Reframing teacher education: findings from a Delphi study on judging teaching effectiveness

Abstract

This study examines how teacher education could be reframed better to reflect the dynamic complexity of teaching effectiveness, addressing the redefinition of professionalism and professionalisation at a time of global teacher shortages and intensified standardisation pressures. Drawing on insights from an international Delphi panel, the study critiques prevailing evaluation practices and advocates for a relational, context-sensitive, and collaborative approach to assessing new teachers. Guided by Social Judgment Theory and Complexity Theory, the Delphi process explored how professional judgement might be enhanced to ensure greater reliability without reducing teaching to technical competencies or checklist models. Key findings emphasise the essential interplay of competencies, dispositions, and relational skills; the critical need to professionalise the role of mentor teachers; and the value of robust, school–university partnerships. The panel warned against reductive, data-driven models of evaluation and called for sustained, developmental assessment processes grounded in humanising, ethical values. In doing so, the study highlights a significant redefinition of teacher professionalism: from individual, technocratic performance towards collective, intergenerational responsibility centred on trust, moral purpose, adaptive expertise, and human flourishing. By proposing a reframed vision of teacher education that foregrounds relational professionalism and complexity, the study offers a timely contribution to current debates about the evolving nature of the teaching profession and the conditions necessary for its renewal.