Higher Education Reform

Seeking a Better Way to Evaluate Teachers

August 11, 2016 1553

Teacher in action

Robert Pianta finds that students do better when their teachers engage in “responsive teaching,” by providing strong emotional support, instructional support for specific concepts, and clear classroom organization and management. (Photo: Intel Free Press/Flickr/CC BY 2.0)

All parents want great teachers for their children, and policymakers have come to make teacher quality a priority, as mounting research confirms that teachers have a big impact on student learning. But deciding who is, and isn’t, a great teacher has proven complex and contentious. Robert C. Pianta’s research cuts through the noise and provides some much-needed clarity on a murky issue. His studies show that how teachers relate to and interact with students is a strong predictor of student success, as he summarizes in a recent article for Policy Insights for the Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

Sadly, Pianta has found that the quality of teacher-student relationships is generally low, but he has developed some promising ways to improve those relationships and the student outcomes that depend on them.

PIBBS cover

The Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, or FABBS, with SAGE, the parent of Social Science Space, publishes the journal Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences. This journal features research findings in the sciences of mind, brain, and behavior that are applicable to nearly every area of public policy. The third issue features 18 articles focused on education research.

For generations, policymakers and school leaders assumed they could judge teachers based on gut feelings, or they relied on checklists of classroom practices. Then as a movement grew to reward good teachers and remove bad ones, student performance on standardized tests became a popular marker of teacher effectiveness. But few of these methods have been supported by research showing that they actually separate the wheat from the chaff. Pianta’s work is different, both because of the level of rigorous research he has conducted and because of the elements of teaching on which he focuses.

Pianta and his colleagues look beyond what educators teach to how they do it. They find that students (especially at-risk students) do better when their teachers engage in “responsive teaching,” by providing strong emotional support (for example, being warm and encouraging), instructional support for specific concepts, and clear classroom organization and management. Teachers vary quite a bit from one classroom to another, and the same teacher can vary in her own level of support from day to day or from one class period to the next. But those with more consistently high scores have students who perform better and are more well-adjusted.

Those kinds of scores are not easy to come by in today’s schools, however. “The quality of students’ interactions with teachers is, on average, modest at best,” Pianta writes, citing evidence that high percentages of students say teachers don’t understand or support them and their needs. In one large national study of first, third, and fifth grade teachers, trained observers found that:

  • Less than 10 percent of students had teachers who scored highly on emotional and instructional support;
  • Students had few opportunities to interact directly with their teachers; more than 85 percent of teacher-student interactions were in teacher-directed, whole-group instruction or individual seatwork;
  • Teachers failed to provide helpful feedback to students;
  • Student engagement was “generally passive and compliance oriented;” and
  • Classroom activities tended to focus on basic skills rather than analysis or problem solving.

Fortunately, Pianta and his colleagues have translated their findings into promising methods for improving teacher-student relationships and teacher quality. A validated evaluation measure called the CLASS (Classroom Assessment Scoring System) that assesses emotional, instructional, and organizational support is increasingly used in classrooms, especially to evaluate preschool teachers. In fact, it is now required in Head Start centers recompeting for funding. And Pianta and his collaborators have also developed models for coaching teachers on how to improve on the CLASS dimensions. Some districts employ mentor teachers who use the CLASS as a framework for helping teachers strengthen their practice.

For those without such supports, Pianta and his colleagues created a program called My Teaching Partner, which allows teachers to videotape their teaching, send it to a coach, and receive feedback via phone or Internet. The approach has impressive results, including greater gains in student literacy skills and decreases in problem behavior. A study of 500 preschool teachers also found that teachers provided more and better feedback and support for critical thinking.

The CLASS and My Teaching Partner are being used to good effect in schools around the country, but they are far from universal. As teachers’ unions and state legislators do battle over using standardized test scores for teacher bonuses and teacher firings, Pianta’s work might give them pause. Teacher observations are both costly and time intensive, but perhaps it’s time to invest in better teacher evaluation to get better student results.


Suzanne Bouffard is a writer with a passion for making social science research accessible to the general public. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Parents, the Harvard Education Letter, and other outlets, and she is the winner of a 2013 Solutions Journalism Network grant. She holds a Ph.D. in psychology from Duke University.

View all posts by Suzanne Bouffard

Related Articles

Norman B. Anderson, 1955-2024: Pioneering Psychologist and First Director of OBSSR
Impact
March 4, 2024

Norman B. Anderson, 1955-2024: Pioneering Psychologist and First Director of OBSSR

Read Now
New Feminist Newsletter The Evidence Makes Research on Gender Inequality Widely Accessible
Impact
March 4, 2024

New Feminist Newsletter The Evidence Makes Research on Gender Inequality Widely Accessible

Read Now
New Podcast Series Applies Social Science to Social Justice Issues
Impact
February 28, 2024

New Podcast Series Applies Social Science to Social Justice Issues

Read Now
The Importance of Using Proper Research Citations to Encourage Trustworthy News Reporting
Impact
February 26, 2024

The Importance of Using Proper Research Citations to Encourage Trustworthy News Reporting

Read Now
Addressing the United Kingdom’s Lack of Black Scholars

Addressing the United Kingdom’s Lack of Black Scholars

In the UK, out of 164 university vice-chancellors, only two are Black. Professor David Mba was recently appointed as the first Black vice-chancellor […]

Read Now
Connecting Legislators and Researchers, Leads to Policies Based on Scientific Evidence

Connecting Legislators and Researchers, Leads to Policies Based on Scientific Evidence

The author’s team is developing ways to connect policymakers with university-based researchers – and studying what happens when these academics become the trusted sources, rather than those with special interests who stand to gain financially from various initiatives.

Read Now
Your Data Likely Isn’t Best Served in a Pie Chart

Your Data Likely Isn’t Best Served in a Pie Chart

Overall, it is best to use pie charts sparingly, especially when there is a more “digestible” alternative – the bar chart.

Read Now
0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments