Student Perceptions of Secondary Education Teaching Effectiveness: General Profile, the Role of Personal Factors, and Educational Level

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine student perceptions of teaching behavior. Additionally the aim was to examine if teacher characteristics (educational level, gender, and teaching experience) could explain differences in student perceptions of their teachers. Teaching behavior was studied from the research on teaching and teacher effectiveness perspective. Secondary students (N = 7,114), taught by 410 teachers in Spain, participated in the study. Survey data were analyzed using non-parametric tests, Kruskal–Wallis, U Mann–Whitney with Bonferroni correction, and the analysis of effect sizes. Furthermore, a regression model was applied. Results showed that teaching behavior was perceived as sufficient to good, depending on the teaching behavior domain. Results indicated interesting differences between lower secondary education, upper secondary education and vocational education and training teachers. The effect size values (rU statistic) ranged between 0.43 and 0.63, highlighting the significant effect of teachers’ teaching experience on the six teaching skills domains: learning climate, efficient classroom management, clarity of instruction, activating teaching, differentiation, and teaching learning strategies. Those teachers with less teaching experience were the ones who showed higher scores. Findings from the regression model showed that educational level had a significant predictive effect on the six teaching skills domains, mainly for male teachers. However, in several domains female teachers were perceived by students to outperform their male counterparts.

Student Perceptions in Measuring Teaching Behavior Across Six Countries: A Multi-Group Confirmatory Factor Analysis Approach to Measurement Invariance

“…They also rated their teachers higher on activating teaching compared to students in Netherlands, Turkey, and Indonesia. Reasons for this finding remain unclear due to the lack of systematic research on teaching behavior in the country (Fernández-García et al, 2019). The TALIS-PISA link study on teacher perceptions on their teaching behavior showed that Spanish teachers perceived activating teaching rather high as well, but they perceived rather low on teaching learning strategies (OECD, 2016a).…”

“…Student perceptions are a powerful tool for measuring effective teaching practices in the classroom (den Brok et al, 2006;König and Pflanzl, 2016). However, most studies on perceived effective teaching are limited to one particular setting/country (e.g., Opdenakker et al, 2012;Fernández-García et al, 2019). Although single-country studies can give valuable insights on effective teaching in general, the transferability of the findings to other country contexts is limited due to the lacking clarity regarding the relevance of the constructs in other diverse contexts.…”

“…Researchers addressing measurement invariance have so far focused on using classroom observations to measure effective teaching across countries (e.g., van de and across groups within a country (e.g. Jansen et al, 2013;Fernández-García et al, 2019). Consequently, the direct comparison of effective teaching based on student ratings cannot yet validly be made when measurement invariance is not established beforehand.…”

The Bottom-Line Mentality of Leaders in Education and Training Institutions: Where to Go for Innovation?

“…Thus, innovation is undoubtedly the most important thing. Also, in the highly competitive education industry, the educational innovation practice and reform of the education and training institutions undoubtedly become important ways to obtain sustained competitive advantages (Senior, 2016;Curzi et al, 2019;Doménech-Betoret et al, 2019;Fernández-García et al, 2019). With the rapid development of modern educational technology and educational information, many fruitful achievements have been made in Chinese educational undertakings.…”

How do teaching quality and pedagogical practice enhance vocational student engagement? A mixed-method classroom observation approach

“…It is reasonable to assume that the teaching quality for vocational education is equally important as it is for regular nonvocational education. For example, the perceived teaching behaviours were found to vary among secondary education, upper secondary and vocational education, but the variations existed because of teachers' educational level, at least among male teachers (Fernández-García et al , 2019). Furthermore, the professional knowledge and practice and patterns of vocational teacher education show a close relationship with the quality of professional reality of vocational teachers (Grollmann, 2008).…”