Documenting Quality of Teaching by Standardised IndicatorsDr. Per Kind, Durham UniversityDr. Mesfin Tadesse, Addis Ababa University

Dr. Mekbib Alemu, Dr. Kassa Michael &Dr. Mulugeta Atnafu, Addis Ababa University

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Our Project

Transforming Pedagogy of STEM TeachingRaising Learning Outcomes, £400K, DFID/ESRCSet in EthiopiaCollaboration between Addis Ababa University, Durham University and

six Colleges of Teacher EducationThree-year-study; June 2015-May 2018Intervention study to investigate

• strategies for implementing new pedagogies in schools• impact of dialogical teaching on students’ learning

Data: Pre-post tests, questionnaire, interviews and video-data

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Challenge

How can school leaders, educational authorities and politicians learn from our research project?

To what extend and in what ways can we use standardised indicators to present research findings?

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Nature of Educational Indicators• Simple indicators (numbers)

– Quantifying educational practices (School budget, Student Achievement)– Intended to provide a relatively unbiased description of a situation or process

• Performance indicators (statements)– Point of reference, such as, a standard, objective, assessment criteria

• E.g. Teachers have sufficient content-knowledge– Relative rather than absolute in character– May become a simple indicator if quantified.

• General indicators (information)– Opinions, survey findings or general statistics about educational practices– Not really indicators

(Cave, Hanney, Henkel and Kogan, 1997)

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Four types of indicators

InputIndicators

ProcessIndicators

OutputIndicators

Human, financial and physical resources

OutcomeIndicators

Learning Outcomes

Wider impact on students, parents, the community, employers and industry

Means used to deliver educationalprogrammes

(Burke, 1998)

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Indicator Framework

Input ProcessLearning Community

Assessment

Output Outcome

• A useful performance indicator is one that informs the development of strategic decision-making

• Performance indicators are most reliable and valid when used as a group

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Learning CommunityE.g.•Dominance of a student-centred learning perspective •Possession of desirable teacher characteristics•Appropriate teaching experience and qualifications•Support for development of staff and environment•Use of current research and theories in informing teaching and curriculum •Community engagement and partnership •Funding model in support of teaching and learning

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Output Indicator

International comparison with TIMSS items

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Process IndicatorsCommunicative approach

A. Interactive-Dialogic: Students discuss their ideas to science phenomena and/or problems1. In Pairs2. In Groups3. In Whole Class

B. Passive-Dialogic: Teacher reviews alternative ideas while lecturingC. Interactive- Authoritative: Teacher discusses correct ideas with

studentsD. Passive-Authoritative: Teacher is lecturing correct ideas

Mortimer and Scott, 2003

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Process Indicators – Coding SchemePercent time spent on each Communicative Approach

– A Interactive-Dialogic– B Passive-Dialogic– C Interactive-Authoritative– D Passive-Authoritative– E Instructing about activity– F Instructing about lesson

Quality of each Communicative Approach (A-D)1. Low: Reason to believe learning is diminished.

• Many students not paying attention, pace too high/slow and/or message of teaching is unclear

2. Medium: Learning seems satisfactory• Most students paying attention, well paced lesson and/or message/topic is clear

3. High: High quality learning seems to dominate• Teaching suited to pace and level of students at different ability levels. Engages students with a

range of different activities.

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Video-observation, transcript and coding

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Summary of a lesson

Instructions with reference to correct ideas

Instructions with reference to students’ ideas

Students working in groups discussing their own ideas

Teacher is summarising correct ideas in an interactive way

Discussing students’ ideas in whole class

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Comparing two lessonsExperiment-GroupDialogical teaching, 64% of time on group task, however without whole-class interactive dialogue

Control-GroupDidactic teaching with 15% of lesson used on group task

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Trend presentation

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Discussion

Aim: Creating (simple) standardised indicators for qualitative aspects of teaching

Should be– Reliable: High coder reliability– Valid: Give information of value and that supports decision-making– Cost-effective: Possible to obtain with simple means in a large scale– Easy to communicate: Possible to read without training

Conclusions– Reliable and valid measure of some aspects of teaching is possible within

the context of a research project– Challenge: agree framework for quality of teaching