Study on Competency Model of an effective teacher

The paper builds on comprehensive review of 13 research papers and a book on teachers’ competencies on basis of which a Competency Model of an effective teacher has been suggested that can be used during recruitment, training, and performance appraisal and also can be used as a mean for compensation of a teacher. Competencies of an Effective teacher Model has been categorized into three categories as shown in the above diagram which are as follows: Concern for College, Concern for Self and Concern for Students. Therefore, this paper produces data on what attributes in today’s academic market place and in particular in classroom produces effective teachers.

INTRODUCTION:

Education has become essential these days. But along with it there are several challenges of education as well which require change in the quality and structure of education. For this integration of education with corporate sector is required for which course contents needs to be upgraded. But this is not sufficient as teachers are the education providers they play a vital role in bridging the gap between what is now available in the form of curriculum and the demands of the corporate world. Hence teachers should therefore react to the changing scenario and equip themselves to meet the need of the hour. Hence this paper identifies competencies (behavioural indicators) required for an effective teaching according to the changing scenario.

Therefore, this paper produces data on what attributes in today’s academic market place and in particular in classroom produces effective teachers. The theory being, the more effective the teacher the better prepared the student is for tomorrow’s challenges, not yesterdays and the more competitive the school can make itself. The paper will first review the literature highlighting competencies [behavioral indicators] of effective teacher given by other researchers.

First it is important to understand the word competency. A competency is an underlying characteristic of an individual that is causally related to criterion-referenced effective and/or superior performance in a job or situation [1]

Underlying characteristic means the competency is a fairly deep and enduring part of person’s personality and can predict behavior.

Causally related means that a competency causes or predicts behavior and performance.

Criterion-referenced means that the competency actually predicts who does something well or poor, as measured on a specific criterion or standard.

The history of competency can be traced to the early 1970s when industrial psychologists and human resource managers were seeking ways to predict job performance. There was significant evidence to show that personality testing was very poor at predicting job performance (about 10 percent success rate was achievable). In 1973, David McClelland, Professor of Psychology at Harvard University wrote a seminal paper “Testing for Competence Rather than for Intelligence,” which appeared in American Psychologist in 1973 [2], that created a stir in the field of psychology (McClelland, 1973). According to his research, traditional academic aptitude and knowledge content tests seldom predict on-job performance. He went on to argue that the real predictors of job performance are a set of underlying personal characteristics or ‘competencies’. McClelland’s concept of competency has been the key driver of the competency movement and competency-based education.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Attempts to define teacher behaviors have blossomed into a movement known as Competency-based teacher education (or Performance based Teacher Education). The State of Florida has been a leader in identification of generic teaching competencies and in the movement of competency-based teacher education. In 1975 the Council on Teacher Education (COTE), spearheaded a project to identify those competencies which are most essential to all teachers. 48 generic competencies consistently appeared in the search was selected for a final survey instrument. A random sample of 5 percent of all certified personnel in the state were asked to rate the competencies. 23 competencies met the specified acceptance criteria. The 23 generic competencies were grouped into 5 major categories namely communication skills, basic knowledge, technical skills, administrative skills and interpersonal skills. The state of Florida has included the 23 generic competencies in state policies requiring all personnel to demonstrate them in order to be certified as a teacher in the state [3].

A few of the sub-skills under each of the five major categories are as follows: Communication Skills, Basic Knowledge, Technical Skills, Administrative Skills and Interpersonal Skills.

Peter F Oliva [3] has described an effective teacher as one whom:

Is fully prepared in his or her subject

Has a broad general education

Understands the role of a school in the society

Holds an adequate concept of himself or herself

Understands basic principles of learning process

Demonstrate effective techniques of instruction

Efficiently handles the management of the classroom

Possesses personal characteristics conducive to the success in the classroom

A similar list has been developed by Kenneth P Henson [3] of an effective teacher as one whom:

Is interested in students as individuals

Has patience and is willing to repeat

Displays fairness

Explains things thoroughly

Is humorous

Is open minded

Is informal

Does not feel superior

Knows the subject

Is interested in the subject

Is neat in appearance

Similarly Dwight Allen and Kevin Ryan [3] have given skills which are generic or common to teachers at all level as follows: Stimulus variation, Set induction, Closure, Silence and Non-Verbal Clues, Reinforcement of Student participation, Fluency in asking question, Probing question, High order question, Divergent question, Recognizing attending behavior, Illustrating and using examples, Lecturing, Planned Repetition, Completeness of communication

Teachers Competency has been defined as any particular knowledge, skill, or attitude or any set or combination of them that we may choose to specify (Donald M Medley & Patricia R Crock). The knowledge specified may involve subject-matter knowledge, general knowledge, knowledge of psychology, sociology or one of the other disciplines, knowledge of pedagogy-any knowledge that may enhance teacher performance. Skills specified may also relate to content, to writing and speaking skills, to skills in arithmetic, they may be perpetual or diagnostic in nature, they may be performance skills such as those involved in lecturing, leading a discussion or planning instruction, they may be related to deployment of knowledge and skills of other types, or to the integration and implementation of complex strategies. Attitudes specified may pertain to the self, to pupils, to colleagues and to the profession, to values, or whatever [4].

A recent Research in 2008 by Faculty of Education, Adnan Menderes University, Turkey aimed to determine the teachers competencies Turkey needs in the European Union harmonization process [5]. The research used Delphi technique to determine the teacher’s competencies. Delphi application was completed by participation of 37 experts. As a result of analysis of the third round data removal of items with a standard deviation above 1 and arithmetic average below 6, 142 competency items were obtained. Removal and combination of overlapping opinions was done and hence 137 competency items were obtained. The competencies were divided into four competency categories which are as follows:

Competencies Regarding Professional Knowledge

“Competencies Regarding Field Knowledge”,

“Competencies Regarding Improving Oneself”,

“Competencies Regarding National and International Values”.

Competencies Regarding Professional Knowledge were addressed in five categories as follows:

Professional Competencies Regarding Getting to Know the Students and Enabling Their Improvement

Professional Competencies regarding the process of learning-teaching process

Professional competencies regarding monitoring and evaluating learning and improvement

Professional Competencies regarding School, Family, Colleagues and Society Relations

Professional Competencies Regarding the Programme and Content

(Abdul Rahim Hamdan et al, Faculty of Education, University of Malaysia) studied the teaching competency and dominant characteristics of 309 teachers from different secondary / primary schools in Johor Bahru [6]. Their competencies were determined through teaching skills, concern for school, concern for students and concern for self, forming a comprehensive and practical model of teachers’ competency characteristics. Factor analyses of the instrument with various samples revealed 19 stable subscales. Skills Scales were divided into seven sub-scales. There were scales on Subject Knowledge, Teaching Prowess, Classroom Management, Updating Knowledge, Instructional Planning, Teaching Effectiveness; and Teaching and Learning’s Progress Evaluation. Concern for School Scales was divided into five sub-skills. There were testing on teachers’ concern on School Vision and Mission, Objectives and Goals, School Policy and System, Collegiality and Commitment. Scales on Concern for Student were divided into four sub-scales. There were testing on teachers’ concern on Student Needs, Academic Performance, Motivation and Behavior. Concern for Self Scales was divided into three sub-scales. There were testing on teachers’ concern on Self-Development, Self Management and Performance Standard. The most dominant competency of the teachers was in concern for school scales followed by skills, concern for self and concern for students. The result showed that there is significant relationship between gender and teaching competency. The result for the ethnic and teaching competency showed that there is no relationship between ethnic and teaching competency in this study. The data analysis showed that there is no relationship between teaching experience and teaching competency. The result also showed that there is no significant relationship between academic qualification and teaching competency. Thus, it can be summarized that, teachers with higher academic qualification does not mean more competent in teaching.

(Naree Aware Achwarin, R.N., Ed.D., Graduate School of Education, Assumption University of Thailand) aimed to determine the teacher competence level and investigate the relationship between teacher qualification, teaching experience, and school size and teacher competence of teachers at schools in the three southern border provinces of Thailand [7]. The method of survey research was used through questionnaire. The unit of analysis was teachers, 750 were selected by simple random sampling methods from nine educational regions, 18 secondary schools, under the Basic Education Commission of Thailand (OBEC) at Narathiwas, Pattani, and Yala province. The instrument used for collecting data was a questionnaire, constructed by the researcher, employing the professional standards of knowledge and experience from the Teacher Council of Thailand (2005) containing nine competence areas. The Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient for the reliability was 0.96. The content validity was evaluated by five experts in the field of Educational Administration. The findings revealed ‘Teachership’ was the highest teacher competence. In order from the highest to the lowest of nine competence areas, the ranking was teachership; psychology for teachers; educational measurement and evaluation; classroom management; learning management; educational innovation and information technology, language and technology for teachers; curriculum development; and educational research.

(Earl Simendinger & Bella Galperin, The University of Tampa & Daniel R. LeClair, AACSB International & A.G. (Tassos) Malliaris, Loyola University) described the design, development and delivery of this curriculum [8]. The objective and what the reader can expect to learn from this work is what are the most important attributes of effective business teachers. Incorporating these attributes into course design and delivery should lead to improvements in teaching effectiveness and student’s evaluation scores, which results in students better prepared for the business field.

In addition to it, reviewing the past literature in particular, student evaluations have received the most attention- this statement shows the gap that competencies derived about the teachers were basically based on student perception not on the basis of management, professor and industry professions.

(Kirk Tennant & Charles Lawrence, 1975) focused upon teaching strategies and scheduled class hours and their effects upon instructor and course evaluations, student performance, and student absenteeism [9]. The study indicated that discipline teaching strategy produced much better student academic performance. This study indicates that in those situations in which student performance was considered a primary goal, a discipline teaching strategy should be adopted. In all cases the finding suggest that a discipline teaching strategy will improve both attendance and performance. In this multisection course, classes scheduled at good hours had higher student attendance, better student performance, and more favorable teacher evaluation by students.

(William J. Read, Dasaratha V. Rama & K. Raghunandan, 2001) surveyed administrators of accounting programs from a cross-section of schools and programs to determine whether there is an association between the weight given to teaching and the weight assigned to SEs [10]. The respondents were asked to allocate 100 points among research, service and teaching representing the weights that were attached to each in decision on tenure and promotion to full professor in their institution. The Result showed a statistically significant inverse relationship between the weight given to SEs and the weight assigned to teaching in faculty evaluations for tenure and promotion to full professor. This suggests that as institutions increase the relative emphasis on teaching in their tenure decision and promotion to full professor decision, they place significantly less weight on Student Evaluation.

(Stephen A. Stumpf et al, New York University) investigated the’ relationships among several variables outside of the instructor’s classroom control and student ratings of teaching effectiveness are investigated in a causal network [11]. The student ratings are relatively independent of external variables. Variables external to the construct of student perceived learning include: (a) variables that students do not agree relate to their learning, (b) variables that the instructor cannot control with his or her instructional efforts within a class (e.g., instructor sex, class size), and (c) variables that students cannot observe and thus cannot accurately evaluate. A hierarchical multiple regression analysis was performed; the six independent variables account for a statistically insignificant 9% of rating variance. The set of six external variables were then entered into a regression equation already containing the three intrinsic variables (instructor in class, instructor in general and graded assignments). The additional variance accounted for is .6%, indicating that no unique contribution is made by any or all of the external variables. The variables were instructor sex, the year the instructor received her/his last degree, instructor rank, proportion of required courses that an instructor taught over the two semester period and class size.

(Dr Paul Isely & Dr Harinder Singh) analyzed different factors that influence student evaluations, based on large set of data, reveals that class size, the difficulty of the class, the percentage of students responding, and the length of class are important determinants of students perception [12]. Moreover, although higher expected grades results in more favorable student evaluations, this relationship is significantly different depending upon faculty rank. Based on these findings, the author makes two policy recommendations. First, student evaluations of teaching should be adjusted for specific major determinants to obtain less biased estimates. Second, evaluating teaching effectiveness by a broad teaching portfolio that includes actual grades given to students and other teaching supplements may discourage faculty from exploiting the relationship between higher expected grades and favorable student evaluations.

(James E. Whitworth, et al, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, Georgia) analyzed 12,153 student faculty evaluations to investigate the effects of: (a) Faculty member gender (b) Course type (required business core courses, classes within designated majors, or graduate classes) (c) Course level (graduate versus undergraduate classes) on student faculty evaluations [13]. The authors explored the effect of these three factors on students’ perceptions of how much they learned in particular classes. They found that female instructors rated better than male ones and that rating differed significantly by course type and by students’ perceived amount of learning. Graduate students tended to give higher scores than undergraduates. These findings could indicate that comparing evaluation data across different courses might not produce valid overall effectiveness rankings.

(Richard L. Peterson et al, Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ)conducted a study within a large department of a business school and recommends that the process used be adapted by other business school departments and other academic units across the university and at other universities to ensure a more universally appropriate usage of students’ ratings [14]. The central objective of the research was to identify variables that provide a valid rationale for assigning faculty into norming groups for the purpose of comparing one member of that group to all other members of that group. Given the objective and the data set they had available, they selected the following six variables to explore: Semester Effect, Course Session Effect, Faculty Type Effect, Course Level Effect, Course Focus Effect & Course Type. Overall, this study makes two primary contributions to the literature. First, it provides an empirical examination of the factors that might be influencing students’ ratings. Second, it offers suggestions on how these ratings might be used by administrators. These two contributions offer more evidence that supports Brightman’s (2005) recommendations that any evaluation instrument focused on faculty teaching must be reliable and valid and have a meaningful norming report.

COMPETENCY MODEL OF AN EFFECTIVE TEACHER

A Competency Model of an Effective Teacher has been obtained after reviewing the literature and also by using Competency Dictionary obtained by colleagues of Richard Boyatzis in 1981 which was obtained by analyzing the data [i.e transcripts of behavioral event interviews] from a number of competency studies which produced set of competencies that consistently distinguished superior performance across organizations and functions [1]

COMPETENCY MODEL OF EFFECTIVE TEACHER

Concern for Self

Concern for College

Competencies of an Effective Teacher

Concern for Students

Figure 1: Competency Model of an Effective Teacher

Competencies of an Effective teacher can be categorized into three categories as shown in the above diagram which are as follows: Concern for College, Concern for Self and Concern for Students. As teacher has duty towards for College it is defined as the first category where teacher’s competencies are adoption of College Vision and Mission, teacher should be committed towards his/her work, a teacher should be high on competencies like credibility, integrity and sincerity. Next comes the category Concern for Self which is very important as teacher always carry these competencies such as teacher should be high on analytical thinking, conceptual thinking, also have good meta qualities such as creativity, teacher should have excellent communication skills, should always be information seeking, should have self-control, self-confidence, be flexible, achievement oriented, open and receptive and most important is that teacher should be able to balance work and his/her life perfectly. Coming to Concern for Students teacher should have competencies like interpersonal understanding, should be able to influence others, should be good in developing others and should be assertive when required.

The three categories have been diagrammatically represented below:

The broad areas of Competencies under this category are:

Organizational Awareness, Adaption & Commitment

Concern For Order, Quality And Accuracy

The competencies can be as follows: Mission Orientation, Commitment to work contract, Ethical conduct and Credibility, integrity and sincerity

Concern for College

Figure2: Concern for College Competencies

The broad areas of Competencies under this category are:

Analytical Thinking

Conceptual Thinking

Meta Qualities

Communication

Knowledge and Information Orientation

Self-Control & Persistence

Flexibility

Achievement and Action

Being open and receptive

Being organized

Work Life Balance

The competencies can be as follows: Reasoning, Ability to Generate Theories, Creativity, Presentation skills, Resistance to Stress, Persistence, Strong Self-Concept, Adaptability, Result Orientation, Composure, Humor, Time Management, Work/Life Balance

Concern for Self

Figure 3: Concern for Self Competencies

The broad areas of Competencies under this category are:

Interpersonal Understanding

Impact and Influence

Developing Others

Being Directive

The competencies can be as follows: Empathy, Approachability, Sensitivity to Others, Interpersonal Savvy, Showmanship, Teaching and Training, Realistic Positive Regard, Motivating others, Classroom Control and Discipline, Assertive

Concern for Students

Figure 4: Concern for Students Competencies

USE OF COMPETENCY MODEL:

This Competency Model can be used for identifying policies for teacher training, Pre-service teacher training programs of institutions of higher education for teacher training, In-service training of teachers, Professional Development of Teachers, Selection of teachers, Evaluation of teacher performances, Self-knowledge and self-development of teachers.