The Value of The Australian Professional Standards for Teachers as an Evaluation Tool to Enhance Teacher Quality

Abstract

Enhancing achievement for all students has long been the purpose of schools. With evidence that teacher quality is the most important school variable influencing student achievement, teacher evaluation can be a key lever in assisting schools and teachers to have a specific focus on teacher quality in order to improve student outcomes. Increasingly, schools are using The Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (AITSL, 2011) as the platform upon which to base evaluation of teacher performance as it provides clarity around what constitutes effective teaching. However, there is a need to explore the value of this framework as a tool to enhance teacher quality, when used as part of a teacher evaluation process within a school. This purposive single case study was conducted in one school across five geographic sites and used a mixed methodology approach. Data were collected through a survey instrument and semi-structured interviews.Phase 1 occurred in Term 1 of the 2017 school year with 25 teachers completing the survey. Of these, seven agreed to be interviewed about their experiences with teacher evaluation processes prior to 2017. Phase 2 revisited the same teachers in Term 4, 2017, following their involvement in a new teacher evaluation process that incorporated The Australian Professional Standards for Teachers. On this occasion, 23 teachers completed the survey. Six teachers from the original seven agreed to be re-interviewed.A thematic network approach was applied to analyse the interview data and structural equation modelling was used to analyse the survey data. The benefit of this methodology is that it produces sufficient data to enable insights into the key factors that affect a teacher evaluation process, and, it facilitates recommendations to inform future teacher evaluation procedures within schools. The value of The Australian Professional Standards for Teachers, for the purpose of a teacher evaluation process, are that they present a framework upon which to base judgements around teacher performance, they create a structure for the provision of feedback, they offer a common language across school staff, and finally, they provide clarity around what teachers are expected to know and do as part of their professional role. Findings from this studyrevealed a number of themes and suggest that the evaluation mechanism itself, and inclusion of The Australian Professional Standards for Teachers as part of any evaluation mechanism, are secondary to a range of other important factors including: the relationship that the teacher has with their evaluator; the skills of the evaluator; and the addition of a developmental plan post evaluation. Based on these findings, recommendations for teacher evaluation processes are; for a common understanding of quality teaching across the school; data to inform feedback needs to be from a wide range of sources, be ongoing, and both formal and informal; sufficient time should be set aside to do the process well; the evaluator must have the experience to interpret the data correctly; and finally, the evaluator must have the skills and training to deliver feedback in an effective manner.