The role of teacher characteristics in an educational standards reform

Abstract

The policy of performance standards aims for quality improvement in schools by stimulating teachers to plan and organize their teaching according to competence-based performance standards (competence-based teaching) and to use performance data feedback from national standard-based assessments for evidence-based teaching development. The research so far indicates that many teachers seem to make less use of performance standards and data feedback than expected and to use it in partly unintended ways. Cognitive adaption theory suggests that the reaction of individuals to change is strongly influenced by individual characteristics. In particular, self-efficacy, locus of control, and positive affectivity have been found to foster openness to change and therefore enable participation in change. Following this approach, the paper explores to what extent teachers’ use of performance standards and data feedback can be linked to individual dispositions such as self-efficacy, perceived control, and positive affectivity. Using data from Austrian primary teachers, the results suggest that self-efficacy and positive affectivity foster openness to the educational standards reform which in turn increases the likelihood of teachers’ participation in competence-oriented teaching and data use.