Abstract:

Recent trends in education have given attention to the quality of teaching. Quality teaching has become an issue of relevant importance, as the landscape of education has been facing multiple changes: increased international competition, economic crisis, increasing social and cultural diversity of students, introduction of technologies. The changes caused by globalization and worldwide immigration have modified students’ characteristics and highlighted the complexity of assessing human life and life skills. Student access to schools of all levels has increased and the social, cultural and linguistic diversity in classrooms is growing significantly.

The present research was set within the context of the province of Bolzano, in northern Italy, in which the majority of the population speaks German, around a quarter speaks Italian and a small minority has Ladin as first culture and language. Schools at all levels are separated according to language: only the Schools of the Ladin group are trilingual (German, Italian and Ladin).
The main aim of this study was to analyze the perception of teacher competence according to parents’ perceptions. We selected a sample of 3,669 parents. The sample was a three-stage stratified sample, representative of each school level (Pre-School, Primary, Secondary and High School) and of the three cultural and linguistic Groups.

The objectives of the study were the following:
a1) To determine the perceptions of parents about the ‘essential’ competences in teaching (Essential Competences).
a2) To identify the competences ranked as ‘high’ by parents (Significant Competences).
b1) To identify the competences ranked as ‘quite high’ by parents (Intermediate ranked competences).
b2) To identify the competences ranked as ‘low’ by parents (Low ranked competences).
c) To identify the competences ranked as ‘very’ low by parents (Very low ranked competences).

Each parent received a self-administered questionnaire which included questions about different competencies: disciplinary, didactic, managerial and organizational competences, communication skills with students and students’ families, personal aspects.
Univariate statistics were used to describe the sample and examine the distributions of variables of interest. The association between categorical variables was assessed by a Pearson Chi-square test. Factor analysis was utilized to explain the variables in terms of their common underlying dimensions (factors). Factor analysis is a collection of methods used to examine how underlying constructs influence the responses on a number of measured variables. Factor analysis offers not only the possibility of gaining a clear view of the data, but also enables use of the output in subsequent analyses (Field 2000; Rietveld & Van Hout 1993).

The results highlighted the importance of teachers’ knowledge and their ability to teach with enthusiasm, motivate the students, involve the family, respect differences and manage the classroom effectively. Moreover, on the basis of the data provided, the maps show very significant differences regarding perceptions of teacher competences in the three linguistic and cultural communities – Italian, German and Ladin – living in the South Tyrol. We can see a polarization (an opposite mirroring) between the German and Italian language groups. The position of the Ladin language group tends to be intermediate.