Towards Creating a Feedback Loop: Assessing Perceptions of Teacher Preparedness and Beliefs About Student Learning Amongst Math Teachers, University Faculty, and School District Administrators
A specific area of analysis we explored this year was related to the alignment of
teacher perceptions and school district administrator perceptions of pre-service teacher
preparation programs since one of the questions examined was the congruence of preparation
with perceptions of preparation. Perhaps not surprisingly, in a number of areas,
math and science teachers reported feeling less than adequately prepared by their
pre-service programs. More interesting, however, are the differences between the
perceptions of teachers regarding their pre-service preparation and the perceptions of the
school district administrators who employ and supervise them, especially when those
differences are related to perceptions of being less than adequately prepared by math and
science teacher preparation programs.
The following tables
reflect the percentage of teacher respondents indicating that they were less
than adequately prepared by their universities both within their major and
within the education program for the skills noted along with school district administrator
responses for those questions. For all of the tables below, school administrators N
= 71, math teachers N = 108, and science teachers N = 72.
What is striking
in the first table is the difference in perceptions of underpreparedness between the
teachers themselves and the administrators. Regarding the first issue in the
chart, teachers perceive themselves to be somewhat underprepared (from 16.7% in math
education up to 37% in the science disciplines), but the administrators report a greater
perception of teacher underpreparedness, 50% in math and 41% in science. In a
similar vein, the teachers' show greater confidence in their ability to align assessment
to local, state, and national standards, as indicated by lower teachers' perceptions of
their underpreparedness than the administrators' perceptions of the teachers'
underpreparedness.
| Teacher Respondents' Self Report of Perceptions of Under?Preparedness | Administrator Perceptions of Teacher Under? Preparedness | ||||
Math Teachers | Science Teachers | Math Teachers | Science Teachers | |||
Percentages Reporting Underprerparedness Regarding: | Within specialty area | Within education program | Within specialty area | Within education program | Overall | Overall |
Constructing effective learning experiences/outcome experiences, closing the feedback loop and assessing continuously | 23.4% | 16.7% | 37% | 22% | 50% |
41% |
Aligning assessment to local, state, and national standards | 29.7% | 27% | 37.9% | 14.3% | 42% | 41% |
The issue of assessment is interesting as well for the simple reason that the sheer proportion of respondents reporting feeling underprepared is troubling. For the assessment issues in the table below, at least 25% of respondents reported perceptions of underpreparedness for most of the cells. Because assessment continues to play such an important role in the work teachers are expected to do, this is an intriguing finding. In addition, our initial focus group work with university faculty suggests that this is an area where faculty feel they are doing well in terms of preparing future math and science teachers, so the potential disconnect here is critically important to understand.
| Teacher Respondents' Self Report of Perceptions of Preparedness | Administrator Perceptions of Teacher Preparedness | ||||
Math Teachers | Science Teachers | Math Teachers | Science Teachers | |||
Percentages Reporting Underprerparedness Regarding: | Within specialty area | Within education program | Within specialty area | Within education program | Overall | Overall |
Using assessment data to improve instruction | 47.5% |
43.1% | 66.7% | 39.3% | 54% | 51% |
Employing various authentic assessment strategies to accommodate diverse learners | 32.8% | 24.2% | 55.6% | 31% | 62% |
48% |
Utilizing both formal and informal assessment techniques | 25.0% |
19.7% | 46.4% | 21.4% | 30% | 27% |
The tables above are only a very small example of a few of the 72 survey data variables we analyzed over the past two years related to perceptions of teacher preparation. However, the data collection and analysis process was only the first part of our work. As noted above, the data were examined by focus groups we held with administrators, university faculty, and teachers to try to move towards a model that would allow us to determine what would be needed to create a sustainable feedback loop between these three constituencies.
