Editorial: An attempt to anchor our moving targets

School Science and Mathematics, Feb 2001 by Lederman, Norman G, Niess, Margaret L

In the December issue of School Science and Mathematics, we attempted to elaborate upon the problem of teacher evaluation. When discussions of evaluation are pursued, the issue of teacher education is almost sure to follow close behind. That is, if it hasn't preceded the discussion of evaluation.

Often this discussion manifests itself in terms of "friendly" debates among colleagues across campus about the relative values of generic and subject-specific pedagogy. Does this sound familiar? Indeed, the responses we received from readers related to the December editorial have convinced us that a more in-depth discussion of the history of research on teaching would be helpful to members of the School Science and Mathematics Association, especially when they have the "pleasure" of engaging in such debates.

Of related interest, included in this issue is a bibliography by Lederman of the empirical and theoretical literature on subject-specific pedagogy. Such a listing does not exist elsewhere. And, in the Research Into Practice section, Niess has published a specific example ofa science and mathematics subject-specific teacher preparation program highlighting a theme of technology.

The history of the knowledge base for effective teaching can be conveniently divided into six phases of empirical research extending back to the 1920s. The first phase assumed "effectiveness" to be a consequence of personality traits or characteristics of the teacher, the second phase focused on teaching methods, the third related teacher behaviors to student learning, the fourth focused on the mastering of a repertoire of competencies, and the fifth focused on teachers' abilities to use competencies appropriately (i. e., professional decision-making). The sixth phase, which characterizes the current wisdom, has focused on the importance of the interaction of a set of knowledge domains that results in clearly delineated subject-specific instructional knowledge and skills.

Presage Variables

The earliest research on effective teaching set out to describe the characteristics differentiating more effective teachers from less effective teachers. The currently common techniques for the measurement of mental abilities, personality traits, attitudes, and similar factors were unavailable in the early 1900s, so researchers simply asked students to describe effective teachers they had known. The results were various lists of traits attributed to teachers regarded as effective. Some of the most common characteristics included "makes greater demands of students," "has more teaching skill," "has more knowledge of subject matter," and "has better discipline."

This approach to establishing the knowledge domain for effective teaching eventually moved from using the feedback of students to using the opinions of experts on teaching. During the 1920s, the top six attributes of an effective teacher were considered to be good judgment, self-control, considerateness, enthusiasm, magnetism, and adaptability. By 1930, the list of common attributes had been revised to include cooperation (helpfulness, loyalty), personal magnetism, personal appearance, breadth and intensity, considerateness, and leadership.

It is important to note that all of these lists characterized teachers perceived as effective. In no instance was any evidence gathered to document that teachers possessing the listed characteristics were actually more effective in helping students achieve educational goals. Consequently, there was a call for more sound research from which a knowledge base for teacher education programs could be derived.

Methods of Teaching

The intuitive recognition that what a teacher does is far more important than what a teacher is gave direction to those wishing to establish a reliable knowledge base for teacher education. It was agreed that students in a preservice program need to learn not what they should be, but what they must do in order to be effective. This notion led to a series of what were known as "methods experiments. " In a typical "experiment" two or more classes were taught using different methods and the mean gains in knowledge of the classes were compared to establish the relative effectiveness of the teaching methods. The results ofthis type of research were mixed and inconclusive. In retrospect, it appears that most of these investigations suffered from a particularly fatal flaw. That is, they were designed to use the student as the unit of analysis as opposed to using the teacher. Consequently, no valid generalizations to teachers other than those actually participating in the investigation could be made.

Process-Product Research

By the 1960s it had become clear that sound research on teacher effectiveness must focus on both teacher behavior and on pupil learning. The focus of this research was not on teacher characteristics, but on stable behavior patterns that have been referred to as "teaching styles" or "dimensions of classroom climate." The assumed importance of stability was critical to this approach of establishing a knowledge base for effective teaching. Teachers' behaviors were observed on random occasions, and the researchers searched for patterns of behavior that were stable across observations. These patterns were then correlated with student achievement, as measured by a variety of standardized assessments. In addition to educators being able to establish, for the first time, a link between teacher behavior and student learning, it was also noted that many of the behavior patterns could be taught to teachers and/or modified in certain ways. The patterns of teacher behavior and classroom climate initially identified as distinguishing effective and ineffective teachers included clarity, variability, enthusiasm, task-oriented or businesslike, criticism, teacher indirectness, student opportunity to learn criterion materials, and use of structuring comments.