts:

Testing the Validity of the Dynamic Model in Canada

The main aim of the second study was to test further the validity of the dynamic
model at the teacher level by investigating the extent to which the teaching skills of
teachers in Canada could be grouped into the same stages as those reported by the
study conducted in Cyprus (Kyriakides, Creemers & Antoniou, 2009). In the first
phase of the study, the eight teacher factors and their dimensions were measured by
administering a questionnaire to students. Students were asked to indicate the extent
to which their teacher behaved in a certain way in their classroom; a Likert scale
was used to collect these data. This questionnaire has been used to collect data from
Cypriot students of grades 5 and 6, and a generalisability study (Creemers &
Kyriakides, 2008b) on the use of students’ ratings revealed that data from almost all
the questionnaire items could be used for measuring teaching quality. Support for
the construct validity of the questionnaire has also been demonstrated (see Kyriakides
& Creemers, 2008). For the development of the French version of the questionnaire,
the process of double translation was used, and thus, both the face and content validity
of the instrument were examined. Consequently, 78 items were kept in the final
version of the questionnaire.
The sample was taken from seven primary schools in the suburb area of Montreal
(Canada), who agreed to participate in the study. All grade 3, 4, 5 and 6 students
(n = 959) from each class (n = 42) of the school sample were asked to complete the
questionnaire. The response rate was 73%.
The generalisability study (G-study) revealed that the data from 63 out of 65
questionnaire items could be used for measuring separately the teaching quality of
each teacher for each subject. It is important to note here that the student question-
naire was administered to far younger students than those participating in the Cyprus
study. However, age effects in the results of the G-study were not identified (see
Janosz, Archambault & Kyriakides, 2011). This implies that, at least in Canada,
younger students could also generate reliable data on their teachers’ classroom
behaviours in relation to the eight factors of the model and their five dimensions.
Since the data were found to be generalisable at the teacher level, the research team
calculated a score for each teacher in each of the 63 questionnaire items deemed
generalisable. Specifically, for each teacher, a score for each item was created by
calculating the mean score from the responses of the students in his/her class.
Studies Seeking to Identify Stages of Effective Teaching 153

Following this, the Rasch model was applied to the whole sample of teachers and all
63 measures concerning their teaching skills, using the computer program Quest
(Adams & Khoo, 1996). Five items did not fit the model. By analysing the data on
the other 58 items, a scale with appropriate psychometric properties was established
(see Janosz, Archambault & Kyriakides, 2011). The results of the various approaches
used to test the fit of the Rasch model to the data revealed a good fit when teachers’
performance in the other teaching skills was analysed. Specifically, all teaching
skills were found to have item infit with the range of 0.83 up to 1.20 and item outfit
with the range of 0.71 up to 1.42. In addition, all the values of infit for both individu-
als and teaching skills were greater than −2.00 and smaller than 2.00. The procedure
proposed by Yen (1993) was used to test for local independence, and it was found
that this was generally not violated. However, if a correct response was given to the
teaching skill concerned with differentiation of application, the difficulty parameter
of the teaching skill concerned with assessment quality decreased by 0.32.
Nonetheless, this model violation did not result in substantial bias estimates of
teaching skills parameters. Finally, the fit of the Rasch model with the existing data
was also tested against alternative item response theory models, but the improvement
of fit by the two-parameter logistic (2PL) over the Rasch model was not statistically
significant.
Subsequently, the procedure for detecting pattern clustering in measurement
designs, developed by Marcoulides and Drezner (1999), was used to establish
whether teaching skills were grouped into levels of difficulty corresponding to easier
or more difficult types of teacher behaviours. This method of clustering teaching
skills on the basis of their difficulties, using the Rasch model, showed that they were
optimally clustered into the four types of teacher behaviour (stages of teaching) that
are described in detail below.

Type 1 of Teacher Behaviour: Basic Elements of Direct Teaching

Teaching skills included in this stage refer to the quantitative characteristics of fac-
tors associated with the direct teaching approach. For example, the frequency
dimension of the management of time, questioning, structuring and application
were found to be situated in this stage. By looking at the teaching skills included in
this stage, it may be suggested that teachers mastering this stage are able to use daily
routines in their teaching effectively.

Type 2: Putting Aspects of Quality into Direct Teaching

and Touching on Active Teaching

Skills concerned with the qualitative aspects of three factors in the direct teaching
approach (i.e. structuring, application and questioning) were found to be situated in
this stage. In addition, this level refers to the frequency and stage dimensions of the
factor involving the teacher’s role in establishing interactions among students.
154 8 Using the Dynamic Model to Develop…

Although this factor is not exclusively associated with direct teaching, only the
frequency and stage dimensions of this factor are included at this level. This implies
that teachers at this level are not only able to introduce aspects of quality into the
factors of the direct teaching approach but can also encourage interactions among
students, which may then facilitate active involvement in learning.

Type 3: Achieving Quality in Active Teaching and Reaching Out

Teaching skills situated at this level generally refer to qualitative characteristics of

active teaching. For example, the focus and quality dimensions of assessment, struc-
turing and questioning were found at this level of effective teaching. It was also found
that teachers at this level could create a learning environment in their classroom since
all the dimensions of this overarching factor, apart from differentiation, are included
in this type of teacher behaviour. A new element at this level is concerned with the
frequency dimension of two factors, teaching modelling and orientation, which are
associated with the new teaching approach. This implies that these teachers are able
not only incorporate strategies related to direct and active teaching effectively but also
to use techniques in their instruction which are associated with constructivism. The
fact that teachers at this level make use of both active teaching and constructivist
approaches provides further support for the integrated approach of effective teaching
adopted by the dynamic model.

Type 4: Achieving Quality and Differentiation in Teaching Using

Different Approaches

All the remaining teaching skills included in the dynamic model were found to be
situated at this final level. More specifically, teaching skills at this level are concerned
with the qualitative characteristics of factors related to the new teaching approach and
to the establishment of the classroom learning environment.
This study provides some support for the assumption of the dynamic model that
teacher-level factors are interrelated and thus should not be treated as isolated.
Moreover, the use of specific ways to describe both the quantitative and qualitative
characteristics of these factors assists in classifying these skills into types of teacher
behaviour, which range from relatively easy to more advanced. The four types of
behaviour which emerged from this study are similar to the five levels identified by
the study conducted in Cyprus. However, skills associated with the differentiation
of teaching were not found to belong to a single level. The results of this study also
provide support for the dynamic model’s attempt to describe effective teaching
using an integrated approach. Specifically, skills associated with both direct teaching
and the new teaching approaches were found to belong to the same levels. Moreover,
the types of teacher behaviour identified support the idea of combining teaching
skills within each type of behaviour, rather than treating each skill or factor in isola-
tion. These findings appear to provide support for the use of a dynamic approach for
A Dynamic Approach to Teacher Professional Development 155

teacher improvement purposes. However, further research is needed to ascertain

whether teachers in Canada who use more advanced types of behaviour are more
effective than those demonstrating the easier types; this question was taken into
account when designing the second phase of this project. Nevertheless, its first
phase can be seen as a step towards the development of a comparative research
programme, seeking to identify stages of teaching skills by using the dynamic model
as a theoretical framework. Although we need further research on the use of the
dynamic model to identify stages of effective teaching, the results of this first phase
provide some support for the cross-cultural validity of the dynamic model.

A Dynamic Approach to Teacher Professional Development

In the first two parts of this book, it has been shown that research on teacher training
and EER have been conducted apart from, and without much reference to, one
another. Few researchers examining teacher training methods rationalise their selec-
tion of teaching skills in terms of EER, and very few evaluate the impact of teacher
professional development on student learning. At the same time, investigators of
teacher effectiveness spend little time speculating about the methods that may be
used to improve teaching practice. In this context, the dynamic model of educa-
tional effectiveness has been developed in order to establish links between EER and
improvement of practice (Creemers & Kyriakides, 2008b). In this chapter, we pres-
ent two projects providing support for the assumption of the model, namely, that
teacher factors are interrelated and that stages of effective teaching can be defined
by taking into account the eight factors of the dynamic model and their five dimen-
sions. Thus, specific strategies for improving effectiveness that are more compre-
hensive in nature may emerge by investigating at the grouping of teacher factors in
the dynamic model.
This grouping of factors emphasises the need to establish a dynamic integrated
approach (DIA) to teacher professional development. This approach lies between
the two dominant approaches (i.e. the CBA and the HA), which have been presented
in Chaps. 2 and 3, respectively, and aims to overcome their main weaknesses (see
Chap. 4). In particular, the dynamic dimension of this approach is attributed to the
fact that its content derives from the grouping of teaching skills included in the
dynamic model and it is differentiated to meet the needs and priorities of teachers at
each developmental stage. The integrated dimension of this approach is also attrib-
utable to the fact that although the content of the DIA refers to teaching skills that
were found to be positively related to student achievement, the participants were
also engaged in systematic and guided critical reflection on their teaching practices.
In this section, beyond presenting the main steps of the DIA, we also refer to the
assumptions upon which each step is based. In the next chapter, we refer to the main
results of an experimental study which managed to compare the impact of the DIA
and the HA upon teaching skills and student achievement. This study provides sug-
gestions for readers about how to design a summative evaluation of teacher profes-
sional development programmes based on the proposed dynamic approach.
156 8 Using the Dynamic Model to Develop…

The Main Steps of the DIA

This section demonstrates the basic steps which have been utilised to develop a DIA
to teacher professional development. This approach takes into account research
findings on the grouping of factors in the dynamic model and their relation to student
outcomes. In addition, the DIA is based on the assumption that INSET courses are
offered by an A&RTeam. Each teacher is expected to develop his/her own strategies
and action plans for improvement, but it is acknowledged that support for teachers
should also be offered by an A&RTeam, which is able to provide technical expertise
and the available knowledge base on improvement of teaching factors. Although a
teacher is treated as being responsible for designing and implementing his/her own
improvement strategies and action plans, he/she is not left alone to design and
implement the strategies and actions but is encouraged to make use not only of the
A&RTeam but also of other available resources within and outside the school.
Therefore, a systematic research-based approach to design, implementation and
evaluation of teacher improvement programmes is promoted.

Identify Needs and Priorities for Improvement Through

Empirical Investigation

The first step of the proposed approach is based on the assumption that teacher
improvement efforts should refer to the development of teaching skills found to be
related to student outcomes. Research on teacher effectiveness refers to specific
factors concerned with teacher behaviour in the classroom that are found to be
associated with student outcomes (see Part II of this book), and thus, the DIA
refers to the development of INSET courses addressing the teacher factors in the
dynamic model. This implies that the DIA is based on the assumption that the ulti-
mate aim of any improvement effort should be to promote student learning and its
outcomes (see Creemers & Kyriakides, 2010b). To achieve this, INSET courses are
expected to help teachers improve their teaching skills and therefore become more
effective. The DIA goes further in suggesting that evaluation data are needed in
order to identify the needs of each teacher participating in the improvement project.
In any effort to train teachers, an initial evaluation of their teaching skills should be
conducted to investigate the extent to which they possess certain teaching skills
while identifying their needs and priorities for improvement. The results of the
initial evaluation can provide suggestions for the content of training that is offered
to different groups of teachers. The teaching skills of the participants can be evalu-
ated by the A&RTeam. For this reason, they can make use of the research instru-
ments applied in studies testing the validity of the dynamic model at the teacher
level (see Kyriakides & Creemers, 2008). The observation data of the initial evalu-
ation are analysed in order to group teachers into corresponding developmental
stages, according to their teaching skills. In the first part of this chapter, it was
shown that by using the Rasch and Saltus models, teachers were classified into
A Dynamic Approach to Teacher Professional Development 157

specific stages of effective teaching. This is important because the content and
development of educational material for the training programmes should correspond
to the professional needs and proximal development of each group of teachers, as
denoted by the stage of teaching skills they have reached. According to Berliner
(1988), it may not be possible to shorten the pathway because extensive experience
is fundamental to development, but it would be beneficial to assist those willing to
progress by providing training and feedback appropriate to their stage of develop-
ment. For example, teachers must master simple but necessary routines such as
teaching skills related to the ‘direct teaching approach’ in order to move to higher
stages involving the use of ‘new teaching approaches’ and differentiation. As
Combs, Blume, Newman, and Wass (1974, p. 4) argue, ‘In the first place, it is a
fallacy to assume that the methods of the experts either can or should be taught
directly to beginners’. Furthermore, the DIA supports the view that the effort to
identify teachers’ needs and priorities for improvement should be guided by the
knowledge base of EER, as it is described in the dynamic model. This is an important
issue that needs to be taken into account in conducting the initial evaluation, espe-
cially since the dynamic model refers to teaching skills found to be related to student
achievement. On the other hand, the HA to teacher professional development
supports the idea that teachers are able to identify a problem in relation to the
improvement of student outcomes, which they consider important, without the
need to justify their selection; this is irrespective of their initial competencies or
developmental stage. However, in Chap. 4, the major weaknesses of this approach
are explained. Thus, an initial evaluation of teaching skills by making use of the
available knowledge base of EER is considered as the first step of the DIA, which
is based on the assumption that an evidence-based and theory-driven approach to
teacher professional development should be used in designing, implementing and
evaluating teacher professional development programmes.

Provide Guidelines for Improvement: The Role of the A&RTeam

Having identified teachers’ needs and priorities for improvement, the second step of
this approach relates to the provision of appropriate material and specific guidelines
for designing their improvement action plans. The A&RTeam is expected to support
teachers as they design and implement their improvement action plans. Specifically,
the team is expected to provide the teachers of each group with supporting literature
and research findings related to the teaching skills of their developmental stage,
with clear instructions about the area on which each group should concentrate for
improvement. For example, the teachers in the first stage of teaching skills should
receive guidance on the distribution of teaching time so that students can effectively
construct and implement new knowledge. A case study could be administered to the
teachers in this group, in order to encourage them to discuss the importance of the
quantity of teaching time. In addition, material from the literature could be provided
regarding the management of the classroom as an efficient learning environment, in
158 8 Using the Dynamic Model to Develop…

order to maximise engagement rates (Creemers & Reezigt, 1996; Wilks, 1996).
Through discussion, it is expected that teachers attending this course will realise
that learning takes place within restricted time limits during which many important
activities must be implemented. Extracurricular administrative activities, such as
making announcements, dealing with discipline problems and commenting on irrel-
evant issues, could further reduce the time available for learning. Thus, the teachers
attending the course may understand that actions should be taken in order to improve
their time-management skills and find out how to allocate sufficient time to each
learning activity.
The A&RTeam is also expected to provide the teachers in this group with guide-
lines related to their improvement priorities, supplemented by research literature
material. For instance, for the improvement area related to the ‘provision of appli-
cation activities’, the A&RTeam may recommend some general principles, such as
(a) the teacher should provide the opportunity for students to practise the imple-
mentation of knowledge and skills involved in each lesson, (b) feedback should be
provided for students while they are working on application activities, and (c) the
teacher should raise questions with individual students in the course of their work
on application activities to identify and deal with misunderstandings. Following
this, examples of teaching specific material from the school curriculum may be
provided for teachers. In this way, they are encouraged both to reflect on these
aspects of their teaching practice and to provide their own examples of implementing
the principles of the school curriculum.
Subsequently, under the guidance of the A&RTeam, each teacher should develop
his/her own action plan for improvement. This allows teachers to adopt and customise
the provided guidelines in relation to the specific context of their classroom. The basic
elements of a general plan of action should also be discussed. It should be agreed that
action plans will include:
1. A revised statement of the general idea underpinning the purpose of
improvement.
2. A statement of the factors and dimensions the teacher plans to improve.
3. Specific actions the teacher will undertake to achieve the improvement. For
example, one teacher situated at level 2 may decide to modify the way he/she
retrieves and relates prior knowledge to new knowledge by asking questions,
assigning a relevant problem and asking students to interpret a map or tree
diagram which requires knowledge from previous lessons.
4. A statement of the resources required in order to undertake the proposed courses
of action (e.g. materials, rooms, equipment).
5. Evaluation: Teachers should use various techniques and methods for gathering
evidence on the effectiveness of their action plans. For this reason, teachers are
encouraged to keep a reflective diary. This diary could contain personal accounts
of observations, feelings, reactions, interpretations, reflections, hunches, hypotheses
and explanations. Teachers could also ask their pupils to keep diaries. As Brophy
and Good (1986) argue, this enables the teacher to compare their experiences of the
A Dynamic Approach to Teacher Professional Development 159

situation with those of the pupils. Moreover, other teachers at the school could
observe their teaching (e.g. acting as ‘critical friends’).

Establish Formative Evaluation Mechanism

The next step of the teacher professional development programme, based on the
grouping of the factors of the dynamic model, comprises the establishment of
formative evaluation procedures. Formative evaluation is the method of ongoing
and concurrent evaluation which aims to improve the programme. The formative
evaluation procedures developed for the teacher professional development pro-
gramme can be carried out on a regular basis (e.g. once a month) throughout the
programme to provide information and feedback for improving (a) the quality of
teachers’ learning, (b) the extent to which they implement the teaching skills in
their classrooms and finally and (c) the quality of the programme itself.
The formative evaluation procedures should involve the identification of the learning
goals, intentions or outcomes and criteria for achieving them; the provision of effec-
tive, timely feedback to enable teachers to advance their learning; the active involve-
ment of teachers in their own learning and, lastly, improvement in teaching skills as
a result of teachers responding to identified learning needs and priorities. These
procedures could be accomplished by the A&RTeam and participating teachers.
In particular, for the purposes of the study reported in Chap. 9, after the devel-
opment of teachers’ initial action plans, one session was scheduled each month
until the end of the school year. This provided the teachers with sufficient time to
implement the activities included in their action plans in their teaching and also to
reflect on the effectiveness of these activities. Furthermore, the monthly sessions
provided teachers at each stage with the opportunity to revise and develop their
action plans further on a systematic basis, based on their own and others’ experi-
ences, and also research on effectiveness factors which corresponded to their
developmental stage. This was achieved with the assistance and guidance of the
A&RTeam.
In the course of formative evaluation in each monthly session, teachers had the
opportunity to (a) report and comment on teaching practices, (b) identify effective
and non-effective teaching practices, (c) understand the significance of the teacher
factors which corresponded to their developmental stage and (d) understand how
these factors could be linked with effective teaching and learning. At the same time,
the teachers received systematic feedback and suggestions from the A&RTeam
at each stage in the form of materials related to the application of teaching skills to
specific content. To achieve this, relevant case studies were used extensively
(see Antoniou, 2009).
During this time, members of the A&RTeam visited teachers at their schools to
discuss emerging issues related to the implementation of their action plans in their
everyday teaching, providing support and feedback. Through close observation of
teachers and the frequent collection of feedback on teachers’ skills, the A&RTeam
160 8 Using the Dynamic Model to Develop…

were able to identify how teachers implemented their action plans and developed
their teaching skills.

Establish Summative Evaluation Mechanism

The final step of the proposed approach to the teacher professional development
programme is concerned with the summative evaluation of the project. The emphasis
of the summative evaluation should not be on comparing teachers with each other but
on identifying the overall impact of the programme on the development of teachers’
skills and its indirect effect on student learning. The results of summative evaluation
assist in measuring the effectiveness of the DIA and allow subsequent decisions to be
made regarding the continuity of the programme.
This implies that at the end of the school year, teaching skills and student outcomes
should be measured. Specifically, the teaching skills of the participating teachers
should again be evaluated by focusing on the eight factors of the dynamic model
concerning teacher behaviour in the classroom. In this way, we will be able to identify
the impact of the DIA on improving the skills of teachers who have made use of the
DIA. Data on student achievement should also be collected, in order to measure the
effectiveness of the DIA in terms of student achievement gains.
This chapter advocates the use of an evidence-based and theory-driven approach
to teacher training and professional development. Specifically, we argue that the
dynamic model can be used to establish such a DIA, combining research on teacher
effectiveness with that on teacher training and professional development. The main
characteristics of this approach are described in this chapter. The next chapter provides
a detailed description of the group randomisation study that was conducted in order to
compare the impact of the teacher professional development approach, which is
based on the dynamic model (DIA), with the holistic (or reflective) approach. The
purpose is not only to consider the impact of the DIA but also to provide readers with
a detailed description of the study and facilitate their efforts to replicate or design
their own research on teacher professional development based on the DIA.
Chapter 9
An Experimental Study of Teacher
Professional Development Based
on the Dynamic Integrated Approach

Introduction

The experimental study presented in this chapter investigated how teachers can
develop their skills and move from one stage to the next by gradually developing
more complex skills, such as those concerned with new teaching approaches and
differentiation of teaching. The four phases of the study are described, and their
main findings are presented. The findings of this study refer to the impact of an
intervention which is in line with the proposed DIA upon three dependent variables:
(a) the development of teaching skills, (b) teachers’ attitudes towards teaching and
(c) the learning outcomes of their students. Specifically, the study reported here
attempted to compare the impact of the DIA and the HA to teacher professional
development upon each of the above three dependent variables.
To achieve this aim, all primary teachers in two districts of Cyprus (i.e. Nicosia,
n = 1,488; Larnaca, n = 815) were invited to participate in this project. A total of 130
primary teachers volunteered to participate in the professional development
programme that was offered at the University of Cyprus during after-school hours.
Data were also collected for all students (n = 2,356) of the teacher sample. Collection
of data took place both at the beginning and at the end of the intervention. Students
who lacked prior attainment or background data comprised less than 7% of the
original sample and were consequently excluded from each analysis. In the teacher
sample, only seven teachers left the experimental study and were equally distributed
between the two intervention groups and appropriate stages of development. The
four phases of the experimental study are elaborated upon below to help the reader
to see how the DIA can be applied in designing and implementing a professional
development programme.

B. Creemers et al., Teacher Professional Development for Improving 161

Quality of Teaching, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-5207-8_9,
© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
162 9 An Experimental Study of Teacher Professional Development…

Phases of the Study

Phase 1: Initial Evaluation

At the beginning of the 2008–2009 school year, the teaching skills of the partici-
pants were evaluated by external observers. Data on student achievement were
collected using external written forms of assessment designed to assess the knowl-
edge and skills in mathematics which are identified in the Cyprus Curriculum
(Ministry of Education, 1994). Teacher questionnaires were administered to collect
data on teachers’ background characteristics and measure their perceptions of
teaching. In addition, a student questionnaire was administered in order to collect
information related to students’ background characteristics. Observation data were
then analysed using the same procedure described by Kyriakides, Creemers, and
Antoniou (2009) in order to classify teachers into developmental stages according
to their teaching skills. Using the Rasch and Saltus models, it was found that teachers
could be classified into the same five developmental stages which emerged from the
previous study (see Table 9.1).

Phase 2: The Formation of the Two Experimental Groups

The teachers in each developmental stage were randomly allocated into two groups
of equal size. The first group employed the dynamic approach presented in the previous
section, while the second group used the HA. For example, the 32 teachers in stage
1 were randomly allocated to the two experimental groups, each one consisting of
16 teachers.

Phase 3: The Establishment of the Training Sessions

In the third phase of the study, the teachers in each experimental group began to
work towards improving their teaching skills. This phase sought to initiate changes
in educational practices, working with the teachers throughout the curriculum.
It was also concerned with whether, and to what extent, teachers were able to
develop their teaching skills and integrate them into a more self-consciously articulated
model of classroom pedagogy. The interventions offered to the two experimental
groups are described below.

Experimental Group A: Intervention Based on the DIA

Teachers participating in the experimental group A (employing the DIA) were

engaged in activities which corresponded solely to skills appropriate to their
Phases of the Study 163

Table 9.1 The five stages of teaching skills included in the dynamic model
Stages Teaching skills
1. Basic elements of direct teaching Frequency management of time
Stage management of time
Frequency structuring
Frequency application
Frequency assessment
Frequency questioning
Frequency teacher-student relation
2. Putting aspects of quality in direct teaching Stage structuring
and touching on active teaching Quality application
Stage questioning
Frequency student relations
Focus application
Stage application
Quality of questions
3. Acquiring quality in active/direct teaching Stage student relations
Stage teacher-student relation
Stage assessment
Frequency teaching modelling
Frequency orientation
Focus student relations
Quality: feedback
Focus questioning
Focus teacher-student relation
Quality structuring
Quality assessment
4. Differentiation of teaching Differentiation structuring
Differentiation time management
Differentiation questioning
Differentiation application
Focus assessment
Differentiation assessment
Stage teaching modelling
Stage orientation
5. Achieving quality and differentiation Quality teacher-student relation
in teaching using different approaches Quality student relations
Differentiation teacher-student relation
Differentiation student relations
Focus orientation
Quality orientation
Differentiation orientation
Quality of teaching modelling
Focus teaching modelling
164 9 An Experimental Study of Teacher Professional Development…

developmental stage. The teachers in both groups were required to attend eight
sessions. The content and purpose of each session are described below.
First Session: The first session could be perceived as equivalent to the first step of
the DIA since it aimed to build consensus in relation to the main aims of the improvement
initiative. In particular, in the first session, the rationale of the professional develop-
ment programme, as well as the main characteristics and value assumptions of the
DIA, was analysed. In addition, the main aims of the programme were discussed
(i.e. the improvement of teaching practices and student outcomes) as well as the
programme procedures and other administrative issues. The importance of evaluating
the impact of the programme on teacher behaviour and student outcomes was
emphasised, and the relevant procedures for the classroom observations, question-
naires and test administration at both time points were explained. It was also made
clear to the participants that provision had been taken to ensure the anonymity of
participants and confidentiality of the results of the evaluation.
Second Session: In the second session, the teachers employing the DIA were
assigned to four groups according to their own developmental stage, based on the
results of their teaching skills evaluation. Following this, the research team provided
for the teachers of each group supporting literature, which was related to teaching
skills appropriate to their developmental stage, and identified specific areas for
improvement (see Appendix A).
Third–Seventh Sessions: After the second session and the development of teachers’
initial action plans, one session was scheduled each month until the end of the school
year. This provided the teachers with sufficient time to implement the activities in
their action plans into their teaching whilst reflecting on the effectiveness of these
activities. The monthly sessions also provided teachers with the opportunity to revise
and further develop their action plans on a systematic basis with the assistance of the
A&RTeam. This was based upon their own and others’ experiences, as well as on
research concerning the effectiveness factors associated with their developmental
stage (see Antoniou, 2009). In each monthly session, teachers’ training was based on
‘active teaching’ and was not restricted solely to lecturing. Thus, the participating
teachers had the opportunity to report teaching practices and comment on them, to
identify effective and non-effective teaching practices, to understand the significance
of the teacher-level factors relating to their stage of the dynamic model and to
comprehend how these factors could be linked to effective teaching and learning.
At the same time, the teachers received systematic feedback and suggestions
from the A&RTeam, with additional reading materials and tasks concerning how
teaching skills could be used to teach specific content. To achieve this, guidelines
were developed and distributed to teachers. According to Desimone, Porter, Garet,
Yoon, and Birman (2002), professional development is more effective in changing
teachers’ classroom practices when it has the collective participation of teachers
who share the same priorities. Finally, members of the A&RTeam visited teachers at
their schools to discuss issues regarding the implementation of their action plans
into their everyday teaching and also to provide support and feedback.
Phases of the Study 165

Experimental Group B: Intervention Based on the HA

Teachers who participated in the experimental group employing the HA were

engaged in activities involving the whole spectrum of teaching elements, attitudes
and perceptions; these were not specific to their initial competences or development
stage. Reflection, as defined by Schon (1987), was the basis of this intervention.
It involves thoughtfully considering one’s own experiences and beliefs in applying
knowledge to practice while being coached by professionals in the discipline. This
intervention was based on the argument that professional development programmes
need not always focus on specific teaching methods and strategies; they can also
focus on teacher attitudes which affect practice (see Chap. 3). As Wilhelm, Coward
and Hume (1996) report, the curriculum of this professional development pro-
gramme was based on providing teacher interns with an opportunity to explore atti-
tudes and reflect on the ethical implications of practice in classrooms whilst also
focusing on their previous experiences. Given its nature, this method of professional
development causes teachers to step back and critically reflect not only on how they
teach but also on why they teach in a particular way. Teachers participating in the
HA were required to attend eight sessions, in the same way as the teachers employ-
ing the DIA in group A. The content of the first session was the same for both
groups (see first session on the section concerned with the DIA).
Second Session: In the second session, the teachers employing the HA
(experimental group B) were assigned to groups according to their own preferences.
The elements of an action plan were described to teachers in all four groups, who
then created their own action plan under the supervision of the A&RTeam. Through
discussion, the teachers identified problems they considered important, which led to
the formulation of action plans to tackle them.
Third–Seventh Sessions: After this second session, one session was scheduled
each month until the end of the school year. The primary aim of reflective practice
was for teachers to gain a deeper understanding of their own teaching style.
Specifically, teachers were encouraged to make use of journals, observation notes,
transcribed conversations and self-reports. The aim was to enable individuals to
evaluate their own beliefs and practice critically and help them to transform experi-
ences from a past event into an ongoing learning process. Moreover, the interven-
tion was designed to engage participating teachers in writing narrative stories of
their experiences and participate in guided reflective questioning as part of the process
of teacher inquiry and professional development.
The monthly sessions also provided the teachers at each stage with the opportu-
nity to revise and further develop their action plans. The participating teachers could
report and comment on their own teaching practices and identify both effective and
non-effective teaching practices, attitudes and beliefs. For example, the teachers
were asked to reflect on what they perceived to be successes and failures in terms of
effective teaching and learning. They were then encouraged to focus on and write
down the story of one critical incident, whether positive or negative, which had
occurred in their classrooms. They were asked to describe the incident in detail (e.g.
situation, people involved, feelings, reasoning), what they had learned about teaching
166 9 An Experimental Study of Teacher Professional Development…

as a result, how their perspectives had changed and the resulting changes in how they
taught. In each monthly meeting, the A&RTeam encouraged teachers within the
same group to co-operate and share both ideas and teaching materials, to exchange
and discuss their experiences and generally to share the results of their exploration
(see Antoniou & Kyriakides, 2011). Finally, as with the teachers in experimental
group A, the A&RTeam visited teachers in their schools during this period to discuss
emerging issues related to the implementation of their action plans in their everyday
teaching. They provided consistent support and feedback for all teachers.

Phase 4: Final Evaluation and 8th Session: Measurement

of Teaching Skills, Teacher Perceptions Towards Teaching
and Student Outcomes

This was the last phase of the teacher professional development programme, which
corresponds to the last step of the DIA (see Chap. 8). By the end of the school year,
the teaching skills, teacher perceptions and student achievement in mathematics
were measured using the same procedures and instruments as in Phase 1. Following
the data analyses, a common final meeting was held with participating teachers in
the two experimental groups. During this meeting, the teachers were firstly invited
to express their views and comments about the developmental programme in which
they had participated. This enabled the collection of data concerning the formative
evaluation of the project. The overall results of the summative evaluation were then
presented to the teachers, and they were asked to reflect on these results.

Measures

In this section, we refer to the main variables of the study and provide information
on how each of them was measured. Some information about the validity and reli-
ability of each measure is also provided.

Student Achievement in Mathematics

For each year group of students, criterion-reference tests in mathematics were con-
structed in order to measure their knowledge of, and skills in, mathematics in relation
to the objectives of the national curriculum of Cyprus. The written tests were subject
to control for reliability and validity (see Antoniou, 2009). None of the respondents
achieved a full score. Moreover, less than 4% of the students achieved over 80% of
the maximum score, and less than 10% of the students produced over 70% of the
maximum score. Therefore, there was less likelihood of a ceiling effect. The floor
effect was not real in the data because no student produced a full zero performance.
Measures 167

Equating of Tests

The test administered to grade 6 students at the end of the school year was obviously
more difficult than that administered to grade 2 students at the beginning of the
school year. Prior to making comparison of test scores meaningful, the scores have
to be made comparable. They were equated using item response theory (IRT)
modelling. The method follows the same procedure as that used in PISA (Programme
for International Student Assessment) studies. However, in PISA, equating was
conducted horizontally (equating the different versions of tests), whereas in this
study, it was vertical. Specifically, the scores were transformed into the same scale
on the basis of characteristics of IRT models that students’ latent level of ability (q)
and difficulty level of an item (b) are identical, when certain preconditions are
fulfilled (Bond & Fox, 2001). The latent ability level for each student can be deter-
mined in every version as long as there are so-called anchoring items connecting the
versions. For the purposes of this study, we use enough common items (i.e. approxi-
mately 8% of anchoring items across the tests) with representative content to be
measured (Kolen & Brennan, 1995). Estimation was made using the Extended
Logistic Model of Rasch (Andrich, 1988) which revealed that each scale had
satisfactory psychometric properties (see Antoniou, 2009). Thus, for each assess-
ment period, achievement in mathematics was estimated by calculating the Rasch
person estimates.

Student Background Factors

Information was collected in relation to two student background factors: sex

(0 = boys, 1 = girls) and socio-economic status (SES). Five SES variables were avail-
able: father’s and mother’s education level, the social status of father’s job, the social
status of mother’s job and the economic situation of the family. Using the
classification of occupations used by the Ministry of Finance, it was possible to
classify parents’ occupation into three groups of relatively similar sizes: occupations
held by working-class (32%), middle-class (39%) and upper-middle-class (29%)
parents. Standardised values for the above five variables were calculated, resulting
in the SES indicator.

Opportunity to Learn

Time spent doing homework and on private tuition were seen as measures of the
opportunity to learn factor. Private tuition in Cyprus is common, and a high percent-
age of students attend private lessons. Thus, students were asked to report the
average amount of time spent on homework and on private tuition in mathematics,
especially since these variables were found to be associated with student achievement
gains in Cyprus (e.g. Kyriakides, 2005b; Kyriakides, Campbell & Gagatsis, 2000).
168 9 An Experimental Study of Teacher Professional Development…

Contextual Factors at Teacher/Classroom Level

Variables concerned with the context of each classroom, such as the average score
at the beginning of the intervention, the average SES score and the percentage of
girls, were taken into account. The contextual factors were aggregated from the
student-level data. We were also able to collect data about three teacher background
variables: gender, position (i.e. teacher or deputy head) and teaching experience.

Quality of Teaching

Quality of teaching was measured through classroom observations by independent

observers, both at the beginning (September 2008) and at the end (May 2009) of the
intervention. Two low- and one high-inference observation instruments were used.
The instruments were designed to collect data concerned with the teacher factors of
the dynamic model and were used in a series of studies conducted in Cyprus in order
to test the validity of the dynamic model. The construct validity of these instruments
had already been tested by using SEM approaches (see Kyriakides & Creemers,
2008).
Observations were carried out by three members of the research team who
attended a series of seminars on how to use the three observation instruments.
During the 2008–2009 school year, the external observers visited each class four
times, and a generalisability study provided support for the use of data that emerged
from different observations as indicators of the teaching skills of each teacher
(see Antoniou, 2009). Moreover, for each scale of the instruments, the alpha reli-
ability coefficient was higher than 0.83. Since 26% of the lessons were observed by
pairs of observers, the inter-rater reliability coefficient (r2) was estimated and was
found to be higher than 0.81.

Results

The results of the analysis evidenced the impact of the two approaches to teacher
professional development on the improvement of teaching skills, teacher percep-
tions and student academic outcomes. These are presented in this section. Additional
technical information emerged from analysing the results of the study, and this is
also presented below for information. In addition, a summary of the main findings
is provided at the end of this section.

Impact on Teaching Skills

The observational data of each time period were analysed separately following the
procedure described by Kyriakides et al. (2009). Specifically, the Rasch model was
Results 169

used in order to identify the extent to which the five dimensions of the eight teacher
factors (i.e. the 44 first-order factor scores) could be reduced to a common unidi-
mensional scale. The Rasch model not only tested for the unidimensionality of the
scale but was also able to ascertain whether the tasks could be ordered according to
their degree of difficulty. Furthermore, it assessed whether the people completing
these tasks could be ordered according to their performance in the specific construct
under investigation.
The Rasch model was applied to the data of the baseline measure (i.e. the teaching
skills of teachers participating in the study). It was found that all of the teaching
skills included in the dynamic model were appropriately targeted against the person
measures (i.e. the skills of teachers participating in the study) since Rasch person
estimates ranged from −3.06 to 3.12 logits, and the estimates of the difficulties of
teaching skills ranged from −2.93 to 3.16 logits. Moreover, the reliability of each
scale (teachers and teaching skills) was higher than 0.93 and thus deemed satisfactory.
Finally, the fitting of the Rasch model with the data was tested against alternative
item response theory models (i.e. the 2PL and the 3PL models) and was found to be
statistically preferable (see Antoniou, 2009).
Having established the reliability of the scale, it was decided to investigate
whether teaching skills could be grouped into the five stages described in the previ-
ous chapter. The procedure for detecting pattern clustering, developed by Marcoulides
and Drezner (1999), was used. This procedure segments the observed measure-
ments into constituent groups (or clusters) so that the members of any one group are
similar to those of the others, according to a selected criterion that stands for
difficulty. Applying this method to segment the teaching skills on the basis of their
difficulties that emerged as a result of using the Rasch model showed that they were
optimally clustered into the same five clusters proposed by previous research
findings (see Kyriakides et al., 2009).
Pattern clustering was also applied to data which emerged from the final
measurement of teaching skills. The Rasch model revealed that all participants
fitted the model and all teaching skills were well matched to measures of the teachers
since the scores for the latter ranged from −2.99 to 3.24 logits. It was also found that
the difficulties of the teaching skills could be considered invariant across the two
measurement periods within the measurement error (i.e. 0.10 logits). Applying
the aforementioned clustering method, it was found that teaching skills could once
again be optimally clustered into the five stages described in Chap. 8 (see Antoniou,
2009).
Considering the results of the analyses of initial and final data related to teaching
skills, we can conclude that on both occasions the results validated the five develop-
mental stages of teaching skills proposed by previous research findings (Antoniou,
2009; Antoniou, Creemers & Kyriakides, 2009; Kyriakides et al., 2009). Since the
teachers were grouped into the same five stages of teaching competencies, a decision
was made to compare the initial and final stages of each teacher. This aimed to iden-
tify the extent to which some teachers improved their teaching skills and progressed
to the next stage. By comparing the classification of teachers into stages at the
beginning and end of the intervention, the analysis found that none of the teachers
of the group employing the HA moved from one stage to another. On the other hand,
170 9 An Experimental Study of Teacher Professional Development…

21 out of 65 teachers employing the DIA progressed to the next stage. Specifically,
eight teachers of this group move from stage 1 to stage 2, eight teachers of stage 2
managed to move to stage 3, and five teachers of stage 3 were found to be situated
at stage 4 at the end of the intervention.
In order to measure the impact of the two professional development programmes
upon teaching skills, the Rasch person estimates were also compared. This comparison
revealed that the final scores of teachers employing the DIA (mean = 0.36, SD = 1.05)
were higher than their initial scores (mean = −0.28, SD = 1.01), and this difference
was statistically significant (t = 4.14, df = 64, p < .001). On the other hand, the final
scores of teachers employing the HA (mean = −0.25, SD = 1.04) were not higher
than their initial scores (mean = −0.26, SD = 1.05), and the paired samples t-test
did not reveal any statistically significant differences in progress (t = 0.87, df = 64,
p = 0.38).

Impact on Teacher Perceptions and Attitudes

In the first stage of the analysis, two independent samples t-tests were employed to
identify any statistically significant differences between the teachers of the two
experimental groups at the beginning and at the end of the interventions, but no
such differences at 0.05 level were found. Finally, a paired samples t-test revealed
no statistically significant changes at 0.5 level in perceptions, either for the teachers
who employed the DIA or for those who employed the HA.

Impact on Student Achievement

The results of the multilevel analysis to measure the impact of each of the two
approaches to teacher professional development on student achievement are pre-
sented in this section. In particular, this analysis aimed to identify the extent to which
student achievement gains were significantly different for teachers participating in
the DIA as compared to those employing the HA. It is also important to note that
other explanatory variables, such as teacher qualification and student SES, were
taken into consideration in the multilevel analysis. Although the teachers were
randomly assigned to the experimental groups, this procedure was still conducted
in order to identify the net impact of each approach on students’ academic progress
(see Creemers, Kyriakides & Sammons, 2010).
In the data analysis presented below, the variables related to the interventions
were added at the last stage of the multilevel modelling analysis. This procedure
enabled the authors to supplement the analysis with data concerning teachers’
personal characteristics and perceptions in order to check for possible variation
both within and between groups. The models presented in Table 9.2 were estimated
without the variables that had no statistically significant effect at 0.05 level.
 Results

Table 9.2 Parameter estimates and (standard errors) for the analysis of student achievement in mathematics (students within classes, within schools)
Factors Model 0 Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 Model 6
Fixed part (intercept) 5.19 (0.80) 4.10 (0.78) 3.80 (0.80) 3.70 (0.90) 2.90 (0.80) 2.10 (0.80) 1.90 (0.70)
Student level
Context
Prior achievement in maths 0.80 (0.12) 0.79 (0.12) 0.81 (0.12) 0.80 (0.11) 0.80 (0.12) 0.80 (0.11)
Grade 3 −1.20 (0.40) −1.09 (0.40) −1.08 (0.40) −1.10 (0.40) −1.07 (0.40) −1.07 (0.40)
Grade 4 −0.72 (0.30) −0.66 (0.30) −0.62 (0.30) −0.63 (0.30) −0.62 (0.30) −0.62 (0.29)
Grade 6 0.65 (0.30) 0.64 (0.30) 0.64 (0.30) 0.65 (0.30) 0.66 (0.30) 0.64 (0.30)
Sex (0 = girls, 1 = boys) 0.10 (0.04) 0.10 (0.04) 0.11 (0.04) 0.10 (0.04) 0.09 (0.04) 0.10 (0.04)
SES 0.40 (0.14) 0.41 (0.14) 0.40 (0.14) 0.41 (0.14) 0.40 (0.14) 0.40 (0.13)
Cultural capital 0.19 (0.08) 0.19 (0.09) 0.20 (0.08) 0.18 (0.08) 0.18 (0.08) 0.18 (0.08)
Opportunity to learn
Homework 0.12 (0.04) 0.12 (0.04) 0.12 (0.04) 0.12 (0.04) 0.12 (0.04)
Private tuition (0 = no, 1 = yes) N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
Classroom level
Context
Average achievement in maths 0.40 (0.10) 0.40 (0.10) 0.40 (0.10) 0.40 (0.10) 0.40 (0.10) 0.40 (0.10)
Average SES N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
Average cultural capital N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
Percentage of girls N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
Teacher background
Gender (0 = male, 1 = female) N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
Years of experience 0.08 (0.03) N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
Position N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
171

(continued)
 172

Table 9.2 (continued)

Factors Model 0 Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 Model 6
Teacher expectations
Plans for postgraduate degree N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
Plans for promotion to head N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
Attitudes towards teaching as a profession N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
Perceptions towards characteristics
of effective teachers
(a) Importance of knowledge N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
(b) Classroom management N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
(c) Personal traits N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
(d) Communication skills N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
Attitudes towards tasks that teachers have to undertake
(a) Lesson preparation N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
(b) Teaching N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
(c) Assessment N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
(d) Homework assignment N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
(e) Record keeping and reporting to N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
parents
(f) Administrative work −0.06 (0.02) −0.05 (0.02) −0.06 (0.02) −0.06 (0.02)
Attitudes towards professional N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
development
Quality of teaching
Level 1 −0.52 (0.09) −0.51 (0.09) −0.52 (0.09)
Level 2 −0.24 (0.09) −0.25 (0.09) −0.25 (0.09)
9 An Experimental Study of Teacher Professional Development…

Level 4 0.32 (0.10) 0.32 (0.10) 0.31 (0.10)

Factors Model 0 Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 Model 6
Experimental group (0 = only 0.24 (0.08) 0.23 (0.08)
reflection, 1 = competence based)
Results

Teachers who managed to move to the 0.09 (0.03)

next stage (0 = no movement was
observed, 1 = move to the next)
School level
Context
Average achievement in maths 0.09 (0.04) 0.10 (0.04) 0.08 (0.04) 0.10 (0.04) 0.09 (0.04) 0.09 (0.03)
Average SES N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
Average cultural capital N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
Percentage of girls N.S.S. N.S.S, N.S.S, N.S.S, N.S.S, N.S.S,
Variance components
School (%) 10.2 10.0 9.8 9.5 9.1 8.5 8.4
Class (%) 18.5 17.6 17.2 16.0 11.0 9.0 8.6
Student (%) 72.3 49.0 45.0 44.3 44.1 44.0 44.0
Explained (%) 23.4 28.0 30.2 35.8 38.5 39.0
Significance test
C2 1,213.4 687.3 650.1 590.1 520.0 480.5 460.1
Reduction 526.1 37.2 60.0 70.1 39.5 20.4
Degrees of freedom 9 1 2 2 1 1
p-value 0.001 0.001 0.001 0.001 0.001 0.001
N.S.S. = No statistically significant effect at level 0.05
173
174 9 An Experimental Study of Teacher Professional Development…

In model 1 of Table 9.2, the variables related to the student context were added
to the empty model (model 0). This model explained 23.4% of the variance,
most of which was situated at the student level. All of the student context vari-
ables (i.e. prior achievement in mathematics, gender, SES, cultural capital) had
statistically significant effects upon student achievement. Nevertheless, prior knowl-
edge was the strongest predictor of student achievement at the end of the school
year. In addition, prior achievement was the only contextual variable which had a
consistent effect upon achievement when aggregated either at the classroom or the
school level.
In model 2, the explanatory variables of the student level, related to the opportu-
nity to learn, were added to the previous model. The amount of time students spent
doing their homework showed a statistically significant effect on student achievement.
In the third model, all variables related to teachers’ background factors, perceptions
and attitudes were added to model 2. The years of teaching experience had a statisti-
cally significant effect on student achievement.
In model 4, the variable related to the quality of teaching was added to model 3.
Quality of teaching was measured through classroom observations, with teachers
then assigned to one of four developmental stages according to their teaching skills.
In order to measure the effect of each developmental stage on student outcomes,
teachers at stage 3 were treated as the reference group (i.e. stage 3 = 0), and three
dummy variables were entered into model 4. The results revealed that the develop-
mental stage in which a teacher was situated had a reasonably large and significant
effect on student achievement. In particular, we observed that the students of teachers
at stage 1 showed the lowest achievement, whereas students of teachers at stage 4
had higher achievement levels than those within the first three stages. This finding
provides support for the developmental nature of the four stages since students of
teachers situated at higher stages performed better than those of teachers at lower
stages. It is important to note that similar results were found at the beginning of the
intervention and also in previous research (e.g. Kyriakides et al., 2009). Finally, we
can observe that model 4 explained 35.8% of the variance, while the c2 test revealed
a significant change between model 3 and model 4 (p < 0.001). This suggests that a
teacher’s developmental stage is an important predictor of student outcomes.
In model 5, the effect of each approach to teacher professional development was
investigated. A dummy variable representing the approach (0 = HA) was entered
into the analysis. The DIA showed a statistically significant effect on student
achievement, compared to the HA which had no significant effect. The effect of this
DIA variable was 0.24 (0.08), indicating that the students of teachers employing this
approach had better results than those whose teachers employed the HA.
Finally, in model 6, the effect of teachers moving to the next developmental stage
was investigated. As previously mentioned in the analysis of observational data
related to teaching quality, all teachers employing the DIA improved in their teaching
skills. Moreover, 21 out of 65 teachers made progress to such an extent that they
advanced to the next developmental stage of teaching skills. It was therefore necessary
to investigate the impact of this ‘movement’ to the next developmental stage on
student academic outcomes. A dummy variable indicating whether teachers
Implications 175

progressed to the next developmental stage was entered into the analysis (0 = no
movement observed, 1 = moving to the next stage of teaching competences).
The results indicated that such progress had a statistically significant effect upon
student achievement (see Table 9.2).
The results of the multilevel analysis presented above provide evidence that the
DIA yields better results in terms of student achievement. However, it is not clear
whether this approach is equally effective for teachers situated at different levels.
It could be claimed that the DIA is more suitable for teachers with lower levels of
teaching competence. To test this assumption, four separate multilevel analyses
were conducted. Each analysis was applied only to the teachers of the same stage,
not the overall teacher sample. In this way, we could compare the effect size of the
variable concerned with the use of the DIA upon achievement of students who were
taught by teachers situated at different stages of teaching competence. Table 9.3
illustrates the figures of the final model of each of the four separate multilevel analyses
which were conducted. Each analysis revealed similar effect sizes for the variable
concerned with the use of the DIA upon student achievement. The fixed effects
obtained with multilevel analysis can readily be converted to standardised effects or
‘Cohen’s d’ by dividing them by the standard deviations in the ‘treatment groups’
(see Table 9.4). Thus, the relative strength of the effects can be compared more easily
across the four groups of teachers who are at different stages. When the effects of
the DIA that are presented in Table 9.3 are expressed in this way, they turn out to be
at the same level and can also be considered as medium effect sizes (see the effect
sizes reported in Table 9.4). This implies that this intervention was equally beneficial
to teachers situated at different stages of teaching.

Implications

This section provides a brief review of the research findings and discusses the relevant
implications for policy and practice.

Summary of Results

Firstly, the results of the analysis of both the initial and final data related to teaching
skills suggest that the five stages of teaching skills were formulated in a consistent
manner. This provides support for the generalisability of the five developmental
stages of teaching skills proposed by previous research findings (Antoniou et al.,
2009). In addition, it was found that teachers demonstrating higher level competen-
cies were more effective than those situated at the lower stages in terms of student
outcomes. Secondly, the results indicated that for all teachers, the DIA is more
effective than the HA in improving teaching skills. By comparing the two experi-
mental groups, it was found that, overall, teachers employing the HA neither made
statistically significant progress nor moved from one stage to another. On the other
176 9 An Experimental Study of Teacher Professional Development…

Table 9.3 Parameter estimates and (standard errors) that emerged from analysing separately the
achievement of students taught by teachers situated at the same level
Factors Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4
Fixed part (intercept) 0.65 (0.20) 0.50 (0.20) 0.20 (0.10) 0.30 (0.08)
Student level
Context
Prior achievement in maths 0.71 (0.12) 0.76 (0.12) 0.79 (0.11) 0.72 (0.11)
Grade 3 −1.08 (0.33) −1.08 (0.30) −1.11 (0.33) −1.14 (0.33)
Grade 4 −0.62 (0.25) −0.59 (0.25) −0.67 (0.25) −0.67 (0.25)
Grade 6 0.56 (0.26) 0.50 (0.25) 0.57 (0.26) 0.58 (0.26)
Sex (0 = girls, 1 = boys) 0.10 (0.04) 0.10 (0.04) 0.11 (0.04) 0.10 (0.04)
SES 0.33 (0.14) 0.36 (0.14) 0.31 (0.13) 0.31 (0.14)
Opportunity to learn
Homework 0.11 (0.03) 0.15 (0.03) 0.09 (0.03) 0.09 (0.03)
Private tuition (0 = no, 1 = yes) N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
Classroom level
Context
Average achievement 0.34 (0.09) 0.30 (0.09) 0.33 (0.09) 0.34 (0.09)
Average SES N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
Percentage of girls N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
Teacher background
Gender (0 = male, 1 = female) N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
Years of experience N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
Position N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
Experimental group 0.27 (0.08) 0.25 (0.08) 0.25 (0.08) 0.22 (0.05)
(0 = HA, 1 = DIA)
Teachers moving to the next stage 0.14 (0.06) 0.12 (0.05) 0.14 (0.06) N.A
(0 = no change, 1 = moving
to the next stage)
Variance components
Class (%) 6.5 6.9 5.9 5.8
Student (%) 51.8 52.1 52.0 52.6
Explained (%) 41.7 41.0 42.1 41.6
N.S.S. = No statistically significant effect at level 0.05
N.A = All teachers at stage 4 belong to the reference group

Table 9.4 Effect of employing DIA rather than HA expressed as Cohen’s d per group of students
taught by teachers situated at the same stage and for the whole sample
Stage Effect Pooled SD Cohen’s d
Teachers at stage 1 0.27 0.69 0.39
Teachers at stage 2 0.25 0.64 0.39
Teachers at stage 3 0.25 0.63 0.38
Teachers at stage 4 0.22 0.60 0.37
Whole sample 0.33 0.89 0.37
Implications 177

hand, statistically significant progress in teaching skills was found for the teachers
employing the approach based on the grouping of teaching skills in the dynamic
model. Thirdly, it was found that employing the DIA had a reasonable and statisti-
cally significant effect on student achievement, compared with employing the HA.
Finally, the findings revealed that teachers’ perceptions and attitudes towards teaching
did not change, regardless of the approach they employed. In addition, teachers’
perceptions of teaching were not found to be related to student achievement gains in
mathematics. This finding supports the idea that the DIA can develop improvement
programmes focused on enhancing teaching skills, rather than on changing percep-
tions of teaching.

Implication of Research Findings

The above findings seem to support the idea that teachers can improve and ulti-
mately progress to the next developmental stage of teaching skills by undertaking
appropriate interventions and participating in effective professional development
programmes. As this study demonstrated, teachers employing the DIA improved
their teaching skills, whereas those employing the HA did not. In addition, the use
of the DIA had a significant impact upon student achievement gains in mathematics.
A similar argument was made by King and Kitchener (1994). They argued that
stage growth was most apparent for teachers who continued their informal educa-
tion and participated in effective professional development programmes. This provides
an important reminder that teacher improvement and stage growth do not unilaterally
unfold, but also require a stimulating and supportive environment.
The issue concerning the content of teacher professional development pro-
grammes has been addressed in this study by drawing on a validated theoretical
model of EER. In particular, the dynamic model of educational effectiveness empha-
sises not only the importance of specific factors but also the grouping of factors
when addressing the complex nature of effectiveness. This implies that improve-
ment of teacher effectiveness cannot be focused solely on the acquisition of isolated
skills or competencies (Gilberts & Lignugaris-Kraft, 1997), nor on reflection on the
whole teaching process to help teachers gain ‘greater fulfilment as a practitioner of
the art’ (of teaching) (Clarke & Hollingsworth, 2002, p. 948).
At the same time, the results of this study indicate that reflection is more effec-
tive when teachers’ priorities for improvement are taken into account and when they
are encouraged to develop action plans which address their professional needs;
these were identified through a relevant empirical investigation. Although both
interventions encouraged and utilised teachers’ critical reflections on their teaching
practices, teachers employing the DIA were asked to reflect on those aspects which
related to their priorities for improvement, based on their developmental stage. These
stages were defined by taking into account the knowledge base of EER, especially
the teacher factors found to be associated with student achievement. On the other
hand, teachers employing the HA adopted a less focused reflection strategy, which
178 9 An Experimental Study of Teacher Professional Development…

allowed them to reflect on any aspect of their teaching practice, irrespective of the
stage at which they were situated. For example, some teachers at stage 1 employing
the HA developed action plans which aimed to differentiate their instruction; yet
their attempts to incorporate this into their teaching were not successful. This may
be attributed to the fact that they did not possess the basic skills corresponding to
their stage, such as classroom management and structuring, which could be considered
prerequisites for the differentiation of teaching. Therefore, the HA does not take
into account research evidence supporting the grouping of teacher factors and their
dimensions, grouped into stages, structured in a developmental order and associated
with student outcomes. It must be emphasised that thinking and critical analysis are
important, and thus, those aspects of the HA were utilised in the development of the
DIA. However, complementing reflection with the knowledge base of EER, which
addresses the needs of specific groups of teachers, could help us establish more
effective approaches to teacher professional development.
Moreover, the findings of this study revealed that teachers’ perceptions of teach-
ing did not change, either for the teachers employing the DIA or those using the HA.
This finding is in line with that of many studies which support the view that changing
teacher perceptions is difficult to achieve (Goodrum, Cousins & Kinnear, 1992;
Joyce & Showers, 1980; Sharon, 1987). For example, research was conducted in the
USA in a district offering ‘a myriad of choices of professional development from
workshops on particular strategies to development of small learning communities’
(Alger, 2009, p. 8). Yet, it was surprising that only one teacher out of 110 indicated
that professional development was responsible for a shift in their perceptions of
teaching. As research has shown, teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning are
resistant to change because they are at the core of a student teacher’s world view
(Pajares, 1992; Phelan & McLaughlin, 1995). An alternative explanation may be
that teacher perceptions are mitigated by other less tangible context variables in
individual schools, such as school size and school climate (Grossman & Stodolsky,
1995). In addition, this might be attributed to the fact that the study only took place
over the course of 1 year. Longitudinal studies are needed to explore further the
potential and characteristics of professional development programmes capable of
improving teachers’ perceptions of teaching (see also Chap. 11 for suggestions
about further research on the DIA). Yet, although teachers’ perceptions of teaching
did not change in this study, those teachers employing the DIA did improve in their
teaching skills and their students’ outcomes. This might imply that improving teachers’
perceptions and attitudes towards teaching should not necessarily be considered a
prerequisite for improving teacher effectiveness.
Although further research is needed to test the generalisability of the findings of
this study, one could claim that this study reveals that the DIA can at least have a
significant short-term impact on improving teaching skills and teacher effective-
ness, as measured through student learning outcomes. In the next chapter, we refer
to projects investigating further the impact of the DIA. These projects also attempt
to broaden the scope of this approach by concentrating not only on teaching but also
on assessment practice and by investigating the added value of using the DIA to
organise school-based INSET courses. In the final chapter of this book, suggestions
Appendix A: Description of the Content of the Teacher Professional… 179

for the development of this approach in order for it to be used not only for designing
INSET courses but also for initial teacher training programmes are provided. This
chapter also refers to the importance of conducting further research on using the
DIA for teacher training and professional development purposes by taking into
account the crucial role that the A&RTeam has to play, what should be required of
its members and the training they should receive.

Appendix A: Description of the Content of the Teacher

Professional Development Programme Based on DIA

This appendix presents the content of the teacher professional development pro-
gramme based on the DIA. The teachers employing the DIA were assigned to the
four groups according to the developmental stage in which they were found to be
situated, based on the results of their teaching skills evaluation. The members of the
A&RTeam provided the teachers in each group with supporting literature and
research findings, which were solely related to the teaching skills corresponding to
their developmental stage. They also made it clear which area each group should
concentrate their efforts on for improvement. Therefore, this appendix refers to the
area in which each group aimed to effect improvement.

First Group (Stage 1): Basic Elements of Direct Teaching

The area of interest in this stage was the distribution of teaching time, the aim of
which was to enable students to construct and implement new knowledge effec-
tively. The opportunity to learn is related to student engagement and time spent on
task, and engagement has been used as a criterion variable in classroom manage-
ment studies (Emmer & Evertson, 1981). Therefore, effective teachers are expected
to organise and manage the classroom as an efficient learning environment and thus
maximise engagement rates (Creemers & Reezigt, 1996). It was explained to the
teachers that learning takes place within restricted time limits, during which many
important activities have to be implemented. Extracurricular administrative activities
such as announcements, dealing with discipline problems and commenting on irrel-
evant issues could further reduce the time available for learning. Finally, the teachers
should allocate sufficient time to each important activity for learning. The areas of
activities were related to:
(a) Lesson structuring: Issues discussed concerned the extent to which each lesson
is connected with previous ones, the structure of the lesson is explained to
students when appropriate, the activities taking place in the lesson are linked to
previous ones, the lesson is developed on the basis of ideas proposed by the
students and the main points and important elements of each lesson are both
identified and emphasised.
180 9 An Experimental Study of Teacher Professional Development…

(b) Use of application activities/exercises: Issues discussed were related to the

following: the teacher provides the opportunity for students to practise the
implementation of knowledge and skills in each lesson, feedback should
be given to students while they are working on application activities and the
teacher could raise questions with individual students while they work on appli-
cation activities in order to identify and tackle misunderstandings.
(c) Questioning and providing feedback: Issues discussed concerned the extent to
which effective teachers ask many questions and involve students in class dis-
cussion and also whether students are given sufficient time to think about their
answers after a question has been put to them.

Second Group (Stage 2): Incorporating Aspects of Quality

and Touching on Active Teaching

The area of interest in this stage was the distribution of learning activities through-
out the lesson or unit (stage dimension), focusing on when an activity takes place.
The areas of activity were related to:
(a) Stage of the application tasks: When should they be assigned and what should
the content include? Issues discussed concerned the following: the application
tasks should take place at different times during each lesson, not necessarily at
the end of the lesson; the application activities should be part of every lesson;
application activities could involve knowledge and skills taught during the lesson,
which the student might also need to apply to new contexts; and application
tasks could also involve learning targets and knowledge from previous lessons
or units.
(b) Quality of the lesson structuring: Issues discussed were related to the following
requirements: structuring should take place at different times during a lesson,
the lesson or activity should be linked to previous ones, the main points and
important elements of each lesson should be identified and stressed and regular
revision should take place (e.g. through questioning).

Third Group (Stage 3): Acquiring Quality in Direct

Teaching and Reaching Out

The area of interest here was the development of the classroom learning environment,
with particular emphasis on the active involvement of students in the construction
of new knowledge. The areas of activities were related to:
(a) Orientation of the students to the learning goals and objectives of the lesson
activities: Issues discussed were related to involvement of students in identifying
the objectives and learning goals of the lesson, the need for the teacher to
Appendix A: Description of the Content of the Teacher Professional… 181

explain the purposes and objectives of the lesson or activity when appropriate,
the students being asked by the teacher to think and explain why certain activi-
ties take place during the lesson and the need to ‘sum up’ at the end of each
lesson with a review of the initial learning goals.
(b) Development of the classroom as a learning environment: Issues discussed
were concerned with the extent to which interactions between the teacher and
students, as well as between students, take place regularly and at different times;
the purpose of the interactions is for learning; the teacher encourages the
students to express different and opposing views and opinions; the teacher
challenges the students to defend their arguments from opposing standpoints;
students are encouraged to find different ways of solving problems; and
students are encouraged to interact in order to discover knowledge (e.g. finding
a solution to a given mathematical problem by drawing their own diagrams).

Fourth Group (Stage 4): Differentiation of Teaching

and Putting Aspects of Quality into New Teaching

The area of interest for this group was the differentiation of teaching in relation to
the application tasks, questioning, lesson structuring and orientation of the students
to the lesson’s learning objectives. The areas of activities were related to:
(a) Differentiation of teaching: The teachers should shape their teaching by taking
into account all the factors associated with students’ attainment, personal char-
acteristics and background variables in order to maximise each student’s learning
potential. These factors include students’ readiness, pre-existing knowledge,
interests, learning profile, self-esteem and socio-economic level. Issues dis-
cussed were related with the extent to which differentiation exists in the type
and difficulty level of teacher questioning; certain questions may be directed to
specific students and not to the whole class; the teacher considers the type of
questions they raise with certain groups of students (convergent/divergent
thinking); the teacher is aware of the feedback they give to certain groups of
students; differentiation takes place in the application tasks; the teacher might
not assign the same application tasks to all students in their classroom; and the
teacher organises anchor activities to manage students who often finish their
application tasks first.
(b) Orientation of the students to the learning goals and objectives of the lesson
activities: Issues discussed were related with the extent to which groups of
students could be asked to identify different lesson objectives and learning
goals of different activities, and the teacher also asks different students to con-
sider and explain why certain activities take place in the lesson. Following this,
each teacher developed his or her own action plan under the supervision and
guidance of the research team.
Chapter 10
Broadening the Scope of the Dynamic
Integrated Approach to Teacher
Professional Development

Introduction

In this chapter, two projects on the use of the DIA for the improvement of teacher
effectiveness are discussed. Each study explored ways to expand the scope of the
DIA by taking into account areas of concern addressed by teacher professional
development research. The first was an attempt to suggest how the DIA can be used
to improve the assessment skills of teachers. The stages of teachers’ skills in
conducting assessment were first of all identified. We also examined whether the
DIA could be used to design courses on assessment, which would support the for-
mative function of assessment. Although the formative purpose of assessment has
been widely promoted by the educational community (Gipps, 1994; Popham, 2006;
Shepard, 2000; Stiggins, 1999; Stobart, 2004), assessment research literature has
failed to impact upon teachers’ everyday assessment practices, which still appear to
be outcome-oriented (Earl & Katz, 2000; Lock & Munby, 2000). This study was
also an attempt to demonstrate how the DIA could be used to offer courses
concerned with specific teacher factors.
The second project attempted to identify the added value of using the DIA to
develop school-based INSET courses. Specifically, two main strands of research in
teacher education can be discerned. The first is concerned with the focus of teacher
education on the development of specific competencies (Berliner, 1994) and the
other with the provision of a more HA. The latter not only addresses specific knowl-
edge and skills but also reflects on experiences and beliefs (Calderhead & Shorrock,
1997). The other strand is related to the question of where teacher in-service training
should take place and its impact on the SLE (Ponte, Matos, Guimaraes, Leal &
Canavarro, 1994). The projects described in this chapter attempted to expand the
DIA by providing answers to questions emerging from research on these strands of
teacher education. They also investigated the importance of using the DIA to offer
courses internally (school-based in-service training) or externally, and the relative
impact of DIA compared to that of either the HA or the CBA.

B. Creemers et al., Teacher Professional Development for Improving 183

Quality of Teaching, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-5207-8_10,
© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
184 10 Broadening the Scope of the Dynamic Integrated Approach to Teacher…

Searching for Stages of Teacher Skills

in Assessment: Implications for Research
on Teacher Professional Development

The Theoretical Background of the Study

Teacher assessment is considered an integral part of teaching (Broadfoot & Black,

2004; Delandshere, 2002; Gipps, 1994; Harlen & James, 1997; Linn, 1993).
Assessment is defined as the systematic process of gathering information about student
learning (Shepard, 2000). It involves making our expectations explicit and public;
setting appropriate criteria and high standards for learning quality; systematically
gathering, analysing and interpreting evidence to determine how well performance
matches those expectations and standards; and using the resulting information to
document, explain and improve performance (Angelo, 1995). Teacher assessment’s
impact on learning has been widely documented in the literature (Boud, 1995;
Butler & Winne, 1995; Crooks, 1988; Nicol & Macfarlane-Dick, 2006; Sadler,
1989). Consequently, the dynamic model refers to teacher assessment as an important
teacher factor. It also is stressed that assessment should serve a formative purpose,
and research evidence shows that teachers and schools which make use of assess-
ment data for formative reasons are more effective (Brookhart, 2004; Delandshere,
2002; Krasne, Wimmers, Relan & Drake, 2006; Kyriakides, 2005a). However, there
is little research investigating teachers’ assessment skills, either for formative or
summative purposes (Mok, 2010; Wiliam, Lee, Harrison & Black, 2004). This proj-
ect attempted to find out not only whether teacher assessment skills could be grouped
into different developmental levels but also whether teachers who master higher-
level skills were more effective than others. This project moved a step further by
investigating the extent to which the DIA could be used to help teachers develop
their assessment skills.

A Framework for Investigating Teachers’

Skills in Assessment

In order to examine teachers’ skills in assessment, a framework based on the assess-

ment process, as described in the literature, was developed. Firstly, the necessary
skills across the main phases of the assessment process were identified in order to
create a comprehensive view of what teachers should be able to do in relation to
classroom assessment. Traditional as well as alternative assessment techniques were
taken into consideration since the literature supports the use of a combination of
assessment techniques to assess student learning. Finally, a measurement framework
developed within the field of EER was adopted. A brief description of the three
aspects follows.
Searching for Stages of Teacher Skills in Assessment… 185

Fig. 10.1 The assessment

cycle illustrating the four
phases of assessment

Main Phases of the Assessment Process

Classroom assessment is frequently presented in the literature as a cycle subdivided

into a number of phases (e.g. Birenbaum, 2007; Bright & Joyner, 1998; Calfee &
Masuda, 1997; National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), 1995), the
most common of which being planning, gathering and interpreting evidence and use
of results. In addition, other important and distinctive aspects of the process are also
discussed in the literature, such as the construction of assessment tools (Brookhart,
1997; De Lange, 1993), assessment administration (Anderson, 2003; Shepard,
2007), recording of assessment information (Goldhaber & Smith, 2002; Kroeger &
Cardy, 2006; Schmoker, 2006) and communicating assessment results (Anderson,
2003; Stiggins, 2004). In order to measure teachers’ assessment skills, this study took
into account four distinctive phases of the assessment cycle (see Fig. 10.1) which
showed that teachers should make sure that (a) appropriate assessment instruments are
used to collect valid and reliable data, (b) appropriate procedures in administering these
instruments are followed, (c) the data that emerge from assessment are recorded in an
efficient way without losing important information and (d) the results of assessment are
reported to parents and students, and they are helped to take decisions on how support
for students can be provided in order to improve their learning outcomes.

Planning and Construction of Assessment Tools

This phase is concerned with skills relating to the planning and design of assessment
as well as the construction of the assessment tools, as these are recognised in the
literature. Therefore, the skills included cover decisions concerning the purpose that
an assessment aims to serve (Brookhart, 2003; Gipps, 1994; Pellegrino, Chudowsky &
Glaser, 2001; Torrance & Pryor, 1998), the definition of learning goals against
which a student will be assessed (Herman, Osmundson, Ayala, Schneider & Timms,
2006; Sadler, 1989) as well as the selection and/or development of quality assess-
ment tools by means of which the purpose and goals of the assessment will be
achieved (Green & Mantz, 2002; Shepard, 2000).
186 10 Broadening the Scope of the Dynamic Integrated Approach to Teacher…

Administration of Assessment Instruments

The second phase concerns skills associated with the administration of the assessment
instruments. Skills included refer to decisions regarding the timing of an assess-
ment, assessment’s link to instruction, the variety of techniques used as well as the
teachers’ role during assessment administration (Anderson, 2003; Black & Wiliam,
1998; Shepard, 2007).

Recording and Analysing Data

This phase refers to skills associated with the documentation of assessment results
(Goldhaber & Smith, 2002; Kroeger & Cardy, 2006; Schmoker, 2006), eliciting infor-
mation (Duschl & Gitomer, 1997; Schafer, 1991; Schmoker, 2006) as well as how this
information is used (Stiggins & Chappuis, 2008; Stiggins & DuFour, 2009).

Reporting Results to Students and Parents

The last phase refers to skills related to the communication of assessment results
to intended users. Therefore, skills included in this phase refer to decisions con-
cerning the purpose of reporting (Guskey & Bailey, 2001; Harlen & James, 1997),
the audience of reporting (Stiggins, 2004) the instruments used to report data
(Guskey & Bailey, 2001) as well as the quality of teacher communication with
parents and students (Stiggins, 2004).

Assessment Techniques

Assessment techniques play an important role in ensuring the quality and effectiveness
of assessment since they usually have an influence on how and what students learn.
Choosing an assessment technique depends on the target to be assessed since student
achievement in relation to certain targets can be more appropriately measured by
using specific techniques (Stiggins, 1992). For example, valid assessment of students’
skills in oral communication requires the use of different oral assessment techniques
rather than the use of written tests. In addition, the use of a variety of techniques
allows students to demonstrate different types of learning. Given the development
of alternative assessment methods as well as the re-conceptualisation of existing
traditional methods (Green & Mantz, 2002; Shepard, 2000), it was considered
necessary to examine assessment skills in relation to the four most common types
of assessment techniques: (a) written assessment, (b) oral assessment, (c) observation
and (d) performance assessment. For example, there was examination of whether
different types of written questions were included in teacher tests and also whether
formal and/or informal oral assessment was used to measure student achievement in
mathematics.
Searching for Stages of Teacher Skills in Assessment… 187

Table 10.1 The theoretical framework for measuring teacher assessment skills
Measuring dimensions
Assessment phases Assessment techniques of the dynamic model
(1) Planning/construction of tools (1) Written assessment (1) Frequency
(2) Assessment administration (2) Oral assessment (2) Focus
(3) Recording of assessment (3) Observation (3) Stage
information
(4) Reporting (4) Performance assessment (4) Quality
(5) Differentiation

Measurement Dimensions

The dimensions used to measure teacher skills in assessment draw on methodological

and theoretical developments in the area of educational effectiveness (Creemers,
Kyriakides & Sammons, 2010). Previous studies in the field of EER focused mainly
on measuring the frequency dimension of factors associated with student achieve-
ment (see Creemers & Kyriakides, 2006). However, recent studies have shown that
qualitative characteristics of effectiveness factors should also be taken into account
(e.g. Heck & Moriyama, 2010; Kyriakides & Creemers, 2008). In this context, the
dynamic model of educational effectiveness was developed, and a measurement
framework using both quantitative and qualitative characteristics of effectiveness
factors was proposed (see Chap. 7). Given that the dynamic model treats teacher
assessment as a factor associated with student achievement, it was considered rele-
vant to make use of the measurement framework proposed by this model in measur-
ing assessment skills. Specifically, the following five dimensions used in the model
to measure the functioning of each classroom factor were employed: (a) frequency,
(b) focus, (c) stage, (d) quality and (e) differentiation. These dimensions are sup-
posed to contribute to the effects that a factor is expected to have on student
outcome measures. Moreover, they help us describe in better way the functioning of
a factor. Specifically, frequency is a quantitative way to measure the functioning of
each effectiveness factor, whereas the other four dimensions examine qualitative
characteristics of the functioning of the factor operating at the system/school/
classroom level (see Chap. 7). The dimensions are important not only from a
measurement perspective but also, and even more so, from a theoretical point of
view. Actions of teachers associated with each factor can be understood from
different perspectives and not only by giving emphasis to the number of cases the
actions occur in their assessment practice. In addition, the use of these dimensions
may help us develop strategies for improving teaching and assessment since the
feedback given to teachers can refer not only to quantitative but also to qualitative
characteristics of their teaching and assessment practice.
Table 10.1 shows the theoretical framework that was used in measuring assessment
skills. Specifically, each of the four assessment phases was defined by taking into
account the five dimensions of the dynamic model and in relation to the teacher
ability to use each of the four most common assessment techniques.
188 10 Broadening the Scope of the Dynamic Integrated Approach to Teacher…

Research Design and Results of the First Phase of the Study

By taking into account the theoretical framework and its dimensions, a teacher
questionnaire was developed and administered to a representative sample of 10% of
Cypriot primary teachers at the beginning of the 2010–2011 school year. Of the 240
teachers approached, 178 responded, a response rate of 74.2%. The questionnaire
was concerned with their skills in assessment of mathematics in grades 3–6 of pri-
mary school. In order to examine the internal validity of the questionnaire data,
semi-structured interviews with eight teachers were also conducted. These qualitative
data were analysed using the constant comparative method. Comparing the results
from each interviewee with their responses to the questionnaire provided support
for the internal validity of the study (see Christoforides & Kyriakides, 2011).
The extended logistic model of Rasch (Andrich, 1988) was used in order to
identify the extent to which the assessment skills measured by the questionnaire
could be reducible to a common unidimensional scale. The Rasch model not only
tests the unidimensionality of the scale but is also able to find out whether the tasks
can be ordered according to the degree of their difficulty. At the same time, the
people who carry out these tasks can be ordered according to their performance in
the construct under investigation. This procedure is justified theoretically and has
been used in studies on teacher evaluation (e.g. Burry & Shaw, 1988; Wang &
Cheng, 2001; Wright & Linacre, 1989). For this study, specifying the position of
one assessment skill on the scale provided exact information about the individuals
(teachers) who were able to perform sufficiently (i.e. those scoring higher than the
position of this assessment skill on the scale) or insufficiently (those scoring lower
than the position of this assessment skill). This analysis also made it possible to
make statements about the relative difficulty of each assessment skill. Similarly,
specifying an individual teacher’s position on this continuum provided information
about the probability of this teacher showing assessment competence below or
above this position (Bond & Fox, 2001).
Thus, the Rasch model was applied to the whole sample of teachers and all 87
measures concerned with their assessment skills, using the computer program Quest
(Adams & Khoo, 1996). Figure 10.2 illustrates the scale for the 87 measures of
assessment skills with item difficulties and teacher measures calibrated on the same
scale. Eighty-seven questionnaire items measuring teacher assessment skills had a
good fit to the measurement model, indicating strong agreement among the 178
teachers located at different positions on the scale across all 87 items. Moreover, the
questionnaire items were well targeted against the teachers’ measures since
teachers’ scores ranged from −3.14 to 3.11 logits, and item difficulties ranged
from −3.11 to 3.34 logits. Furthermore, Table 10.2 provides a summary of the scale
statistics for the whole sample and the two subgroups (female and male teachers).
Reliability was calculated using the Item Separation Index and the Person Separation
Index. Separation indices represented the proportion of the observed variance con-
sidered to be true. A value of 1 represented high separability in which errors were
Searching for Stages of Teacher Skills in Assessment… 189

High Achievement in assessment Difficult assessment skills

Low Achievement Easy assessment skills

Note: Each X represents 1 teacher

Fig. 10.2 Rasch scale of teacher’s skills in assessment (N = 178 teachers; L = 87 skills)

low and item difficulties and students’ measures were well separated along the scale
(Wright & Masters, 1981). We can observe that for the whole sample and each
subgroup, the indices of cases and item separation were higher than 0.92, indicating
that the separability of the scale is satisfactory (Wright, 1985). In addition, the infit
mean squares and the outfit mean squares were found to be near 1, and the values of
the infit t-scores and the outfit t-scores were approximately zero.
190 10 Broadening the Scope of the Dynamic Integrated Approach to Teacher…

Table 10.2 Statistics relating to the questionnaire measuring assessment skills that emerged from
each administration period based on the whole sample and the two groups
Before After
Whole Whole
sample Female Male sample Female Male
Statistic (n = 178) (n = 109) (n = 69) (n = 163) (n = 96) (n = 67)
Mean
Itemsa 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Persons 0.08 0.10 0.07 0.38 0.39 0.37
Standard deviation
Items 1.12 1.02 1.05 1.09 1.04 1.07
Persons 1.02 0.96 0.93 1.01 0.99 0.95
Separability
Items 0.99 0.98 0.99 0.99 0.99 0.99
Persons 0.95 0.94 0.93 0.96 0.95 0.94
Mean infit mean square
Items 0.99 1.00 0.99 1.00 1.02 0.99
Persons 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.01 1.02 0.98
Mean outfit mean square
Items 1.03 1.02 1.03 1.03 1.05 1.04
Persons 1.04 1.07 1.03 1.02 1.07 0.98
Infit t
Items 0.04 0.05 −0.01 −0.03 −0.03 −0.02
Persons 0.02 −0.04 −0.03 0.02 −0.04 0.06
Outfit t
Items 0.01 0.03 −0.05 0.01 0.02 0.04
Persons 0.06 0.05 0.04 0.06 0.03 0.05
a
L = 87 items

The results of the various approaches used to test the fitting of the Rasch model
to our data also revealed that there was a good fit to the model when teachers’
performance in these assessment skills was analysed. Specifically, all assessment
skills were found to have item infit with the range 0.85–1.16 and item outfit with the
range of 0.76–1.40. All the values of infit t for both persons and assessment skills
were greater than −2.00 and smaller than 2.00. Finally, the procedure proposed by
Yen (1993) was also used to test for local independence, and it was found that this
was generally not violated (see Kyriakides & Christoforides, 2011).

Using Cluster Analysis to Specify Levels of Difficulty

Having established the reliability of the scale, the procedure for detecting pattern
clustering in measurement designs developed by Marcoulides and Drezner (1999)
was used to find out whether assessment skills were grouped into levels of difficulty
that might be taken to stand for types of teacher behaviour in evaluating student
achievement in mathematics which move from relatively easy to more difficult.
Applying this method to segment, the assessment skills on the basis of their
Searching for Stages of Teacher Skills in Assessment… 191

difficulties that emerged from the Rasch model showed that they were optimally
grouped into four clusters. Specifically, the cumulative D for the four-cluster
solution was 59%, whereas the fifth gap added only 2%. A description of the four
different stages/types of teacher assessment behaviour is given below.

Type 1: Using Written Tests to Measure Basic Skills in Mathematics

for Summative Reasons

The assessment skills included in this stage revealed that teachers (n = 56) demon-
strating this type of behaviour used everyday assessment routines. Type 1 teachers
enriched or altered ready-made written tests and used a variety of types of written
questions to assess students’ performance. However, they did not use oral assess-
ment and/or observation to assess their students’ performance in a systematic way.
Finally, records were kept only in relation to written assessment results, whereas
results were reported only to parents for summative purposes.

Type 2: Using Different Techniques of Assessment to Measure

Basic Skills in Mathematics

The assessment skills included in this stage revealed that teachers (n = 48) demon-
strating this type of behaviour were able to use the various techniques of assessment
in an appropriate way in order to measure basic skills in mathematics. Specifically,
type 2 teachers created a specification table before developing their written tests. In
this way, they tried to ensure that their tests were representative of what had been
taught in the classroom. They also included test items which measured the students’
ability to give a correct answer to a question and items which investigated the process
that was used by each student in his/her attempt to find an answer to a problem
(i.e. process questions were included). In designing test items, they also took into
consideration their students’ abilities. In addition, they reported that they offered
clarification to students during assessment administration and that they planned oral
assessment and observation. With regard to the recording of assessment data, they
used descriptive comments to give feedback to their students. Finally, they reported
to parents the assessment results of their students.

Type 3: Using Assessment Techniques to Measure More Complex Educational

Objectives for Formative Reasons

Teachers demonstrating this type of behaviour (n = 47) were able to use assessment
techniques to measure more complex educational objectives in mathematics, such
as their ability to communicate by using mathematics. Thus, observation was used
in a systematic way by setting specific goals and creating observation tools in rela-
tion to these goals. Recording was carried out for data deriving from all assessment
192 10 Broadening the Scope of the Dynamic Integrated Approach to Teacher…

techniques, not merely written assessment (as with type 2 teachers), and took the
form of goal- and/or exercise-specific documentation. In addition, reporting was
conducted for formative reasons and was expanded to cover all assessment techniques.
Teachers at this stage also reported presentation of assessment information not only
to parents but also to their students. Finally, group assessment was used in a system-
atic way and was concerned with each student’s contribution to the team work rather
than with the team’s overall performance.

Type 4: Differentiation in Assessment: Applying Assessment

in and for Different Occasions and Students

Based on the assessment skills included in this type of behaviour, it appeared that
type 4 teachers (n = 27) were able to differentiate assessment procedures and tools
based on their students’ needs. Therefore, teachers at this stage did not use the same
written tests to measure the achievement of different groups of students, and they
were more flexible during the administration process (e.g. they gave extra tasks to
those who finished earlier and more time to slow learners). They also differentiated
reporting of assessment information to both parents and students (e.g. reporting was
done more often to those needed it; they used different forms/languages that were in
line with the educational level of parents) and ensure that teacher–parent communi-
cation took place, especially when the latter were not in the habit of visiting the
school.

The Second Phase of the Project

Having identified the four developmental stages of teacher assessment skills, a

decision was taken to investigate the extent to which the DIA could be used for
improving teachers’ skills in assessment. In order to achieve this, an experimental
study was conducted using a similar approach to that of the study reported in Chap. 9.
Specifically, this second phase of the study aimed to compare the impact of a
teacher professional development programme in mathematics assessment, based
on the DIA, with the impact of a programme using the CBA. For this reason, teachers
who participated in the first phase of the study (n = 178) were invited to attend a
teacher professional development programme offered at the University of Cyprus.
The programme was to be completed through seven three-hour meetings which
took place between November 2010 and May 2011. All meetings were scheduled
in non-working time and volunteer participation applied. Of the 178 teachers, 76
agreed to use their free time to attend this course. The fact that more than two out
of five of the teachers who were invited agreed to participate in the programme and
spend their own free time for professional development reasons revealed the interest
that teachers had in improving their assessment skills. This group of teachers was
Searching for Stages of Teacher Skills in Assessment… 193

divided into two experimental groups. Teachers who did not attend any INSET
course (n = 102) were treated as members of the control group. During this phase,
data on student achievement in mathematics were collected, at both the beginning
and the end of the intervention (i.e. school year 2010–2011). In addition, the
teacher questionnaire (measuring assessment skills) was administered to all teach-
ers at the end of the school year. In this way, we were able to compare the impact
of each programme on both improving the assessment skills of teachers and also on
student achievement gains in mathematics. The added value of each experimental
group could also be identified by comparing each group with the control group. It
is finally important to note that only eight teachers left the programme, but only
four were from the experimental groups (two from group 1 and two from group 2).
In addition, students whose data about prior or final attainment were missing were
less than 5% of the original sample, and therefore, they were excluded from each
analysis. The four steps of the intervention are elaborated below.

Step 1: Initial Evaluation of Teachers’ Assessment

Skills and Student Outcomes

During the first step of the intervention, teachers’ assessment skills were evaluated
in order to examine whether specific types of assessment behaviour could be
identified. Thus, a teacher questionnaire was administered to all participating
teachers, and a number of structured interviews were conducted. In addition,
data on student achievement were collected using external written forms of
assessment designed to assess knowledge and skills in mathematics. A detailed
description of the instruments used is provided in the next part of this section.
Using the Rasch model, questionnaire data were analysed, and four types of
assessment behaviour were identified. Based on the analysis, participating teachers
were grouped into the four stages of assessment skills mentioned above.

Step 2: Allocation of Teachers into Treatment Groups

During the second step of the intervention, two treatment groups were formed. In
particular, the teachers who, according to the evaluation of their assessment skills,
were found to be in a certain developmental stage were randomly allocated evenly
into two groups. For example, the 10 teachers who proved to be at stage 1 were
randomly allocated into the two experimental groups, each one consisting of five
teachers. Each group employed a different professional development approach in
order to improve participating teachers’ assessment skills. The first treatment group
employed the DIA, whereas the second employed the CBA. Therefore, teachers in
the first group received training only in the assessment skills associated with their
developmental stage, whereas teachers in the second group received training in the
assessment skills associated with all four developmental stages.
194 10 Broadening the Scope of the Dynamic Integrated Approach to Teacher…

Step 3: Training Sessions

The third step of the intervention took place between November 2010 and May
2011. During this time, teachers participated in a series of seven training sessions
aimed at improving their assessment skills using the relevant professional develop-
ment approach. The first session was the same for both groups, whereas the rest of
the sessions were held separately for each group. A description of the sessions for
each group is provided below.

Session 1

The first session was common to both groups, and therefore, all 72 teachers
attended. It served as an introductory session aimed at presenting the overall
scope, goals and procedures of the programme to the participants. Particular
emphasis was also placed on the programme’s evaluation procedures. Teachers
were informed that the focus of the evaluation was going to be the impact of the
programme on the assessment skills of teachers and on student outcomes. It was
made clear that provision had been made to ensure the anonymity of the partici-
pants and confidentiality of the evaluation results. Finally, training in how to
develop an action plan was provided.

The DIA Group Sessions

During this second session, teachers were distributed into four smaller groups, each
group consisting of teachers at the same developmental stage. The working groups
established were used for all sessions until the end of the programme. The members
of the research team provided an overall description of the focus of each working
group, making clear the skills on which each team had to work to improve. Specific
areas of activity were identified for each team. At the same time, supporting mate-
rial related to these areas was provided. Finally, each teacher developed his/her own
action plan by exchanging ideas with the research team and the members of his/her
group. Since sessions were held once a month, sufficient time was available for
teachers to pursue the goals set in their action plan. During the subsequent sessions,
each working group worked separately. With the support of the research team,
teachers in each group were asked to reflect on their experiences and identify effective
or non-effective practices related to their area of focus, share comments on the
activities implemented and receive and provide feedback. Additional material was
also provided in each session. Furthermore, teachers were asked to complete
exercises in the areas of activity relating to their focus area. The purpose of these
exercises was to encourage collaboration within the team while providing practical
examples of new knowledge and skill application. Teachers were also encouraged
Searching for Stages of Teacher Skills in Assessment… 195

to revise their action plans on the basis of their own and others’ experiences and the
material provided.

The CBA Group Sessions

The primary aim of these sessions was to improve teachers’ competence in assessment
by providing the necessary knowledge associated with all the identified assessment
skills. In particular, teachers received training in each skill separately. Initially, the
programme was concerned with the easiest assessment skills (i.e. those with the
negative logit scores in the Rasch scale) and gradually moved on to the most
difficult ones. In this way, all of the skills in the four focus groups were covered,
and it was expected that every teacher could master all the assessment skills.
Opportunities for application of this knowledge were also given in the practical
part of the session. Teachers were also expected to create a new action plan for
each focus area. Teachers in the CBA group were also distributed into four smaller
groups, but all groups were given the same training and the same material and
application activities in each session.

Step 4: Final Evaluation of Teachers’ Assessment

Skills and Student Outcomes

During the fourth and final step of the intervention, teachers’ assessment skills
and student outcomes in mathematics were measured using the same procedures
and instruments as in phase 1. In particular, teachers’ assessment skills were measured
using the same questionnaire, and structured interviews were conducted. Student
outcomes in mathematics were measured using the same pool of written assessment
instruments. Then, a final meeting took place in order to present the results of the
study to participating teachers and obtain feedback for the programme. Positive and
negative aspects were identified, and suggestions for improving the training pro-
gramme were made. In particular, teachers in experimental group A (DIA) recogn-
ised as positive the fact that the training offered was addressing their improvement
needs and thus provided them with a more comprehensive view of the skills involved.
Opportunities to examine the skills in depth were provided as well as the time to put
them into practice. However, teachers in this group felt that with this approach they
had missed the opportunity to receive training in other skills not included in their
focus area. On the other hand, teachers in experimental group B (CBA) recognised
as positive the fact that their training provided them with an overall view of assess-
ment skills. Starting from the basic and moving on to the more advanced skills
helped them to understand better what effective assessment practice entails.
However, they also viewed as negative the fact that due to the large number of skills
involved, it was difficult to find ways to apply them all in their classroom practice.
Teachers from both groups expressed their wish for a follow-up professional develop-
ment programme during the next school year.
196 10 Broadening the Scope of the Dynamic Integrated Approach to Teacher…

Research Instruments

In order to examine the impact of the DIA and the CBA, data concerning teachers’
assessment skills, as well as student performance in mathematics, were collected.
The instruments used were (a) teacher questionnaire, (b) teacher interviews and
(c) written tests in mathematics. A brief description of the instruments used follows:

Teacher Questionnaire

In order to measure teachers’ assessment skills, a questionnaire developed and used

during the first phase of the study was administered (see Christoforides & Kyriakides,
2011). The use of the questionnaire had two major aims: firstly, to validate the four
stages identified in the first phase of the study and secondly, to evaluate teachers’ assess-
ment skills at the beginning and at the end of the intervention in order to examine the
impact of each intervention. Data analysis provided further support for the identification
of the four stages, and thus, the use of the questionnaire in this study was justified.

Teacher Interviews

In addition to the questionnaire, semi-structured interviews were conducted at the

beginning and at the end of the intervention in order to match responses using
different research instruments and ensure the internal validity of the results.
Qualitative data that emerged from interviews were analysed by using the constant
comparative method (Maykut & Morehouse, 1994) in order to conduct ‘within-case
analysis’ (Denzin & Lincoln, 1998) of each teacher’s responses to the interview and
link them with his/her responses to the questionnaire. For this reason, transcripts
were read with the intention of identifying integrating themes, foci, frequently used
metaphors and possible incongruities. Matching teachers’ responses from the inter-
views with the questionnaire data provided support for the internal validity of the
study (see Christoforides & Kyriakides, 2011).

Written Tests in Mathematics

Criterion-referenced equated tests were used to assess students’ achievement at the

beginning and at the end of the intervention. The tests used had been developed and
validated in other studies conducted in Cyprus (e.g. Antoniou, 2009; Kyriakides,
2005b; Kyriakides & Creemers, 2008). None of the respondents achieved a full
score, and none showed a zero performance. Moreover, less than 5% of the students
achieved over 80% of the maximum score, and less than 10% of the students
achieved over 70% of the maximum score. Based on the range of the results, the
ceiling and floor effects in the attainment data were not observed.
Searching for Stages of Teacher Skills in Assessment… 197

Equating of Tests. Equating was carried out using IRT modelling. The method of
equating follows the same procedure as that used in the PISA studies. However, in
PISA, equating is horizontal (equating the different versions of tests), whereas in
this study, the equating was vertical (see also Chap. 9). Specifically, the scores were
transferred onto the same scale on the basis of characteristics of IRT models in
which students’ latent level of ability (y) and difficulty level of an item (b) are identical
when certain preconditions are fulfilled. The latent ability level for each student can
be determined in every version as long as there are so-called anchoring items con-
necting the versions. For the purposes of this study, we used sufficient common
items (i.e. approximately 8% of anchoring items across the tests) with representa-
tive content to be measured (Kolen & Brennan, 1995). Estimation was made by the
extended logistic model of Rasch (Andrich, 1988), which revealed that each scale
had satisfactory psychometric properties (see Antoniou, 2009). Thus, for each
assessment period, achievement in mathematics was estimated by calculating the
Rasch person estimates.

The Main Results of the Second Phase of the Project

Results concerned with the impact of each intervention on assessment skills are
presented in the first part of this section. In the second part, the effect of each
intervention on student achievement in mathematics is examined.

Impact on Teacher Assessment Skills

Firstly, the questionnaire data were analysed in order to validate the identification of
the four types of assessment behaviour. The extended logistic model of Rasch
(Andrich, 1988) was used in order to confirm that the dimensions of the skills
measured by the questionnaire could be reducible to a common unidimensional
scale. Specifically, the Rasch model was applied to the whole sample of teachers
and all 87 measures concerned with their assessment skills, using the computer
program Quest (Adams & Khoo, 1996). The results of the various approaches used
to test the fitting of Rasch model to our data revealed that there was a good fit to the
model when teachers’ performance in these assessment skills was analysed (see
Christoforides & Kyriakides, 2011). Having confirmed the reliability of the scale,
the procedure for detecting pattern clustering in measurement designs developed by
Marcoulides and Drezner (1999) was used to examine whether assessment skills
could be grouped into levels of difficulty that might be taken to stand for types of
teacher behaviour in assessment. Applying this method to segment the assessment
skills on the basis of their difficulties that emerged from the Rasch model confirmed
that they were optimally clustered into four clusters.
The analysis procedure described above was also used to analyse data from the
final measurement. All teaching skills were found to have item infit with the range
198 10 Broadening the Scope of the Dynamic Integrated Approach to Teacher…

0.88–1.15 and item outfit with the range of 0.79–1.38. All the values of infit t for
both persons and assessment skills were greater than −2.00 and smaller than 2.00.
By comparing the difficulty index of all items in the scales that emerged from the
two data collection phases (i.e. at the beginning and at the end of the school year),
it was found that most items had difficulties that could be considered invariant
across the two administration periods, within measurement error (0.13). This implies
that person estimates that emerged from the two Rasch analyses could be consid-
ered as comparable. By applying the procedure for detecting pattern clustering in
measurement designs, it was discovered that assessment skills could be grouped
into the same four levels of difficulty identified through the analysis of which
emerged from the first measurement. Specifically, the cumulative D for the four-
cluster solution was 64%, whereas the fifth gap adds only 2%.
In order to measure the impact of the two professional development programmes
upon teachers’ skills in assessment, the Rasch person estimates of each group were
compared. Table 10.3 presents the means and standard deviations of teacher scores
in each experimental group and the control group, which emerged by measuring
assessment skills at the beginning and at the end of the intervention. Firstly, we can
observe that the initial mean scores of the three groups were almost the same. One-
way analysis of variance revealed no statistically significant difference among the
three groups with regard to the initial Rasch person estimates (F = 0.011, p = 0.989).
Secondly, the final score of teachers employing the DIA (mean = 0.43, SD = 0.99)
was bigger than their initial score (mean = −0.05, SD = 1.03), and the t-test paired
sample revealed that this difference was statistically significant (t = 7.81, df = 35,
p = 0.001). This finding reveals that teachers employing the DIA managed to improve
their assessment skills. On the other hand, the mean final and initial scores of the
control group were almost the same, and the t-test paired test revealed that teachers
in the control group did not manage to improve their assessment skills (t = 0.103,
df = 97, p = 0.92). Thirdly, the t-test paired sample test revealed that teachers employ-
ing the CBA also managed to improve their assessment skills (t = 3.89, df = 35,
p = 0.001).
In order to identify whether each intervention had an impact on the assessment
skills of teachers, a regression analysis was also employed. The final score of teachers
was treated as a dependent variable, whereas the initial score, as well as two dummy
variables measuring the impact of each intervention, was treated as independent
variables. In this way, the control group was treated as the reference group. The
model that was found to fit better with the data was able to explain a very large
percentage of the variance in the final score for teachers skills in assessment (82%),
and all three variables were entered into the equation that emerged, which is given
below:
Post-score = −0.002 + 0.868* pre-score + 0.474 * DIA + 0.216 * CBA + r

It is finally important to note that by comparing the standardised beta coefficients,

we can see that the impact of the DIA (0.200) was bigger than that of the CBA
(0.091). This implies that teachers employing the DIA managed to improve their
skills at a statistically higher level than those employing the CBA. Furthermore, by
Searching for Stages of Teacher Skills in Assessment… 199

Table 10.3 Means and standard deviations of teacher scores measur-

ing assessment skills of the control and the experimental groups
before and after the intervention
Before After
Group Mean SD Mean SD
Control group (n = 98) −0.05a 1.00 −0.04 0.97
Employing DIA (n = 36) −0.05 1.03 0.43 0.99
Employing CBA (n = 36) −0.06 0.97 0.17 0.88
a
Rasch person estimates in logits

comparing the classification of teachers into different stages at the beginning and at
the end of the intervention, it was found that 13 out of 36 teachers in the group
employing the DIA managed to move on to the next more demanding stage, whereas
the other 23 teachers remained at the same stage. Specifically, four teachers in this
experimental group moved from stage 1 to stage 2, six teachers at stage 2 managed
to move on to stage 3 and three teachers situated at stage 3 were found to be at stage
4 at the end of the intervention. On the other hand, only five teachers in the group
employing the CBA managed to progress to the next most demanding stage, whereas
almost all teachers of this group (i.e. 31 out of 36) remained at the same stage. More
specifically, four teachers managed to move from stage 1 to stage 2, and one teacher
progressed from stage 2 to stage 3. Finally, by using the t-test paired sample, it was
found that teachers situated at stages 3 and 4, who made use of the CBA, did not
make any statistically significant progress in their skills (t = 1.13, df = 13, p = 0.279),
whereas teachers in these two stages employing the DIA managed to improve at a
statistically significant level (t = 6.05, df = 18, p = 0.001).

Impact on Student Outcomes

The results of the multilevel analysis conducted in order to measure the impact of
each of the two approaches to teacher professional development on student achieve-
ment are presented in this part. Empty models with all possible combinations of the
levels of analysis (i.e. student, teacher and school) were established, and the likeli-
hood statistics of each model were compared (Snijders & Bosker, 1999). An empty
model consisting of student, teacher and school level represented the best solution.
Statistical power is also an issue that has to be taken into account in using multilevel
modelling approaches to analysing nested data (Cools, De Fraine, Van den Noortgate &
Onghena, 2009). It is typically recommended that at least 40 higher-level units be
sampled in order to tap sufficient variance. In this study, the sample consisted of 174
teachers employed at 62 different schools, and therefore, the three-level model was
considered appropriate. The empty model revealed that 74.3% of the total variance
was situated at the student level, 16.7% of the variance was at the classroom level
and 9.0% was at the school level. In subsequent steps, explanatory variables at different
levels were added, starting at the student level. Explanatory variables, but not grouping
variables, were centred as Z-scores with a mean of 0 and a standard deviation of 1.
200 10 Broadening the Scope of the Dynamic Integrated Approach to Teacher…

This is a way of centring around the grand mean (Bryk & Raudenbush, 1992) and
yields effects that are comparable. Grouping variables were entered as dummies
with one of the groups as the baseline (e.g. girls = 0). The models presented in
Table 10.4 were estimated without the variables that had no statistically significant
effect at level 0.05.
In model 1, the context variables at each level and the teacher background infor-
mation were added to the empty model. The following observations arise from the
figures of the third column of Table 10.4. Firstly, model 1 explained 33.0% of the
variance, most of which was attributed at the student level. Secondly, all student
background variables had statistically significant effects on student achievement.
Prior knowledge had the strongest effect in predicting student achievement at the
end of the school year. In addition, prior knowledge was the only contextual vari-
able which had a consistent effect on achievement when aggregated either at the
teacher or the school level. Finally, length of teaching experience was the only
teacher background factor which had a statistically significant effect on student
achievement.
In model 2, the impact of teacher assessment upon student achievement was inves-
tigated. Since teachers were assigned to four developmental stages according to their
assessment skills, we investigated the extent to which the classification of teachers into
these four stages could explain variation in student achievement. Thus, teachers at stage
3 were treated as a reference (or baseline) group, and three dummy variables were
entered in model 1. The developmental stage at which a teacher was situated was found
to have a statistically significant effect on student achievement. Specifically, students of
teachers at stage 1 had the lowest achievement, whereas those of teachers at level 4
showed higher achievement than students of teachers at the first three levels. Finally, in
model 3, the effect of each approach employed with regard to teacher professional
development in assessment was investigated. Thus, teachers in the control group were
treated as the reference (or baseline) group, and two dummy variables indicating the
teacher professional approach employed (i.e. DIA and CBA) were entered into model
2. Only the effect of the dummy variable measuring the impact of the DIA was found
to be statistically significant at 0.05 level.
The results of the multilevel analysis presented above provide evidence that
only the DIA yielded better results in student achievement than those produced by
the control group. However, it is not clear whether this approach was equally
effective for teachers situated at different levels. To test this assumption, four separate
multilevel analyses were conducted. Each analysis was concerned only with the
teachers at the same stage and not the overall teacher sample. In this way, we could
compare the effect size of the variable associated with the use of the DIA and of
the CBA upon achievement of students who were taught by teachers situated at
different stages of teaching competences. Table 10.5 illustrates the figures of the
final model of each of the four separate multilevel analyses which were conducted.
In analysing the data that emerged relating to teachers at stage 1, we can observe
that not only the DIA but also the CBA had a statistically significant impact on
student achievement. In all the other cases, only the DIA was found to have a
Searching for Stages of Teacher Skills in Assessment… 201

Table 10.4 Parameter estimates and (standard errors) for the analysis of student achievement in
mathematics (students within classes, within schools)
Factors Model 0 Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
Fixed part (intercept) 2.19 (0.40) 1.20 (0.12) 0.66 (0.10) 0.34 (0.10)
Student level
Context
Prior achievement in maths 0.64 (0.12) 0.64 (0.11) 0.64 (0.12)
SES 0.41 (0.14) 0.41 (0.14) 0.40 (0.14)
Gender (0 = boy, 1 = girl) 0.12 (0.04) 0.11 (0.03) 0.11 (0.03)
Classroom level
Context
Average achievement 0.40 (0.10) 0.40 (0.10) 0.40 (0.10)
Average SES 0.21 (0.10) 0.21 (0.10) 0.21 (0.10)
Percentage of girls N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
Teacher background
Gender (0 = male, 1 = female) N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
Years of experience 0.14 (0.04) 0.10 (0.04) 0.10 (0.04)
Position (0 = teacher, 1 = deputy head) N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
Quality of assessment
Stage 1 −0.34 (0.07) −0.33 (0.07)
Stage 2 −0.19 (0.07) −0.18 (0.07)
Stage 4 0.18 (0.07) 0.17 (0.07)
DIA group 0.16 (0.06)
CBA group N.S.S.
School level
Context
Average achievement 0.10 (0.04) 0.10 (0.04) 0.09 (0.04)
Average SES N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
Percentage of girls N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
Variance components
School (%) 9.0 7.8 7.1 6.9
Class (%) 16.7 14.2 10.5 9.2
Student (%) 74.3 45.0 44.1 44.0
Explained (%) 33.0 38.3 39.9
Significance test
C2 1033.4 810.1 705.0 651.3
Reduction 223.3 105.1 53.7
Degrees of freedom 7 3 1
p-value 0.001 0.001 0.001
N.S.S. = No statistically significant effect at level 0.05

statistically significant impact on student achievement. The fixed effects obtained with
multilevel analysis could readily be converted to standardised effects or ‘Cohen’s d’
by dividing them by the standard deviations in the ‘treatment groups’. Thus, the
relative strength of the effects could be compared more easily across the four
202 10 Broadening the Scope of the Dynamic Integrated Approach to Teacher…

Table 10.5 Parameter estimates and (standard errors) that emerged from separately analysing
achievement of students taught by teachers situated at the same level
Factors Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4
Fixed part (intercept) 0.65 (0.20) 0.58 (0.20) 0.62 (0.10) 0.63 (0.08)
Student level
Context
Prior achievement in maths 0.64 (0.12) 0.65 (0.12) 0.68 (0.11) 0.63 (0.11)
Sex (0 = girls, 1 = boys) 0.10 (0.04) 0.10 (0.04) 0.11 (0.04) 0.10 (0.04)
SES 0.33 (0.11) 0.30 (0.12) 0.35 (0.11) 0.31 (0.12)
Classroom level
Context
Average achievement 0.35 (0.09) 0.37 (0.09) 0.35 (0.09) 0.36 (0.09)
Average SES 0.21 (0.09) 0.22 (0.09) 0.21 (0.09) 0.20 (0.09)
Percentage of girls N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
Teacher background
Gender (0 = male, 1 = female) N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
Years of experience N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
Position N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
Intervention
DIA 0.11 (0.05) 0.15 (0.05) 0.19 (0.08) 0.18 (0.05)
CBA 0.10 (0.05) N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
School level
Context
Average achievement 0.08 (0.04) 0.08 (0.03) 0.07 (0.03) 0.07 (0.03)
Average SES N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
Percentage of girls N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
Variance components
School (%) 7.1 7.2 6.8 6.7
Class (%) 8.3 9.5 8.7 9.4
Student (%) 44.5 44.3 44.6 44.0
Explained (%) 40.1 39.0 39.9 39.9
N.S.S. = No statistically significant effect at level 0.05

Table 10.6 Effect of employing each approach expressed as

Cohen’s d per group of students taught by teachers situated at
the same stage and for the whole sample
Stage Effect Pooled SD Cohen’s d
Employing CBA
Teachers at stage 1 0.10 0.76 0.13
Employing DIA
Teachers at stage 1 0.11 0.77 0.14
Teachers at stage 2 0.15 0.74 0.20
Teachers at stage 3 0.19 0.73 0.26
Teachers at stage 4 0.18 0.72 0.25
Whole sample 0.16 0.96 0.17
Searching for Stages of Teacher Skills in Assessment… 203

groups of teachers who were situated at different stages. When the effects of the
DIA that are presented in Tables 10.4 and 10.5 were expressed in this way (see
Table 10.6), they turned out not to be at the same level. The impact of the DIA on
student achievement was found to be small when teachers at the first two stages
were taken into account, whereas relatively higher effect sizes were identified
when teachers at stages 3 and 4 were considered (see Cohen, 1988, pp. 19–27). In
addition, the two approaches were found to have almost the same effect size when
data from teachers at stage 1 were taken into account. This implies that the DIA
was as beneficial as the CBA for teachers situated at level 1, but only the DIA was
helpful to teachers situated at the higher stages.

Implications for Research on Teacher Professional Development

The results of this study appear to provide support for the assumption that teacher
assessment skills can be grouped into different developmental levels. The use of a
specific measurement framework to describe not only quantitative but also qualita-
tive characteristics of classroom assessment helped us define specific assessment
skills that are grouped into four types of teacher assessment behaviour. These four
types of teacher assessment behaviour are described in a distinctive way and move
from relatively easy to more advanced. Starting from skills associated with every-
day classroom routines with a mainly summative orientation, we can observe a
gradual movement towards skills associated with the use of assessment for forma-
tive purposes. This is in line with recent literature supporting the idea that effective
teachers use formative-oriented assessment in everyday classroom practice
(Creemers & Kyriakides, 2008b).
Moreover, the second measurement of teacher skills in assessment provided
support for the generalisability of the results that emerged from the initial
administration of the questionnaire. The developmental scale was identi fi ed
in both measurement periods, thereby addressing one of the most serious weak-
nesses of previous studies investigating stage identification over a period of
time. Indeed, one of the main criticisms against stage-related studies refers to
their cross-sectional methodology (Kyriakides, Creemers & Antoniou, 2009).
Cross-sectional studies are very likely to give rise to a stage notion of development
because they focus on measuring skills at different levels of experience.
However, finding differences among teachers in their teaching skills does not
necessarily imply that transition from one level to the other can occur in a step-
wise manner. Problems are likely to arise when cross-sectional studies which do
not explore the development of teaching skills over time provide the basis for
assumptions about how development occurs. However, in this study, teacher
assessment skills were measured twice within a period of a year, using the same
population of teachers. As the data indicate, there was a strong correlation
between the skills of teachers at these two points of time, and most teachers
were found to be at the same stage.
204 10 Broadening the Scope of the Dynamic Integrated Approach to Teacher…

Furthermore, taking student outcomes as criteria of effectiveness, it was found out

that teachers who use more advanced types of assessment behaviour were more effec-
tive than those demonstrating the relatively easy types (see Table 10.4). These results
provide further support for the major assumption of the DIA, namely, that teachers can
be classified into different stages on the basis of both their teaching skills and their
skills in assessing students, and thus, an initial evaluation of teachers’ skills can help us
identify improvement priorities (either in teaching or assessment) that can be taken
into account in designing teacher professional development programmes.
The results of the second phase of the project also reveal that teachers can
improve and ultimately progress to the next developmental stage of assessment
skills by undertaking appropriate interventions and participating in effective profes-
sional development programmes. This argument is supported by the fact that the
teachers in the control group did not manage to improve their assessment skills, and
all of them remained at the same stage at which they were found to be situated at the
beginning of the school year. On the other hand, teachers employing either the DIA
or the CBA managed to improve their assessment skills. In addition, a statistically
significant difference between the two groups was identified, implying that teachers
using the DIA managed to improve their skills more than those employing the CBA.
However, the differences in the effect sizes measuring the added value of using the
DIA rather than the CBA were very small. This can be attributed to the differential
impact of the DIA. Specifically, the X2 test was used to compare the progress made
by teachers situated at the same level but employing different professional develop-
ment approaches. Statistically significant differences in favour of the DIA were
identified among teachers at stages 2, 3 and 4. This could be attributed to the fact
that teachers situated at the higher stages needed broader interventions which are
not focused on specific individual skills. Further research is needed to examine the
generalisability of the results of the experimental study, especially since the number
of teachers involved in the project was relatively small, and thus, the power of the
study to identify the differential effects of these two interventions was relatively
small. Another issue that needs further investigation is concerned with the long-
term effect of the two interventions. In the literature, the short-term effect of the
CBA was found to be small, and long-term effects have not been identified. Thus,
the third phase of the study is currently being undertaken in order to identify the
long-term effects that each intervention may have 1 year after the programme.

The Added Value of Using DASI to Provide Inset Courses

on a School Basis: A Group Randomisation Study

The Theoretical Background of the Study

This second project ‘Establishing a knowledge-base for quality in education: Testing

a dynamic theory of educational effectiveness’ (2009–2012) is funded by the
European Science Foundation (ESF/0308/01) and the Cyprus Research Promotion
Foundation (08-ECRP-012) and is attempting to further expand the DIA to investigate
The Added Value of Using DASI to Provide Inset Courses on a School Basis… 205

the extent to which INSET courses should be provided on a school basis (see also the
web page of the project www.ucy.ac.cy/esf). The main aim of this study is related to
the various debates about teacher professional development which are occurring in
different countries. In most countries, there is discussion about teacher quality, which
research has shown to be one of the most important factors influencing learning and
learning outcomes (Teddlie & Reynolds, 2000; Townsend, 2007). Alongside ques-
tions regarding the selection of teachers and their working conditions, there is also a
debate about how to improve teacher education, especially teacher professional
development (Dall’Alba & Sandberg, 2006). Two main strands of research in teacher
education related to this issue can be identified. One is concerned with the focus of
teacher education on the development of specific competencies (Berliner, 1994) and
the other with the provision of a more HA addressing not only specific knowledge
and skills but also reflection on experiences and beliefs (Calderhead & Shorrock,
1997). The other strand is related to the question of where teacher in-service
training should take place and its impact on the SLE (Ponte et al., 1994).
This project addresses teacher professional development by integrating findings of
research on teacher education with the dynamic model and examines its use for teacher
improvement purposes. The dynamic model is used as a theoretical framework to deal
with policy and practice in teacher education because it emphasises the quality of
teaching. It also utilises an integrated approach in defining effective teaching by focus-
ing on factors found to be associated with student outcomes (see Chap. 7). The results
of a longitudinal study conducted in Cyprus revealed that teacher factors and their
dimensions could be grouped into five distinctive types of teacher behaviour, which
move gradually from factors associated with direct teaching to those relating to more
advanced skills in new teaching approaches and the differentiation of teaching (see
Chap. 8). It was also found that students of teachers demonstrating more advanced
types of behaviour showed better cognitive and affective student outcomes. This study
provides empirical support for the grouping of teacher factors and highlights the need
to help teachers progress gradually to more complex types of behaviour, which encom-
pass specific teacher competencies. In addition, the experimental study reported in
Chap. 9 showed that teachers using the DIA improved their teaching skills and pro-
gressed to a higher level of teaching, whereas those employing the HA did not improve
their teaching skills. The DASI also had a significant impact upon student learning.
However, the two experimental groups were employed external in-service training.
This project investigates the added value of using the DIA for providing in-service
training within the school rather than externally. This is important because the dynamic
model emphasises the relationship between school-level factors (i.e. policy on teach-
ing and the SLE) and teacher professional development (see Chap. 7).

Research Design and Methods

A sample of 60 primary schools was selected. At the beginning of the school year
2010–2011, data on student background variables and achievement in mathemat-
ics and science were collected. The schools were then randomly assigned to four
programmes of professional development, and a group randomisation study was
206 10 Broadening the Scope of the Dynamic Integrated Approach to Teacher…

conducted. Two of the programmes were in line with the dynamic model in terms
of grouping teacher skills into simpler or more complex types of teacher behav-
iour. Therefore, these two programmes were concerned with addressing the
specific needs of teachers to help them progress from one level to the next. For
example, teachers situated in level 1 who could only use the basic elements of
direct teaching were trained to progress to level 2; the latter includes aspects of
quality in direct teaching and encouragement of student interactions. The struc-
ture of the programme was similar to that of the INSET course employed to
teachers in group A who participated in the study reported in Chap. 8. However, the
difference between these first two programmes is that one was carried out exter-
nally, with teachers asked to attend courses provided by the research team at
the University Of Cyprus. On the other hand, the second was provided internally;
the research team helped each school to develop its own strategies for teacher
professional development.
The other two programmes followed the HA to teacher professional develop-
ment. The research team encouraged reflection and understanding of experi-
ences and beliefs, without taking into account the different developmental levels
of teachers’ behaviour; this is explained further in Chap. 9 with reference to the
treatment employed to teachers participating in the second ‘holistic’ group of
the study. Once again, one of them was provided externally and the other
internally.
In order to compare the impact of these programmes on teacher behaviour, changes
in the behaviour of all grade 4–6 teachers in the school sample were measured. For
this purpose, data regarding teacher behaviour, both at the beginning and at the end
of the programmes (i.e. the 2010–2011 school year), were collected using the three
observation instruments which refer to the teacher factors of the dynamic model (see
Kyriakides & Creemers, 2008). Data were also collected on students’ achievement in
mathematics at the beginning and at the end of the school year. For each year group
of students, criterion-referenced tests in mathematics were constructed in order to
measure students’ knowledge of, and skills in, mathematics in relation to the objec-
tives of the national curriculum in Cyprus. The written tests were subject to control
for reliability and validity. The test administered to grade 6 students at the end of the
school year was obviously more difficult than the one administered to grade 2 students
at the beginning of the school year. Prior to making comparison of test scores
meaningful, the scores had to be made comparable. Equating was carried out using
IRT modelling and following the same approach as that used in PISA studies
(see previous section). Estimation was made using the extended logistic model of
Rasch (Andrich, 1988) which revealed that each scale had satisfactory psychometric
properties (see Antoniou, 2009). Thus, for each assessment period, achievement
in mathematics was estimated by calculating the Rasch person estimates.
Information was also collected on two student background factors: sex (0 = boys,
1 = girls) and SES. Five SES variables were available: father’s and mother’s educa-
tion level, the social status of father’s job, the social status of mother’s job and the
economic situation of the family. Standardised values of the above five variables
were calculated, resulting in the SES indicator.
The Added Value of Using DASI to Provide Inset Courses on a School Basis… 207

Main Results

Results concerned with the impact of each intervention on improving teacher behaviour
in the classroom are presented in the first part of this section. In the second part, the
effect of each intervention on student achievement in mathematics is examined.

Impact on Teaching Skills

The observational data of each time period were analysed separately following the
procedure described by Kyriakides et al. (2009). Specifically, the Rasch model
was used in order to identify the extent to which the five dimensions of the eight
teacher factors (i.e. the 44 first-order factor scores) could be reduced to a common
unidimensional scale (see also Chap. 9). The Rasch model was applied to the data
of the baseline measure, and it was found that all of the teaching skills included in
the dynamic model were appropriately targeted against the person measures (i.e. the
skills of teachers participating in the study) since Rasch person estimates ranged
from −3.11 to 3.08 logits, and the estimates of the difficulties of teaching skills
ranged from −2.98 to 3.12 logits. Moreover, the reliability of each scale (teachers
and teaching skills) was higher than 0.94 and thus deemed satisfactory. Finally,
the fitting of the Rasch model to the data was tested against alternative IRT models
(i.e. the 2PL and the 3PL models) and was found to be statistically preferable
(see Kyriakides, Creemers & Panayiotou, 2012).
Having established the reliability of the scale, the possibility of grouping teach-
ing skills into the five stages described in Chap. 8 was investigated. The procedure
for detecting pattern clustering, developed by Marcoulides and Drezner (1999), was
used. Applying this method to segment teaching skills on the basis of their
difficulties, which emerged when using the Rasch model, showed that they were
optimally grouped into the same five clusters proposed by previous research findings
(see Kyriakides et al., 2009).
Pattern clustering was also applied to data which emerged from the final mea-
surement of teaching skills. The Rasch model revealed that all participants fitted the
model and all teaching skills were well matched to measures of the teachers.
Applying the aforementioned clustering method, it was found that teaching skills
could once again be optimally clustered into the five stages described in Chaps. 8
and 9 (see Kyriakides et al., 2012). Considering the results of the analyses of initial
and final data related to teaching skills, we can conclude that on both occasions the
results validated the five developmental stages of teaching skills proposed by previ-
ous research findings (Antoniou, 2009; Antoniou, Creemers & Kyriakides, 2009;
Kyriakides et al., 2009).
In order to measure the impact of the four professional development programmes
upon teaching skills, the Rasch person estimates of each group were compared.
Table 10.7 presents the means and standard deviations of teacher scores for each
experimental group, which emerged from measuring their teaching skills at the
208 10 Broadening the Scope of the Dynamic Integrated Approach to Teacher…

Table 10.7 Means and standard deviations of teacher scores measuring

quality of teaching of each of the experimental groups at the beginning
and at the end of the intervention
Beginning of the End of the
intervention intervention
Group Mean SD Mean SD
a
Employing DIA −0.74 1.43 −0.32 1.56
externally (n = 84)
Employing DIA −0.74 1.47 −0.33 1.63
internally (n = 85)
Employing HA −0.76 1.45 −0.76 1.44
externally (n = 82)
Employing HA −0.75 1.46 −0.74 1.46
internally (n = 83)
a
Rasch person estimates in logits

beginning and at the end of the intervention. Firstly, we can observe that the initial
mean scores of the four groups were almost the same. One-way analysis of variance
revealed that there was no statistically significant difference among the four groups
with regard to the initial Rasch person estimates (F = 0.006, p = 0.999). Secondly,
the final score of teachers employing the DIA, either externally or internally, was
bigger than their initial score, and the t-test paired sample revealed that the difference
observed in each group was statistically significant (i.e. DIA provided internally:
t = 10.03, df = 84, p = 0.001 and DIA provided externally: t = 11.07, df = 83, p = 0.001).
This finding reveals that both groups of teachers employing the DIA managed to
improve their teaching skills. On the other hand, the mean final and initial scores of
the two groups employing the HA were almost the same, and the t-test paired test
revealed that teachers in the two HA groups did not manage to improve their teach-
ing skills (i.e. HA provided externally: t = 0.32, df = 81, p = 0.75 and HA provided
internally: t = 1.09, df = 82, p = 0.28).
In order to identify whether each intervention had an impact on the teaching
skills of teachers, a regression analysis was also employed. The final score of teach-
ers was treated as a dependent variable, whereas the initial score, as well as three
dummy variables measuring the impact of each intervention, was treated as inde-
pendent variables. The group of teachers who employed the HA externally was
treated as the reference group. The model that was found to fit better with the data
was able to explain a very large percentage of the variance in the final score for
teaching skills (87%), and the equation that emerged is given below:
Post-score = 0.031 + 0.932 * pre-score + 0.416 * DIA External
+0.411* DIA Internal + r
This implies that there was no statistically significant difference between the post-
score of the group which employed the HA internally and that of the group using
the same approach externally. On the other hand, those teachers who employed the
DIA (either internally or externally) obtained a better score than those using the HA.
The Added Value of Using DASI to Provide Inset Courses on a School Basis… 209

It is finally important to note that by comparing the standardised beta coefficients,

we can see that the impact of the DIA, either internally or externally, was as great as
the impact of each of the two groups employing the HA (DIA externally = 0.116 and
DIA internally = 0.116). Although the effect size of the DIA was relatively small,
the results reveal that providing the DIA either internally or externally helped teach-
ers improve their skills, whereas those employing the HA did not manage to improve
their skills. It can also be claimed that no added value was identified in terms of
providing the DIA internally rather than externally since both approaches had the
same impact on the teachers’ final score. Similarly, there was no difference in the
impact of the HA when it was provided internally rather than externally.
By comparing the classification of teachers into different stages at the begin-
ning and at the end of the intervention, it was found that 22 out of the 84 teachers
in the group employing the DIA externally managed to move on to the next more
demanding stage, whereas the other 62 teachers remained at the same stage.
Specifically, eight teachers in this experimental group moved from stage 1 to stage
2, eight teachers at stage 2 managed to move on to stage 3, and six teachers situated
at stage 3 were found to be at stage 4 at the end of the intervention. Similar results
were identified by comparing the classification of teachers employing DIA internally
into stages of effective teaching before and after the intervention. Specifically, 24
out of 85 teachers in this group managed to progress to the next more demanding
stage, whereas the other 61 teachers remained at the same stage. On the other hand,
all teachers in the groups employing the HA remained at the same stage, irrespec-
tive of whether this approach was provided internally or externally.

Impact on Student Outcomes

The results of the multilevel analysis conducted in order to measure the impact of
each of the four approaches to teacher professional development on student achieve-
ment are presented in this part. The empty model revealed that 75.3% of the total
variance was situated at the student level, 15.7% was at the classroom level and
9.0% was at the school level. In subsequent steps, explanatory variables at different
levels were added, starting at the student level. Explanatory variables, but not group-
ing variables, were centred as Z-scores with a mean of 0 and a standard deviation of
1. Grouping variables were entered as dummies, with one of the groups as the base-
line (e.g. girls = 0). The models presented in Table 10.8 were estimated without the
variables that had no statistically significant effect at level 0.05.
In model 1, the context variables at each level and the teacher background infor-
mation were added to the empty model. The following observations arise from the
figures of the third column of Table 10.8. Firstly, model 1 explained 33.5% of the
variance, most of which was attributed at the student level. Secondly, all student
background variables had statistically significant effects on student achievement.
Prior knowledge had the strongest effect in predicting student achievement at the
end of the school year. With regard to the effect of the teacher background variables,
210 10 Broadening the Scope of the Dynamic Integrated Approach to Teacher…

Table 10.8 Parameter estimates and (standard errors) for the analysis of student achievement in
mathematics (students within classes, within schools)
Factors Model 0 Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
Fixed part (intercept) −0.59 (0.10) −0.39 (0.07) −0.32 (0.07) −0.25 (0.07)
Student level
Context
Prior achievement in maths 0.59 (0.12) 0.60 (0.11) 0.59 (0.12)
SES 0.31 (0.11) 0.31 (0.11) 0.30 (0.10)
Gender (0 = boy, 1 = girl) 0.09 (0.04) 0.09 (0.03) 0.09 (0.03)
Classroom level
Context
Average achievement 0.34 (0.10) 0.34 (0.09) 0.34 (0.09)
Average SES 0.21 (0.08) 0.20 (0.08) 0.20 (0.08)
Percentage of girls N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
Teacher background
Gender (0 = male, 1 = female) N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
Years of experience 0.12 (0.03) 0.12 (0.03) 0.13 (0.03)
Position (0 = teacher, 1 = deputy N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
head)
Quality of teaching
Stage 1 −0.31 (0.05) −0.30 (0.05)
Stage 2 −0.20 (0.05) −0.20 (0.05)
Stage 4 0.16 (0.05) 0.16 (0.05)
Intervention
HA internally N.S.S.
DIA externally 0.14 (0.06)
DIA internally 0.15 (0.06)
School level
Context
Average achievement 0.12 (0.04) 0.11 (0.04) 0.11 (0.04)
Average SES 0.09 (0.03) 0.09 (0.03) 0.09 (0.03)
Percentage of girls N.S.S. N.S.S. N.S.S.
Variance components
School (%) 9.0 7.2 7.0 5.8
Class (%) 15.7 14.3 9.5 8.2
Student (%) 75.3 45.0 44.5 44.0
Explained (%) 33.5 39.0 42.0
Significance test
C2 983.8 743.5 631.4 550.1
Reduction 240.3 112.1 81.3
Degrees of freedom 8 3 2
p-value 0.001 0.001 0.001
N.S.S. = No statistically significant effect at level 0.05
The Added Value of Using DASI to Provide Inset Courses on a School Basis… 211

only length of teaching experience was found to be associated with student

achievement.
In model 2, the impact of quality of teaching upon student achievement was
investigated. Since teachers were assigned to four developmental stages according
to their assessment skills, we investigated the extent to which the classification of
teachers into these four stages could explain variation in student achievement. Thus,
teachers at stage 3 were treated as a reference (or baseline) group, and three dummy
variables were entered in model 1. The developmental stage at which a teacher was
situated was found to have a statistically significant effect on student achievement.
Specifically, students of teachers at stage 1 had the lowest achievement, whereas
those of teachers at level 4 showed higher achievement than students of teachers at
the first three levels. It is finally important to note that this model explains 39% of
variance, and most of the unexplained variance is situated at the student level.
In model 3, the effect of each approach employed with regard to teacher profes-
sional development was investigated. Teachers in the group employing the HA
externally were treated as a reference (or baseline) group, and three dummy vari-
ables indicating the teacher professional approach employed (i.e. HA provided
internally, DIA provided externally and DIA provided internally) were entered into
model 2. Only the effect of the two dummy variables measuring the impact of pro-
viding a DIA was found to be statistically significant at 0.05 level. This implies that
students of teachers employing the HA internally had no better results than those
using the HA externally. On the other hand, students of teachers employing the DIA
either internally or externally managed to obtain better results than those of teachers
employing the HA. It is finally important to note that the effect size of employing
the DIA internally was no bigger than the effect size of employing the same approach
externally. Thus, the results of the multilevel analysis provide evidence that only the
DIA yielded better results in student achievement than those produced by the HA
but did not provide support for the assumption that offering the DIA internally
generated better results.

Implications and Suggestions for Further Research

This study provides further support for the assumption that the teacher factors of the
dynamic model are not only related to each other but can also help us define the five
stages of teaching skills. These stages were formulated in a consistent manner, and
five investigations of teachers’ skills revealed exactly the same stages (see also
Chap. 9). In addition, this study also revealed that teachers who demonstrate
competencies in relation to higher stages were more effective than those situated
in the lower stages. Furthermore, some teachers were found to have improved their
teaching skills and ultimately progressed to the next developmental stage. However,
teachers who managed to make such progress had participated in a teacher profes-
sional development programme based on the DIA. The added value of using the
DIA rather than the HA to design a teacher professional development programme
212 10 Broadening the Scope of the Dynamic Integrated Approach to Teacher…

was identified by comparing the progress in teaching skills that each intervention
group managed to achieve. Neither of the two groups using the HA managed to
improve their skills, whereas both groups of teachers employing the DIA managed
to enhance their teaching skills at a statistically significant level. Although the effect
sizes indicating the progress that the teachers in these two groups had made were
relatively small (i.e. 0.12), one should bear in mind that these courses were provided
for a relatively short period, and only short-term effects were measured. One could
expect even larger effects if the programmes had been made available for a longer
period and/or the long-term effects of the interventions had been measured. It is
finally important to stress that the use of the DIA had a significant impact on student
achievement gains in mathematics. All these findings provide further support to the
generalisability of the findings of studies reported in Chap. 9, in which the two
approaches were offered only externally. This project seems also to reveal that irre-
spective of whether professional development programmes are offered internally or
externally, the DIA can have a significant impact on improving teaching skills and
student learning outcomes.
This study also reveals that providing the DIA at the school level rather than
externally had no special benefit in terms of either improving teaching skills or
student learning outcomes. However, one should bear in mind that both approaches
were addressing the teacher factors only. One could assume either that the DIA
could be equally effective, irrespective of whether it was offered internally or exter-
nally, or that the added value of offering the DIA on a school basis had to do not
only with the elements of the DIA but also with some extra elements that explained
the essential differences between external INSET programmes and school-based
INSET ones. This implies that we need further research investigating whether the
added value of using the DIA in a school-based INSET has to do with the fact that
specific school factors are also addressed by means of this approach, whereas when
the DIA is used externally, the school factors are not subject to its influence. In this
context, our research team attempted to find out which school factors should be
addressed by the school-based INSET and which approaches should be used in
order to improve student learning outcomes to a greater extent than when the DIA
is employed externally. More specifically, a meta-analysis of studies investigating
the impact of school-based INSET on student outcomes is currently being under-
taken. So far, the Social Sciences Citation Index database has been searched for
relevant articles. During the search, there was no limit in terms of the year of publi-
cation, and therefore, the search concerned all the articles published during the
years 1970–2011. The results comprised 2,464 articles on teacher professional
development, of which only 35 were relevant to school-based INSET. Of the 35
relevant articles, only three examined the impact of school-based INSET on student
achievement (see Kyriakides, Creemers & Panayiotou, 2012). We are currently aim-
ing to extend the search for relevant papers by scanning the following databases:
Scopus, ERIC and ERA.
Nevertheless, since very few studies have been identified, we are also conducting
a qualitative synthesis of studies looking at different features of school-based
INSET. Another task that has been undertaken is a group randomisation study
The Added Value of Using DASI to Provide Inset Courses on a School Basis… 213

aiming to provide the head teacher with a role in providing the DIA at the school
level. During the 2011–2012 school year, two experimental groups have been estab-
lished, and one is employing the DIA externally. In the second group, teachers
receive a school-based programme based on the DIA, and their head teachers are
expected to take an active role in supporting them to implementing and improving
their action plans. In this way, the intervention offered to the second group is
expected to have a positive impact not only on quality of teaching at classroom level
but also on the SLE.
In this chapter, the two reported projects aim to expand the DIA by illustrating
its relevance not only to improving the quality of teaching but also to assessment
and to searching for possibilities to combine the DIA with school-based INSET.
The results of the first project show that the DIA can be used to improve assessment
skills, but at the same time, they reveal that there is a need for further research to
reveal the differential effects that the DIA has on teachers situated at different stages.
The second project reveals the added value of using the DIA rather than the HA,
both internally and externally. Teachers participating in professional development
programmes based on the DIA managed to make statistically significant progress in
terms of their teaching skills. In addition, the second project shows that when the
DIA is provided externally, it is no less effective than when it is provided internally.
This seems to indicate that there is a need for further research to identify how and
under which circumstances the DIA offered at school level can maximise its effects.
In this respect, a systematic review of the literature on school-based INSET is
needed to identify its additional value in relation to improving not only the quality
of teaching but also that of the SLE and the school policy on teaching. In this con-
text, the final chapter of this book provides suggestions on further research aiming
to broader the score of the DIA and identify which conditions can enable teachers
and schools to become more effective.
Chapter 11
Implications for Research, Policy
and Practice: A Way Forward

Introduction

The principal objective of this book is to make a major contribution to knowledge

and theory by drawing the implications of TER for the field of teacher training and
professional development. For this purpose, the first two parts separately present the
two fields of research, namely, research on teacher training and professional
development and research on teacher effectiveness. More specifically, the first part
of this book provides a critical review of research on teacher training and profes-
sional development and illustrates the limitations of the main approaches to teacher
development, for example, the CBA and the HA. The second part of this book pro-
vides a critical review of TER. The main phases of TER and their findings are
presented, in which it is shown that teacher factors are discussed in terms of being
in opposition to one another. Another significant limitation of this field of research
is that the whole process of identifying teacher effectiveness factors made no
significant impact upon teacher training and professional development. For this reason,
maintaining a dynamic perspective on policy and practice in teacher training and
professional development is advocated in the third part of this book. This perspective
is characterised by making use of validated theoretical models of teacher effective-
ness and helping student teachers and teachers move gradually from simple to more
complex types of teacher behaviour, encompassing specific teacher competences.
In this part of this book, we also refer to studies conducted in different countries
illustrating how the proposed approach may be used in policy and practice in teacher
education. Specifically, we provide evidence supporting the validity of the theoretical
framework upon which this approach is based. Moreover, experimental and longitu-
dinal studies supporting the use of this approach for improvement purposes are
presented.
In the final chapter of this book, we make suggestions for the development of this
approach and for further research on using this approach for teacher training and
professional development. We advocate the use of both quantitative, experimental,
longitudinal studies and case studies using mixed research methods. We also draw

B. Creemers et al., Teacher Professional Development for Improving 215

Quality of Teaching, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-5207-8_11,
© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
216 11 Implications for Research, Policy and Practice: A Way Forward

implications for policy and practice in teacher training and professional development,
especially how to design courses that address the professional needs of student
teachers and teachers, and at the same time incorporate the main characteristics of
the DIA. Finally, it is claimed that these two constituencies will contribute to the
further development of the integrated approach and ultimately to the improvement
of quality of education.

Implications for Research on Teacher

Professional Development

In this section, we draw implications for research on teacher professional development

that can help us test the generalisability of the findings of studies reported here that
provide support for the DIA. Suggestions for research on expanding the scope of the
DIA are also made. We first of all stress the importance of conducting longitudinal
studies in different countries that can provide further support for the assumptions
upon which the DIA is based. Specifically, one of the basic assumptions has to do
with the fact that teacher factors are interrelated and stages of effective teaching can
be identified. Several experimental studies provided support for this view, but further
studies are needed to test the generalisability of the stages that have been identified.
In this context, the results of the study conducted in Canada (see Chap. 8) show that
teachers in two different countries can be classified in terms of stages that are con-
cerned with interrelated teacher factors. Although the stages which were identified
were not exactly the same, in both studies they were distinctive and were concerned
with factors associated with different approaches to teaching. Studies conducted in
other countries, as well as comparative studies, can help us identify whether in each
country we can identify stages of effective teaching with similar characteristics to
those identified by the studies reported in this book. These findings will provide
further support for the importance of using the DIA to develop teacher professional
development programmes in different countries.
Secondly, another important feature of the DIA has to do with its attempt not
only to take into account the stage to which each teacher belongs but also to offer
training to each teacher in order to help him/her move on to the next, more demand-
ing stage. The experimental studies reported in Chaps. 9 and 10 provide support for
the assumption that a stepwise development of types of teacher behaviour can be
achieved. However, the interventions which were offered were rather short since
they only took place within one school year. Therefore, we need longitudinal studies
which will last for more than 2 years to discover whether the progression is stepwise
or whether in some cases we can identify teachers moving further up without mas-
tering the skills included in some of the lower stages. These studies may also show
whether teaching experience matters and whether teachers can move from one stage
to a more demanding one without participating in a teacher professional develop-
ment course. The studies reported here show that teaching experience is a factor that
can partly explain why a teacher is situated at stage 1. However, amount of teaching
Implications for Research on Teacher Professional Development 217

experience cannot explain why some teachers are situated at stage 2 rather than at a
higher stage. This might be seen as an indication that experience helps teachers to
use the daily routines of teaching effectively but not other types of teaching skill.
Thirdly, the experimental studies presented in the last two chapters were con-
cerned with the short-term effect of the DIA upon the improvement of teaching
skills and upon the student learning outcomes. This implies that there is a need for
research investigating the long-term effects of the DIA and its added value, compar-
ing it with more traditional approaches, such as the CBA or the HA. The sustain-
ability over time of the effects of teacher professional development programmes
based on the DIA could also be investigated by conducting experimental studies
lasting for many school years. It is important to note here that sustainability of
teacher professional development programmes has not been investigated to any
great extent (Avalos, 2011). Some research findings indicate that teachers com-
monly do not apply either the problem-solving processes or teaching skills learned
in professional development courses in their classrooms once the interventions or
training courses have ended (e.g. Riley-Tillman & Eckert, 2001). In general, follow-
up data do not indicate sustainability of skills. In a meta-analysis conducted by Rose
and Church (1998), only 20 studies measuring the sustainability of the results of
teacher professional development programmes have been found. In the majority of
those studies, the period from post-test to follow-up tended to be short (i.e. 9 of the
20 studies collected follow-up data only 4 weeks after the post-test), and their results
indicate that only eight studies were categorised as ‘complete maintenance’ indicat-
ing that performance of the target skills was sustained at or above levels attained
during training. The studies which met this criterion had several things in common,
including training of teachers in their own classroom with a practice and feedback
component and a behavioural analysis approach to training. Nevertheless, as Roland
(2011, p. 385) argues ‘In addition to initial implementation, sustainability of the
intervention is important to the student’s continued success’. In this sense, it is criti-
cal to investigate further the sustainability of the effects of the interventions in terms
of teacher professional development as changes due to interventions may revert to
baseline after the intervention stimulus ends.
For this reason, a year after the intervention presented in Chap. 8, we decided to
measure the skills of teachers. In this way, we acquired data on their teaching skills
at the beginning (September 2008), at the end (May 2009) and 1 year after the end
of the intervention (May 2010). It was not useful to carry out a similar follow-up
measurement related to student achievement since every year Cypriot primary
teachers have to teach new cohorts of students, and thus, the results of student
achievement would not have been comparable with those of the previous years. At the
beginning of the intervention, the t-test did not reveal any statistically significant
difference between the two experimental groups (t = 0.68, df = 129, p = 0.49). During
the implementation of the teacher professional development programmes, teachers
employing the HA made no statistically significant progress (t = 1.11, df = 60,
p = 0.27). Moreover, by measuring their initial quality of teaching and comparing
this with the follow-up measurement (i.e. 1 year after the implementation of the
programme), it was found that they made no progress during the year in which no
218 11 Implications for Research, Policy and Practice: A Way Forward

intervention had been provided (t = 0.67, df = 60, p = 0.50). On the other hand, teachers
employing the DIA made statistically significant progress during the implementation
of the intervention (t = 20.46, df = 61, p = 0.001). During the year in which no inter-
vention took place, neither of the two intervention groups managed to make any
statistically significant progress or show any decline in their teaching skills. This
implies that the added value of using the DIA rather than the HA remained the same
during the second year implying that the impact is sustainable. It also seems to
reveal that progress cannot be achieved when no appropriate professional develop-
ment programmes are offered to teachers. For this reason, teachers employing the
HA did not manage to improve their skills, either during the year in which the inter-
vention was offered or one when that no intervention took place. Although further
research is needed to test the generalisability of the findings of this follow-up study,
one could claim that teachers need to be continuously involved in appropriate pro-
fessional development programmes. Another issue that needs to be examined is
whether and how the DIA can be expanded in order to bring teachers to a stage
at which they can further improve their skills without having external DIA support.
In order to achieve this aim, we need to design experimental studies that last longer
and which can test whether teachers can improve their skills themselves without
external and systematic support, especially since research findings seem to indicate
that improvement is more apparent in those teachers who participate systematically
in effective professional development programmes (e.g. King & Kitchener, 1994).
Such studies can also show whether stage growth does not unfold unilaterally but
requires a stimulating and supportive environment that can be provided by the
research team involved in a DIA teacher professional development programme.
Fourthly, another special characteristic of the DIA is that teachers who are at a
certain stage are expected to develop action plans designing to help them achieve
skills that are in line with the next, more demanding stage of effective teaching. In this
context, the teachers employing the DIA were not given the opportunity to decide
whether their action plans should be concerned with stages other than the one at
which they were found to be situated. One could claim that the DIA does not give
teachers the chance to identify by themselves areas which require improvement, and
thus, they may not feel that they own the improvement project in which they are
involved. However, teachers are expected to develop their own action plans and
decide which activities they can use in order to develop teaching skills. In addition,
the monthly sessions give them the opportunity to examine critically whether their
action plans need to be modified. Nevertheless, multi-treatment experimental studies
could be conducted in order to find out whether teachers should be encouraged to
develop action plans that are in line with their stage but nevertheless allowing them
to focus their attention on any other stage that they choose or whether the DIA
should remain more focused and expect each teacher to develop action plans in line
with his/her own stage. Such studies could help us develop further the DIA and
understand better the essential differences between the DIA and both the HA and
the CBA.
The suggestions provided in the next part of this section aim to find ways to
expand the DIA. Firstly, in Chap. 10, we draw research implications of the findings
of the project investigating the added value of offering the DIA internally rather
Implications for Research on Teacher Professional Development 219

than externally. The fact that there was no bigger impact when the DIA was offered
internally as opposed to externally could be interpreted in two ways. One could
simply argue that the DIA should be offered externally since this approach is more
cost-effective. On the other hand, one could attribute this finding to the fact that
when the DIA is offered internally, it should not only be concerned with how to
improve the teaching skills. Unless the special characteristics of internal profes-
sional development programmes are taken into account, their usage will have no
extra beneficial effect. This implies that we need a better theoretical framework
describing the special features of school-based INSET and how these contribute to
the improvement of teacher effectiveness as measured through student achievement
gains. A meta-analysis of studies investigating the impact of school-based INSET
upon student achievement can help us find out in which conditions the school-based
INSET can have a stronger impact on student achievement (see also Chap. 10).
Syntheses of studies investigating the impact of school-based INSET can be used to
develop the DIA further and identify how their respective basic elements and spe-
cial features can be combined. At this stage, we will also need multi-treatment
experimental studies to find out how to offer the DIA internally and achieve better
results rather than when it is offered externally. For example, we may find out that
by involving head teachers or other school stakeholders, we may be able to improve
not only teaching practice but also school factors that are associated with student
achievement, such as the school policy on teaching and the SLE.
Secondly, the DIA is concerned with the development of teaching skills that refer
to generic teacher factors. Given that a recent meta-analysis (Seidel & Shavelson,
2007) shows that domain-specific teaching factors are associated with student
achievement, further research is also needed to identify the extent to which the DIA
can be expanded to cover not only generic but also domain-specific teaching skills,
such as the provision of explanations in teaching mathematics (see Charalambous,
Hill, & Ball, 2011). We can see two different types of research that are needed in
order to discover ways to expand the scope of the DIA. Longitudinal studies can be
conducted in order to identify the relationship between domain-specific and generic
teaching skills. Such studies may also reveal possibilities for establishing stages of
effective teaching that refer to combinations of generic and domain-specific skills.
Experimental studies could also be conducted in order to find out whether incorpo-
rating domain-specific skills when offering teacher professional development
programmes based on the DIA may have a stronger impact on student achievement
than DIA programmes concerned only with generic skills.
Thirdly, experimental research investigating the extent to which the DIA may have
differential effects on the improvement of teaching skills of different groups of teach-
ers could also be conducted. The study reported in Chap. 10 comparing the impact of
the CBA and the HA seems to provide support for the assumption that the DIA may
have differential effects on teachers situated at different stages. For example, the DIA
was found to have stronger impact than the CBA on teachers at stages 2 and 3, whereas
the DIA had the same impact as the CBA on teachers situated at stages 1 and 4. The
fact that no statistically significant difference was identified when comparing the
progress of teachers situated at stage 4 can be attributed to the small statistical power
of the study due to the very small number of teachers at this stage. With regard to the
220 11 Implications for Research, Policy and Practice: A Way Forward

fact that the DIA had no extra benefit when compared with the CBA for teachers at
stage 1, it may be the case that less-experienced teachers may need a focused interven-
tion to develop skills associated with everyday assessment routines. For this group of
teachers, teacher professional development programmes may also have to focus on
how to improve a specific skill in each session, whereas for more-experienced teach-
ers situated at higher stages, the professional development programmes should be
designed to encourage them to become engaged in more comprehensive areas of
improvement. As a consequence, the DIA was found to be more effective for teachers
at the higher stages. This differential effect of the DIA was not identified when it was
compared with the HA. The study reported in Chap. 9 shows that the DIA was more
beneficial than the HA for each group of teachers, and there was no difference in the
reported effect sizes measuring the added value of the DIA. The findings concerned
with the differential impact of the DIA on teachers situated at different stages can be
seen as preliminary, and more studies are needed to discover if there is any differential
effect, especially since the statistical power of the two studies was rather small for the
purpose of investigating this issue.
Finally, case studies can be conducted to identify the difficulties that teachers
experience in moving up to the next level and to clarify the barriers associated with
the amount of gaps between levels, as well as the difficulty of promoting teacher
professional development programmes based on the DIA, especially since the great
majority of courses cover the same topics for all participating teachers. Introducing
an approach to teacher professional development that expects participating teachers
to be evaluated formatively may not always be welcomed by some teachers, espe-
cially those who may not like to be confronted with an evaluation process that
reveals their weaknesses. Case studies of teachers who drop to a lower level for a
variety of reasons (including burnout) could also be employed, especially since
these studies may help us find out how to identify this group of teachers at an early
stage. The findings of these studies may also help us expand the DIA and cover
issues associated not only with the improvement of their teaching skills but also
with other aspects that affect their professional careers. Such findings may also
reveal that in helping teachers to improve their skills, other factors, such as their
efficacy beliefs and attitudes towards the teaching profession, should be considered,
particularly to encourage teachers to be involved in a teacher professional develop-
ment programme based on the DIA. Teachers participating in the studies presented
in Chaps. 9 and 10 were all volunteers, and this not only caused some problems in
relation to the external validity of the study but also revealed the importance of
finding ways to encourage them to participate in the DIA programmes.

Implications for Policy and Practice

The previous section was concerned with suggestions for research aiming to expand
the scope of the DIA rather than searching for its impact on improving teaching and
promoting learning. The third part of this book provides evidence supporting the
Implications for Policy and Practice 221

validity of the theoretical framework upon which the DIA is based, and experimental
and longitudinal studies supporting the use of this approach for improvement
purposes are discussed. This implies that although many different types of study
could be conducted seeking to identify possibilities for expanding the DIA, the
evidence presented here provides support for the importance of using the DIA for
teacher improvement purposes. For this reason, this section draws implications for
policy and practice. We first of all refer to implications that the DIA has for the
structure and content of initial teacher training and then provide suggestions as to
how educational systems can organise their INSET programmes in order to improve
the quality of teaching practice and achieve better learning outcomes.
One of the major aims of initial teacher training is to help student teachers
develop their teaching skills. In this context, standards of teaching have been devel-
oped in several countries, and the quality of initial teacher training (ITT) pro-
grammes in some countries is evaluated by a national/state agency. For example, in
England and Wales, the Education Act 2005 provides the remit for Her Majesty’s
Chief Inspector (HMCI) to inspect ITT. As a result, the Office for Standards in
Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted) is responsible for conducting
inspections of all providers of programmes leading to qualified teacher status (QTS)
for maintained schools, as well as programmes of further education teacher training
validated by higher education institutions. Comparable systems of ITT evaluation
are in place in other countries, which aim to improve the quality of education in
schools. In this book, it is argued that there is a need to establish stronger links
between ITT and research on teacher effectiveness. There should be an emphasis on
research into effective teacher behaviour in the classroom in the ITT courses. In this
way, student teachers will learn about effective teaching practices and gradually
develop their teaching skills. Although student teachers should develop several
competencies, not only the ability to teach (e.g. the ability to collaborate with other
teachers in the school, work with other school stakeholders, especially parents),
their teaching skills should be systematically developed through ITT. The impor-
tance of providing courses to help student teachers develop their teaching skills can
be attributed to the fact that quality of teaching is the strongest factor associated
with student learning outcomes.
In this context, the DIA can be used to provide a theoretical framework for the
initial teacher training courses that are concerned with effective teaching. In addi-
tion, trainees can make use of the available instruments designed to measure the
skills of student teachers (see Creemers & Kyriakides, 2012) and help them develop
their own action plans to improve their skills. It should also be taken into account
that most student teachers are likely to be situated at stage 1. This implies that the
content of the ITT courses should be focused more on the skills found at this stage.
A broader perspective on effective teaching practices should be provided for student
teachers in order to help them develop relevant expectations about their career
development. The theoretical framework of the DIA also promotes an integrated
approach to teaching. This implies that student teachers will become aware of dif-
ferent teaching approaches, and they will not to be restricted to either the direct and
active teaching approach or the constructivist approach. Each approach has its
222 11 Implications for Research, Policy and Practice: A Way Forward

strengths and limitations, and this is reflected in the fact that specific teacher factors
arising from each approach are included in the theoretical framework of the DIA.
In this way, a more balanced view of effective teaching will be provided, and
the courses will be designed by taking into account the available knowledge base
of EER.
Teaching practice is another important element of any ITT programme that
should be directly related to the development of student teachers’ skills in teaching.
Teaching practice provides the opportunity for student teachers to have their first
contact with the teaching profession, and it should aim to improve the teaching
skills of trainees (Caires & Almeida, 2005). It gives student teachers the opportunity
to see how theory can be used to improve practice. Thus, the DIA can be used in
designing the teaching practice of the ITT programmes, and the framework of the
DIA can be employed to evaluate teaching skills and measure the impact of teaching
practice on these skills (Charalambous, Philippou, & Kyriakides, 2008). Moreover,
the framework of the DIA can be used to develop valid and reliable instruments for
inspecting ITT, especially since in some countries the reliability of the evaluation of
ITT courses is seen as problematic (e.g. Campbell & Husbands, 2000; Tymms,
1998). This could be attributed to the fact that they do not place sufficient emphasis
on the development of student teacher competencies in teaching. It is argued here
that the impact of ITT on improving teaching skills should be seen as an important
evaluation criterion of the effectiveness of such programmes. If student teachers
manage to develop all other required competencies but not their teaching skills, they
will not make any significant impact on the learning of their students, and thus, the
quality of education will be negatively affected. Therefore, ITT programmes should
aim to improve the teaching skills of their students and create the basis for their
future professional development.
This book has some significant implications for organising teacher professional
development courses. The proposed approach is based on the assumption that teach-
ers participating in INSET courses should be offered programmes that are in line
with their stage. This implies that we should adopt differentiation of teaching in
offering INSET courses. An additional implication is that the teaching skills of
participating teachers should first of all be measured, and based on the evaluation
findings, teachers should be classified into groups according to the stage at which
they are found to belong. These two steps of the DIA reveal that INSET courses
cannot be developed unless a clear framework of effective teaching is adopted and
valid instruments measuring teacher behaviour in the classroom are available. This
implies that tutors offering such courses should be able to use the observation instru-
ments to collect data and analyse them in order to identify the stage at which each
teacher is situated. In addition, tutors should be able to persuade teachers to allow
them to observe them teaching in order to identify their needs. They should also
persuade participating teachers to take seriously the results of initial evaluation
since observations of teaching are used for formative reasons.
The results of the follow-up study investigating the sustainability of the impact
of the DIA upon teaching imply that teachers should be continuously involved in
systematic INSET courses. Teachers do not move from one stage to another without
Implications for Policy and Practice 223

being actively involved in an INSET course based on the DIA. During the year in
which no intervention was offered for teachers employing the DIA, we were unable
to identify any progress in their teaching skills. This shows how important is the role
of the research team in organising the INSET course and supporting teachers in
developing and implementing their action plans. Without a systematic effort on the
part of teachers and without providing teachers with external support, educational
systems should not expect improvement in the quality of teaching and achievement
of better learning outcomes. For this reason, national/state policy-makers should
develop a policy on teacher professional development and offer support to their
teachers in order to promote their teaching skills. Since teachers are at different
stages, it is recommended that a variety of different teacher professional develop-
ment courses should be offered during the professional career of teachers, each
concentrating on different types of teaching skills to help teachers gradually move
from lower to higher stages. In this way, the policy on teacher professional develop-
ment will have an impact on improving quality of teaching. It should be pointed out
that such courses should be offered to teachers situated at the highest stage, espe-
cially since research has shown that teachers need to take actions to improve them-
selves in order to remain effective (see Creemers & Kyriakides, 2010a).
The suggestions given above refer to the role of the system-level policy-makers
in promoting the DIA. This can be achieved both by organising external INSET
courses and evaluating the impact of school-based courses offered to teachers.
However, school stakeholders should also play an important role in promoting the
DIA. They should not only provide the conditions for school-based INSET courses
based on the DIA but should also be actively involved in these courses and through
this improve the SLE and the school policy for teaching. The latter constitute two
important school factors that are associated with student achievement, so in promot-
ing the DIA, not only teacher effectiveness but also school effectiveness will be
improved (see Creemers & Kyriakides, 2012).
It is finally important to acknowledge that more resources may be needed in
order to organise a DIA rather than traditional INSET courses. Tutors may need
more time in order to collect initial evaluation data by observing teaching. Unless
the teaching skills of participating teachers are measured, improvement priorities
cannot be identified, and action plans addressing these needs cannot be developed.
The studies reported in this book reveal that although DIA courses may need more
resources, they are also cost-effective since a significant impact on the quality of
teaching and student learning was identified. Classroom organisation issues should
also be considered when offering DIA courses. Participating teachers should work
in groups, and the tutors should provide separate tasks for each group and be avail-
able to support them in developing their action plans. Both elements of the DIA are
characteristics of effective teaching at school level as TER has shown. These char-
acteristics should not be simply described by the tutors of INSET courses (as some-
times happens), but they should also show the participating teachers that they may
be used in their teaching. So far, the majority of INSET courses on effective teach-
ing practices are taught using traditional approaches, and so participating teachers
may remain unconvinced about the possibility of applying such practices in the
224 11 Implications for Research, Policy and Practice: A Way Forward

classroom. Therefore, we advocate not only the importance of developing specific

teaching skills but also the necessity for tutors to show that they already have the
skills that they expect others to acquire.
In this final chapter, we would like to refer to the main arguments put forward in
this book. Firstly, this book attempts to integrate research on teacher effectiveness
with that on teacher training and professional development. Beyond providing a
critical review of these two fields of education, an integrated approach to teacher
training and professional development is proposed. By looking critically at these
two areas of educational science, the importance of offering ITT and INSET courses
based on the DIA has been identified. This book also attempts to establish links
between teacher training and teacher professional development programmes by
using a common theoretical perspective and showing how these two phases of
teacher professional development can help student teachers and teachers move
gradually from one stage of teacher competence to a more complex one. This can be
done by improving not only their classroom behaviour but also their knowledge and
ability to reflect upon their practices, collect data and design action plans to promote
their professional development. It is also important to note that the theoretical
framework of the DIA is not focused on only one approach to effective teaching but
refers to teacher factors and dimensions that emerged from the main approaches to
effective teaching, such as the direct and active teaching approach and the construc-
tivist approach. Therefore, implications of these approaches for building teacher
training and professional development programmes are drawn.
Beyond providing the theoretical background, and empirical support for the DIA,
we also draw implications for practice and provide suggestions for how teacher
trainers might develop effective professional development programmes. The results
of projects that make use of this approach are also presented to help the reader to see
how the DIA can be put into practice. Finally, in this book, we provide suggestions
as to further research that can be conducted in order to expand this approach and the
knowledge base concerning teacher training and teacher professional development.
Therefore, we hope that readers with research interests will find this book useful
when designing their own studies and a helpful contribution to this line of research
on teacher training and professional development, which aims to improve teaching
practice and, through that, student learning outcomes.
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Index

A Borko, H., 3, 4, 32, 51, 54, 58, 60

Accountability, 3, 4, 15, 20, 22, 34, 69, 76–77 Bosker, R.J., 65, 68, 94, 96, 110, 129, 139, 201
Action plans, 8, 9, 38, 48, 50, 51, 56, 57, 130, Brooks, R., 5, 13, 19, 23, 27
156–160, 166–168, 179, 180, 183, 196, Brophy, J., 14, 15, 57, 66–70, 79, 81, 85, 93,
197, 215, 220, 223, 225, 226 124, 125, 127–129, 158
Action research, Action Research on Change
in Schools project (ARCS), 56
Active teaching, 7, 55, 79, 81, 85–86, 91, 98, C
99, 135, 140, 146–148, 153–154, 165, Calderhead, J., 31–33, 37, 45, 48, 72, 185, 207
166, 182, 223, 226 Campbell, R.J., 36, 65, 66, 104, 106, 123, 127,
Adams, R.J., 143, 153 139, 169, 224
Adler, S., 31 Canada, 21, 152–155, 218
Advisory and research team (A&RTeam), 8, 9, Carroll, J.B., 94, 102–104
48, 50, 55–59, 166–168, 181 Carroll’s model, 81, 101–104, 135
Anderson, R., 73 Case studies, 32, 41, 157, 159, 217, 222
Andrich, D., 142, 169, 190, 199, 208 Cheng, Y.C., 75, 107
A&RTeam. See Advisory and research team Classroom
(A&RTeam) classroom assessment, 125, 130, 186,
Assessment 187, 205
assessment skills, 185–202, 205, 206, classroom climate, 67, 68, 70, 107, 112,
213, 215 128, 129
assessment techniques, 147, 186, 188–189, classroom environment, 15, 67, 69, 70,
193–194 126, 128–130
assessment tools, 187 Classroom level, 33, 65, 70, 71, 84, 102–107,
Attitudes, 3, 5, 17, 18, 29, 46, 49, 51, 66, 72, 109, 110, 113–115, 117, 119, 130–132,
73, 133, 134, 163, 167, 172, 174, 176, 134, 141, 144, 145, 150, 170, 173, 178,
179, 180, 222 189, 201, 203, 204, 211, 212, 215
Cognitive load theory (CLT), 16
Cohen, D.K., 3, 4, 22, 54
B Collaboration, 9, 55, 57–58, 90, 107, 133, 196
Ball, D.L., 3, 4, 6, 54, 221 Competency-based approach (CBA)
Bandura, A., 73, 74 competences, 5, 10, 13–28, 34, 46, 47, 54,
Berliner, D., 30, 31, 47, 54, 152, 157, 185, 207 202, 217
Bloom, B.S., 81–84, 94, 102, 103 strategies, 14
Bond, T.G., 142, 143, 169, 190 Comprehensive model of educational
Borich, G.D., 14, 66, 68, 70, 72, 128 effectiveness, 101–117, 135

B. Creemers et al., Teacher Professional Development for Improving 257

Quality of Teaching, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-5207-8,
© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
258 Index

Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA), 141 46, 54, 55, 65–70, 72, 74, 75, 77, 123,
Constructivism, constructivist approach, 127, 128, 135, 139, 207, 223
87–91, 96–99, 140, 154, 223, 226 Equating, equating of tests, 169, 199
Context level, 102, 109, 111, 115, 117–119 Evaluation
Control group, 25, 41, 83, 92, 195, formative evaluation, 9, 52, 130,
200–202, 206 159–160, 168
Cornford, I.R., 9, 31, 33, 40–42, 44, 46, 52 summative evaluation, 9, 155, 160, 168
Critical thinking, 39, 43, 47, 48, 52 Evidence-based and theory-driven approach,
Cronbach, L.J., 130 11, 137, 139, 157, 160
Curriculum, 6, 9, 15, 17, 21, 32, 57, 67–69, Experimental groups, 83, 92, 164–168, 172,
75, 104, 105, 107–110, 112, 113, 131, 174, 177, 178, 195, 197, 200, 201, 207,
158, 164, 167, 168, 208 209–211, 215, 219
Curvilinear relationships, 120 Experimental study/studies, 9, 16, 68, 72, 85,
Cyprus, 111–113, 115, 140–152, 154, 163, 86, 91, 155, 163–183, 206, 207,
164, 168–170, 194, 198, 206–208 218–221

D F
Darling-Hammond, L., 3, 20, 46, 57, 72, 119 Feedback, 15, 19, 23, 24, 33, 55–57, 60, 61,
Day, C., 22, 34, 38 67, 69, 70, 82–85, 89, 93, 94, 96, 104,
Desimone, L., 4, 44 107, 112, 127, 128, 130, 144, 147,
Developmental needs, different groups of 157–159, 165, 166, 168, 182, 183, 189,
teachers, 5, 43, 47, 50, 53, 54, 95, 116, 193, 196, 197, 219
117, 121, 123, 129, 156, 194, 221 Feiman-Nemser, S., 5, 29, 37, 54, 152
Developmental stages, 46, 54–56, 139, 148, 152, Formal principles
155–157, 159, 164, 166, 171, 176, 177, cohesion, 110, 116
179, 181, 194–196, 202, 206, 209, 213 consistency, 109, 110, 116
Dewey, J., 29, 31, 32 constancy, 110, 116
DIA. See Dynamic integrated approach (DIA) control, 110, 116
Differentiation, differentiation of teaching, Fox, C.M., 142, 143, 169, 190
147, 154, 163, 165, 180, 183, 207, 224 Fullan, M., 4, 55, 77, 78
Direct instruction model
direct teaching, 85–97
structured approach, 85, 92, 98 G
Drezner, Z., 143, 153, 171, 192, 199, 209 Gage, N.L., 6, 46, 68, 81
Dynamic integrated approach (DIA), 155–160, Generalizability, generalisability study,
163–183, 185–215, 218–226 141, 152, 170
Dynamic model of educational effectiveness, Good, T.L., 14, 15, 57, 66, 68–70, 79, 81, 85,
8, 101, 111–135, 144, 155, 179, 189 86, 93, 124, 125, 127–129, 158
Gray, J., 123
Greek language, 140, 141, 150, 151
E Grouping
Educational effectiveness research (EER), 6–9, grouping of factors, 7, 9, 11, 47, 120, 139,
38, 45–47, 52, 61, 65, 99, 102, 113, 155, 156, 179
114, 116, 128, 133, 135, 140, 155, 157, grouping of teaching skills, 54, 155, 179
179, 180, 186, 189, 224 Guidelines, 16, 21, 49, 82, 85, 86, 98, 130,
Educational practice, 5, 9, 29, 71, 82, 83, 86, 133, 157–160, 166
95, 97, 98, 102, 103, 115–117, 120, Guskey, T.R., 3, 17, 51, 60, 61, 73, 83,
122, 164 84, 94, 188
EER. See Educational effectiveness research
(EER)
Effect size/sizes, 24, 74, 84, 92, 95, 131, 177, H
202, 205, 206, 211, 213, 214, 222 Harris, A., 22, 37, 133
Effective teachers, effective teaching, 6, 15, Heck, R.H., 8, 47, 128, 189
Index 259

Hill, H.C., 3, 221 Learning outcomes, 7–9, 11, 59, 61, 65, 74,
Holistic approach (HA) 75, 77–79, 81, 91, 95, 102–105, 117,
reflection, 29–42 139, 163, 180, 187, 207, 214, 219, 223,
reflective approach, 29, 32, 35, 37, 225, 226
39–42 Likert scale, 141, 152
reflective teaching, 31–33, 40, 41 Limitations, 10, 11, 16, 22, 25–28, 36, 39–42,
Homework, 14, 105, 107, 108, 112, 131, 169, 52–54, 60, 61, 63, 74–78, 87, 101, 116,
173, 174, 176, 178 134, 135, 142, 217, 224
Hopkins, D., 14 Longitudinal studies, 140, 180, 207, 217, 218,
221, 223

I
In-service training, 72, 185, 207 M
Initial teacher training (ITT), 23, 46, 96, 181, Management, 8, 14, 15, 20, 25, 34, 38, 54, 57,
223, 224 67, 69, 94, 105, 107, 109, 112, 120,
INSET courses, 156, 180, 181, 185, 195, 125, 126, 128–131, 140, 143, 144, 146,
206–215, 224–226 153, 157, 158, 165, 174, 180, 181
Instruction, instructional techniques, Marcoulides, G.A., 128, 143, 153, 171, 192,
89, 113, 148 199, 209
Integrated approach, integrated approach to Mastery learning, 11, 61, 63, 81–85, 102–104,
teacher professional development, 110, 115, 125, 134, 135
11, 47, 56, 61, 139–160, 185–215, 226 Mathematics, 18, 73, 79, 86–88, 92–95, 140,
Interactions 149–151, 164, 168–169, 173, 176, 179,
student-student, 126, 129, 140, 148 187, 188, 190, 192–195, 197–199, 203,
teacher-student, 65, 83, 126, 129, 140, 148 207–209, 212, 214, 221
Intervention, 53, 55, 59, 60, 76, 79, 90, 122, Measurement dimensions
163–168, 170–172, 176, 177, 179, differentiation, 121, 123–124
195–201, 204, 206, 209–212, 214, 215, focus, 121, 122
218–220, 222, 225 frequency, 121, 122
IRT. See Item response theory (IRT) quality, 121, 123
Isolated competencies, isolated teaching stage, 121–123
skills, 27 Measurement framework, 115, 117, 186,
Item response theory (IRT), 169, 199, 208, 209 189, 205
ITT. See Initial teacher training (ITT) Meta-analysis, 24, 27, 79, 84, 91, 131, 140,
214, 219, 221
Meta-cognition, 87, 88, 90, 92
J MIP-programme, 93–95
Joyce, B., 7, 58, 79, 96, 125, 180 Missouri programme, 86
Modelling, 86, 89, 92, 97, 115, 120, 125–128,
134, 140–142, 144, 145, 147, 154, 165,
K 169, 172, 199, 201, 208
Keller plan, personalised system of instruction Models of educational effectiveness, 11, 47,
(PSI), 82 52, 61, 63, 111, 114–116, 119
Khoo, S., 143, 153, 190, 199 Models of teacher effectiveness
Knowledge-base of EER, 18, 206 the absence of problems model, 77
Kulik, J.A., 83, 84, 93 the accountability model, 76–77
the continuous learning model, 77–79
resource utilisation model, 75–76
L school-constituencies satisfaction model, 76
Learning environment, 15, 67, 69, 93–95, Muijs, D., 14, 15, 56, 65, 68, 70, 74, 79, 93,
98, 103, 109, 116, 118, 119, 125, 98, 124, 126, 128, 130, 139
126, 128–131, 133, 140, 141, 147, Multilevel, multilevel analysis, 148, 149, 172,
148, 154, 157, 181–183 177, 202, 203, 211, 213
260 Index

N R
National standards, 13, 20, 21, 108 Rasch model, Rasch person estimates,
The Netherlands, 21, 35, 83, 86, 93, 111–113 169, 171, 172, 199–201, 208–210
Reezigt, G.J., 15, 60, 91, 96, 103, 106, 109,
111, 128, 130, 158, 181
O Reflection, 5, 9, 11, 28–44, 46–51, 55–58, 61,
Observations 90, 96, 115, 155, 158, 167, 174, 179,
high-inference, 140, 141, 170 180, 207, 208
low-inference, 140, 141 Reliability, 25, 130, 141–143, 168, 170, 171,
observation instruments, 140–142, 170, 190, 192, 199, 208, 209, 224
208, 224 Religious education, 140, 141, 149–151
Opportunity to learn, 15, 68, 69, 103–105, Resources, 3, 16, 56, 57, 75–76, 78, 79, 96,
107–110, 112, 113, 129, 131, 169, 173, 108, 133, 134, 156, 158, 225
176, 178, 181 Reynolds, D., 14, 15, 65, 68, 70, 79, 93, 97,
104, 107, 111, 116, 117, 124, 126, 128,
130, 139, 207
P Rosenshine, B., 14, 66, 69, 70, 81, 85, 86, 94,
Pedagogical knowledge, 6, 72 120, 124, 125, 127, 128
Personality characteristics, 66, 67
PISA. See Programme for international student
assessment (PISA) S
Policy-makers, 3, 11, 13, 19, 27, 34–36, Saltus model, 143, 148, 156, 164
61, 225 Sammons, P., 8, 47, 73, 108, 119, 172, 189
Presage-product studies, 66–67 Scheerens, J., 65, 68, 94, 96, 98, 102, 110,
Prior achievement, 24, 72, 173, 176, 178, 203, 113, 129, 139
204, 212 Schoenfeld, A.H., 7, 73, 79, 122, 125
Process-product studies, 66–71 Schon, D.A., 30, 32, 41, 47, 167
Professional autonomy, 22, 26, 27, 35, 37, 47 School based INSET, 180, 185, 214, 215,
Professional development 221, 225
professional development programmes, 4–6, School effectiveness, 50, 68, 107, 108,
8, 13, 14, 19, 21, 27, 28, 31, 32, 34–37, 115–117, 119, 131, 133, 135, 225
39, 43, 45–47, 51–61, 78, 79, 155, 159, School learning environment (SLE), 119, 132,
160, 163, 166–168, 172, 179–183, 194, 133–134, 185, 207, 215, 221, 225
197, 200, 206, 209, 214, 218–222, 226 School level
teacher training, 3–8, 10, 11, 19, 23, 28, school climate, 111, 133, 134, 180
29, 33–37, 42–61, 72, 79, 96, 97, 99, school factors, 108, 115, 130–134, 214,
101, 134, 135, 139–160, 181, 217, 218, 221, 225
223, 226 school policy, 106–108, 130–134, 215,
Professional knowledge, 3, 71 221, 225
Programme for international student School stakeholders, 221, 223, 225
assessment (PISA), 169, 199, 208 Seatwork, 70, 126, 128
Promoting the DIA, 225 Seidel, T., 79, 86, 90, 221
Self-efficacy, 67, 73–74, 113
SEM. See Structural equation modelling (SEM)
Q Shavelson, R.J., 68, 71, 79, 86, 90, 221
Quality of education, 60, 74, 218, 223, 224 Shepard, L.A., 130, 185–188
Quality of instruction, 84, 93, 102–106, 108 Shulman, L., 6, 41, 71, 78
Quest, 143, 153, 190, 199 Slavin, R.E., 60, 66, 83, 94, 102, 113, 116, 125
Questions, 14, 15, 22–25, 30, 33–36, 40, 42, Smith, D., 3, 6, 15, 31, 32, 36, 39, 42, 48, 54,
45, 50, 54, 60, 66, 67, 69, 70, 75–77, 59, 93, 187, 188
85, 87, 103, 120, 121, 125–127, 134, Snijders, T., 201
140–142, 144–147, 153–155, 158, Socio-economic status (SES), 149–151, 169,
165–167, 182, 183, 185, 188, 170, 172, 173, 175, 176, 178, 203, 204,
193, 207 208, 212
Index 261

Soliciting, 15, 69 Teacher beliefs, 46, 73, 125, 135

Sprinthall, N., 4, 14, 26, 28, 30, 39 Teacher effectiveness research (TER), 11, 13,
Stages 43, 61, 66–67, 70, 72, 74–79, 81, 86,
stages of effective teaching, 9, 139–155, 101, 125–128, 217, 225
157, 211, 218, 221 Teacher factors
stages of teaching skills, 155, 165, 171, application, 126, 128
177, 209, 213 classroom assessment, 126, 130
Stakeholders, 119, 128, 130, 221, 223, 225 management of time, 126, 129–130
STAR project, 72 orientation, 125, 126
Stiggins, R.J., 185, 187, 188 questioning, 126–127
Strategies, 4, 7, 8, 14, 32, 33, 39, 48, 50, 53, structuring, 125–126
56, 68, 79, 86, 88, 89, 93, 95, 115, 117, teacher role in making classroom a
120, 126–129, 133, 140, 141, 147, learning environment, 126, 128–129
154–156, 167, 179, 180, 189, 208 teaching-modelling, 127–128
Stringfield, S., 93, 102, 105, 113, 133 Teacher knowledge, 6, 26, 31, 113, 135
Structural equation modelling Teacher perceptions, 61, 168, 170, 172, 180
(SEM), 142, 170 Teacher professional development, teacher
Structuring, 67, 69, 98, 99, 104, 125–126, 134, training, 3–8, 10, 11, 19, 23, 28,
140, 141, 143, 144, 146, 147, 153, 154, 29, 33–37, 42–61, 72, 79, 96, 97,
165, 180–183 99, 101, 134, 135, 139–160, 181, 217,
Student achievement, student achievement in 218, 223, 226
mathematics, 140, 168–169, 173, 188, Teacher questionnaire, 164, 190, 195, 198
192, 195, 199, 203, 209, 212 Teacher training, 3–8, 10, 11, 19, 23, 28,
Student background factors, 103, 169, 202, 29, 33–37, 42–61, 72, 79, 96, 97,
207, 208, 211 99, 101, 134, 135, 139–160, 181,
Student learning, 3–11, 13, 20, 22, 30, 37, 39, 217, 218, 223, 226
48, 52, 59–61, 65, 71, 74, 77, 78, 81, Teaching approaches, 61, 79, 81, 97, 127, 148,
85, 105, 111, 114, 117, 120–122, 124, 154, 157, 163, 207, 223
129, 133–135, 139, 155, 156, 160, 180, Teaching-learning environments, 73
186, 207, 214, 219, 223, 225, 226 Teaching practice, 3, 5, 9, 14, 22, 30, 36, 38,
Student level 41, 44, 48–50, 52, 55, 58, 60, 61,
prior knowledge, 150, 151 65–79, 94, 95, 101, 115, 119, 130–135,
sex, 149, 150, 173, 178, 204 140, 142, 147, 148, 155, 158, 159, 166,
socio-economic status (SES), 116, 167, 179, 180, 221, 223–226
149–151, 169, 170, 172, 173, 175, 176, Teaching skills, 4, 13, 34, 43, 68, 114, 139,
178, 203, 204, 208, 212 163, 199, 219
Student outcomes, 6, 10, 13, 45, 47, 52, 53, Teaching standards, 13, 22, 23, 34, 35
60, 61, 73–75, 78, 85, 95, 97, 103, 104, Teddlie, C., 97, 104, 105, 107, 111, 116, 117,
109, 111, 116, 119, 120, 123–125, 149, 123, 207
156, 157, 160, 166, 168, 176, 177, 180, TER. See Teacher effectiveness research (TER)
189, 195–197, 201–207, 211–214 Theoretical framework, 5, 8, 16, 43, 46, 47,
Student questionnaire, 142, 152, 164 51, 52, 101–135, 155, 189, 190, 207,
217, 221, 223, 224, 226
Townsend, T., 207
T Trorey, G., 14, 27, 35, 53, 55
Tanner, D., 4 Tutoring, 83, 84
Teacher assessment, teacher assessment skills, Types of assessment behavior, 188, 195,
186, 189, 190, 194, 199–201, 205 199, 206
Teacher behaviour, 6, 7, 10, 11, 40, 45, 47, 49,
50, 52, 59, 65–68, 71, 74, 78, 79, 85,
91, 103–106, 108, 110, 111, 122, 125, U
128, 129, 135, 139–141, 143, 145–148, Unidimensional scale, 142, 171, 190, 199, 209
150, 153, 154, 156, 160, 199, 207–209, United States (USA), 4, 13, 21, 46, 83,
217, 218, 223, 224 84, 93, 180
262 Index

V W
Validity What Works, 86
construct validity, 141, 142, 148, 152, 170 Wragg, E.C., 25, 28, 36, 40, 44, 46, 48, 49
convergent validity, 141 Wright, B.D., 65, 139, 142, 190, 191
cross-cultural validity of the dynamic Written tests, 168, 188, 193, 194, 198–199, 208
model, 155 Wubbels, T., 22, 29, 34, 41, 58, 128, 129, 148
discriminant validity, 141
internal validity, 9, 190, 198
validated theoretical frameworks, 5, 43, 46, Z
51, 52 Zeichner, K.M., 4–6, 23, 32, 37, 43–45, 47,
Van Damme, J., 139 48, 59