Establishing the Field of Teacher Effectiveness Research: Moving from Investigating Personal Characteristics of Teachers to Understanding Effective Teaching Practices

Abstract

Based on an analysis of the progress that teacher effectiveness research has made, a critical review of the different phases of the field is provided. It is shown that during the last century, we gradually moved from studies focusing on the teacher as a role model for his/her students to those aiming to understand effective teaching practices that promote student learning and learning outcomes. One of the major contributions of this field of research is that some assumptions about the importance of teachers' personal characteristics, such as teacher personality and experience, in relation to student learning are not empirically supported, and the importance of teacher behaviour in the classroom is demonstrated. However, three conceptual problems concerning teacher effectiveness in the literature are identified. These are the limited conceptions of teaching, the need to search for relationships among teacher factors and the disconnection of teacher effectiveness research from research on teachers' professional development. We argue that a solution to these problems can be found by establishing a dynamic approach to teacher professional development.