THE IMPACT OF TEACHING PRACTICE AND ATTITUDES TO TEACHING ON STUDENT EFFECTIVENESS

It is a well-known fact that, among the factors which can be influenced by teaching policy in teaching quality, teachers’ work is what effects the development of student achievement the most. Much of the previous empiric research focusing on the quality of pedagogues’ work measured effectiveness through students’ academic performance or test results. Majority of the studies related to the topic analysed the impact of more easily measured factors, such as practice time, level of qualification, etc.; only few of the studies undertook the analysis of the impact of direct and more difficult to measure classroom practices and attitudes. Research results imply that a constructivist attitude develops the students’ thinking and reasoning skills far more efficiently than a direct knowledge transfer approach.

Our primary research question is what the relationship is between classroom practices, forms of cooperation between teachers, pedagogues’ attitude to teaching and student performance is. The basis of our study is a database (N=2934) evolved by linking Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) data from 2008 and Hungary’s National Assessment of Basic Competencies (NABC) data also from 2008, which enables a study on the level of campus. In our research, we analysed the impact of pedagogues’ attitude to teaching, classroom teaching practices and teachers’ cooperation on student performance with multivariable statistical methods, completing the model with the usual characteristic variables (gender, age, qualification, etc.).

We measured student effectiveness with two variables:
(1) students’ actual test results and
(2) the deviation from adjusted test results expected based on social background (“added value”).

Our findings suggest that there is significant correlation between soft characteristics and their impact on student effectiveness, in other words, the quality of education to a large extent depends on pedagogues’ approach to teaching and learning, as well as on teaching practice and cooperation between teachers.

In the near future we are planning to repeat and expand our study with new data, the basis of which will be provided by the linking the results of Hungary’s National Assessment of Basic Competencies (NABC) and that of a wide national pedagogue research currently underway.

/This research was supported by the European Union and the State of Hungary, co-financed by the European Social Fund in the framework of TÁMOP-4.2.4.A/2-11/1-2012-0001 ‘National Excellence Program’./