An evaluation of teacher effectiveness of a Hong Kong secondary school - Final report

Master's Thesis from the year 2009 in the subject Pedagogy - The Teacher, Educational Leadership, grade: A, , language: English, abstract: In this study, the relationship between collective teacher effectiveness and school improvement oriented culture is investigated through the case of ABC Secondary School. Collective teacher effectiveness is conceptualized with both the model of total teacher effectiveness and the model of continuous learning. Collective teacher effectiveness is regarded as the primary goal the school strives to attain. On the other hand, school improvement oriented culture, which consists of an emphasis on learning, collegiality and collaboration, is regarded as the value system of the school. Moreover, the theoretical framework of this study includes characteristics of teachers (gender, age, and full-time teaching experience) and the practices of academic divisions (the frequency and contents of formal meetings, the encouraged activities, and the opportunities to participate in the decision-making process). The research findings support the conceptions of collective teacher effectiveness and school improvement oriented culture. The results show that school improvement oriented culture, in general, caused collective teacher effectiveness directly and indirectly. Particularly, each cultural element had different influential powers to collective teacher effectiveness, competence and performance. As a result, a general model and three sub-models of collective teacher effectiveness for ABC Secondary School were constructed. These findings also question the mechanism of goal-attainment proposed by the theory of social system and provide us with a way to revise the current model of total teacher effectiveness. The recommendations to ABC Secondary School, the limitations of this study and the suggestions for further research are also discussed in this report.