Search

Professional standards are increasingly being used internationally as the basis of teacher performance and as a mechanism to progress teacher quality. Concurrently, teacher assessment practices continue to be highlighted in many countries as an area in need of further professional development. In this paper, we analyse the assessment focus within the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APSTs), as an example of one nation's articulation of the expected performance and development of assessment literacies across a teaching career. Through a conceptual framework of proficiency progression based on the work of researchers such as Dreyfus and Dreyfus, we employ text analysis and a visualisation methodology to explore meanings and patterns in Standard 5: "Assess, provide feedback and report on student learning." Using diagrammatic representations, we show the relationships between terms in the APST statements and how progression of expertise is constructed. The analysis identifies the areas of alignment between the APSTs and the proficiency framework, as well as the areas where the APSTs could be improved and could be more reflective of models of proficiency progression. We offer suggestions for advancing the description of professional standards to encapsulate models of proficiency in efforts to meet the expectations for assessment literate teachers.

This article outlines the research design of a large-scale, longitudinal research study in England intended to describe and explore variations in teachers' work, lives and their effects on pupils' educational outcomes. The study, funded by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) and incorporated into the Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP) as an "Associate Project", used an innovative mixed-methods research design to create case studies of 300 teachers in Years 2, 6 and 9. The research was conducted over three consecutive academic years and collected a wide range of data through interviews, questionnaire surveys of teachers' and pupils' views and assessment data on pupils' attainments in English and mathematics. The text summarises the main findings from the research in relation to four interconnected themes of the study: Professional Life Phases; Professional Identity; Relative Effectiveness; and Resilience and Commitment. The influence of school context, in terms of level of social disadvantage of pupil intake, is also investigated. Key findings and their implications for policy and practice are highlighted. (Contains 1 table and 5 figures.)

The VITAE project is a four-year (2001-2005) research study, commissioned by the Department for Education and Skills, conducted with 300 teachers in 100 schools in seven local education authorities in England. The project aimed to identify factors that may affect their work and lives over time and how these factors may, in turn, impact on their teaching and subsequent pupil progress and outcomes. It combined quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection and analysis in order to define and examine notions of teachers' relational and relative effectiveness. The first part of the paper addresses the nature of effectiveness and three key themes relating to the changing contexts of teachers' work, lives and effectiveness: the challenge of reform to notions of professionalism; professional identities; changes in teachers' work and lives. The research design and early findings and their effects upon the development of the research form the second part. The final part of the paper discusses three sets of understandings which are fundamental to any consideration of teachers' work, lives and effectiveness: relative and relational effectiveness; teacher identities; teachers' life and work contexts. The research suggests that policy-makers, school leaders and teachers themselves need to attend to these if teacher recruitment, retention and standards are to improve. (Contains 3 tables, 5 figures and 5 notes.)

VITAE was a four-year research project designed to explore the work and lives of a purposive sample of 300 Key Stage 1, 2 and 3 (English and maths) teachers at different phases of their careers in 100 primary and secondary schools in different socioeconomic contexts, drawn from seven local authorities in England. Its focus was upon identifying variations in different aspects of teachers' lives and work and examining possible connections between these and their effects on pupils as perceived by the teachers themselves and as measured by value-added national test scores. An integrated mixed-method approach was developed in addressing the research questions. The results showed that there were associations between teachers' work, lives and identities, that teachers' perceived and relative (value-added) effectiveness varied within each of six professional life phases, and that this variation depended upon their capacity to manage a number of moderating and mediating factors. Statistically significant relationships were found between teacher commitment, resilience and the value-added pupil test scores. The findings from the study shed new light upon the meanings and measurement of teacher effectiveness and the complex nature and trajectories of teachers' work, lives and effectiveness in different school contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]