Profile of South African secondary-school teachers’ teaching quality: evaluation of teaching practices using an observation instrument

Abstract

The need for quality teaching is reflected in the poor performance of students in international tests. Teachers' practices and contextual factors could contribute to substandard quality of teaching in South Africa. Several studies indicate that successful learning is largely dependent on the teachers' practices in class. The focus of the present research was to profile the effective teaching practices of 424 secondary-school teachers in the Gauteng Province, South Africa. Teachers were observed by trained observers using a valid and reliable observation instrument measuring six domains of effective teaching practices. Results showed that teachers find it difficult to differentiate in class and to activate learning. Additionally, teachers with more than 15 years of teaching experience scored lower than teachers with less experience, in all six teaching domains. Presumably, experienced teachers may lack motivation and/or insufficient training in implementing interactive and differentiated teaching methods that are needed for effective teaching practices.

El acceso a la función pública docente en la Enseñanza Secundaria: un estudio sobre las estrategias utilizadas por los candidatos/as de la provincia de Gipuzkoa

“…Estrategias utilizadas por los candidatos/as Diferencias en cada ítem entre aprobados y suspendidos para afrontar las oposiciones), se puede constatar que los candidatos/as priorizan el diseño de la programación y las unidades didácticas, otorgando especial importancia a la legislación vigente, el desarrollo de competencias, la visión interdisciplinar del currículum y la evaluación. Diseñar la programación en función de la legislación vigente parece una estrategia sensata y coherente (García, Esteve, García, Pérez y Sala, 2010). En el estudio también se expresan opiniones de los docentes acerca de la escasa concreción de los criterios de evaluación de las pruebas.…”

Recasting & rethinking Education 01 in South Africa: Imperatives for making education more relevant, responsive, and authentic

“…Related to this, the school needs to be redesigned to give each individual scope for the promotion of his or her own capabilities (in the sense of the capabilities theory of Sen (2010), Nussbaum (2011), and others) instead of affording the privilege of (rather narrowminded) socialisation as a student exclusively to a selected few. Research in South Africa has shown that individual differentiation of learners by teachers is much wanting (De Jager, Coetzee, Maulana, Helms-Lorenz, & Van de Grift, 2017). The overcrowding of classrooms results in teachers' being frustrated that they cannot give individualised attention to each child (Muthusamy, 2015), but in the US the Report by Colangelo, Assouline, & Gross et al (2004) identified lack of individualisation as eventually costing the country dearly in terms of unrealised potential.…”

“…Before such changes can become a reality in the South African and global education system, a vast amount of valid and reliable research needs to be done. Many valuable projects, like, for example the research done by De Jager et al (2017) cited above, have already been completed and are on the way. The challenges facing South African and global education scholarship can also be summarised as is the case with education praxis, by a three-part descriptor-the need to become relevant, responsive, and truly authentic.…”

Mapeo sistemático de la literatura sobre evaluación docente (2013-2017)

“…The use of questionnaires [51,53], portfolios [56] and rubrics [75] are proposed as evaluation instruments. Methods incorporating networks for algorithmic calculations and evaluation [63] are included, that incorporate hierarchical process analysis, decision making [71], analysis of relationships and interactions between teachers and students by identifying gaps [89], observation [93], training for co-evaluation based on criteria [75], self-evaluation [3], comparison of scales for teacher evaluation [24] and evaluation of practices through data mining [64]. From an evaluative perspective, the phenomenological [60] and evaluation with a formative approach [14], are included.…”