Students are the biggest stakeholder in teaching effectiveness. They are better experts on how teaching is experienced as they are intended beneficiaries. The notion of asking students to provide feedback on the quality of the teaching that they encounter during their academic career has been with us for almost a century. Student rating of instruction was introduced into North American universities in the mid-1920s (d’Apollonia & Abrami, 1997). Recently many policymakers and practitioners come to recognize that students can be an important source of information on the quality of teaching and the learning environment in individual classroom. Student teacher would be a better source to know about the criteria of teachers; effectiveness as they play dual role while completing their pre-service training. They are students of colleges of education as well as teacher while doing their practice teaching in various schools. They can give better perspective to the criteria of teachers’ performance appraisal. This study aim at finding out criteria of teachers’ performance appraisal generated through student teachers’ judgement and perception.
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Marsh and Roche (1993) examined students’ evaluations of teaching effectiveness as a means of enhancing university teaching. Ryan and Harrison (1995) investigated how students weight various teaching components in arriving at their overall evaluation of teaching effectiveness. Ralph (2003) conducted a study on teaching effectiveness using how well students learn as the criterion. He identified five attributes of effective instructors: commitment to learners; knowledge of material; organization and management of the environment; desire to improve; and collaboration with others. Ralph concluded that exemplary university teaching is discernable and the quality of components that define it can be assessed. Clark (1995) identified cognitive and affective goals of effective teaching at the university level. These included four cognitive components: knowledge, organization of instruction, clarity of expression, and quality of presentation. In addition, there were four affective components: student interest; student participation and openness to ideas; interpersonal relations; and communication and fairness. Students are asked to identify how each course/instructor ranks in each of these qualities. Devlin (2002) examined the strengths and weakness of a survey used at the University of Melbourne to identify students’ perceptions of their learning environment.
OBECTIVES OF THE STUDY
- To teach the concept of performance appraisal of teachers.
- To generate criteria of performance appraisal of teachers based on student teachers’ perception.
- To study the criteria given by student teachers.
- To compare the criteria given by student teachers on the basis of their experience and age.
OPERATIONAL DEFINITIONS OF KEY TERMS
Performance appraisal: Performance appraisal is a process through which teacher’s behaviour and accomplishments for a fixed time period are measured and evaluated.
Student teachers: Student teachers are the teacher trainee of pre-service training (i.e. B.Ed.)
METHODOLOGY
Qualitative content analysis was done to analyze the responses of student teachers regarding their perceptions about the qualities of teachers.
Sample of the Study: 60 student teachers were selected by using convenient sampling.
| Age | No of students | Percentage |
| 20 – 25 yrs | 21 | 35% |
| 25 – 30 yrs | 20 | 33% |
| 30 – 35 yrs | 4 | 7% |
| 35 and above | 15 | 25% |
| No of students | Percentage | |
| With experience | 14 | 23% |
| Without experience | 46 | 77% |
Student teachers were taught concept of performance appraisal, need of performance appraisal and importance of performance appraisal. They were asked to make list of criteria which they consider impoertant for the performance appraisal of teachers. Student teachers prepared individual list of 10 criteria.
ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF THE DATA
Motivation, Interaction with students, Impartiality, relation with sartudents, Self improvement-accept correction, self motivated, Cotent knowledge, Understanding nature, sociability adaptable, behavior, Positive attitude, Teaching style, Interpersonal relationsm communication, Time management, Innnovativions, Teaching skills, Methods of teaching, Punctuality, Personality, Cooperation, Hardworking, Administrative work, Confidence, Creation of interest, Discipline, Nature are the criteria given by student teachers.
Knowledge: This is the highest rated criteria which are preferred by student teachers. 63.65% Student teachers expect the teachers to have strong content knowledge. It shows that student teachers consider content knowledge as the most important aspect of teachers’ efficiency.
Along with content knowledge 58.90 % student teachers expect teachers should have pedagogical knowledge. Student teacher expects teacher should use different methods, technique. They should know how to explain appropriately.
Motivation: This is second highest preffered criteria by the student teachers. 56.45 % Student teachers feel that teachers should motivate students to learn to study.
Interaction with students: 52% of the student teachers consider interaction with students make a successful teacher. So they consider this criterion as one of the important one to appraise teachers.
Create interest: 43.68% student teacher consider creating interest in the class as one of the important criteria of teachers’ appraisal. They know the importance of lively class, interesting class in the teaching learning process.
Personality: 41.2 % student teachers think personality should be given importance while evaluating teachers.
Student teachers consider that teachers should be discipline. But they should balance discipline.
24.53% student teacher feel teacher should be able to control class.
Student teacher feels it is important for the teacher to understand student, their problem. She should treat them properly. Impartiality is one of the important criteria student teacher has given.
Communication: Another important criterion is communication. 41.97 % student teachers feel communication should be one of the criteria of teachers’ appraisal.
29.75% student teachers feel teachers should have positive attitude about the students, teachers and of course teaching profession
Innovations: 36.90% student teachers are of opinion that teacher should be innovative she should use new methods of teaching.
Discussion
Content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge of teachers, motivation by teachers are given highest preference by the student teachers.
Creation of interest among students, interaction with students, personality, punctuality, communication were also considered important criteria for the performance appraisal of the teachers.
Innovations, discipline, positive attitude of teachers are given weightage to some extent by the student teachers as criteria for performance appraisal of the teachers.
REFERENCES
Cappon, P. (2006, February). CCL calls for clear, measurable goals in post-secondary education. Canadian Council on Learning. Retrieved April 23, 2009, from http://search.ccl-cca.ca/CCL/Newsroom/Articles/22Feb2006.htm
Carini, R.M., Hayek, J.H., Kuh, G.D., Kennedy, J.M., & Ouimet, J.A. (2003). College student responses to web and paper surveys: Does mode matter? Research in Higher Education, 44(1), 1–19.
Clark, J. (1995). Suggestions for Effective University Teaching. Retrieved on April 24, 2007 from http://io.uwinnipeg.ca/~clark/acad/teach/effteach.html19
d’Apollonia, S., & Abrami, P.C. (1997). Navigating student ratings of instruction. American Psychologist, 52(11), 1198-1208.
Devlin, M. (2002). An improved questionnaire for gathering student perceptions of teaching and learning. Higher Education Research and Development, 21(3), 289-304.
Marsh, H.W., & Hocevar, D. (1991). Students’ evaluations of teaching effectiveness: The stability of mean ratings of the same teachers over a 13-year period. Teaching & Teacher Education, 7, 303-314.
Marsh, H.W., & Roche, L. (1993). The use of students’ evaluations and an individually- structured intervention to enhance university teaching effectiveness. American Educational Research Journal, 30(1), 217-251.
Ralph, E.G. (ed.) (2003). Effective college teaching: Fresh insights and exemplary practices. New York: Nova Science.
Ryan, J.M. & Harrison, P. (1995). The relationship between individual instructional characteristics and the overall assessment of teaching effectiveness across different instructional contexts. Research in Higher Education, 36(5), 577-594.
Young, S., Cantrell, P., & Shaw, G. (1999). Profiles of effective college and university teachers. The Journal of Higher Education, 70(6), 670-686
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[1] Assistant Professor, Pillai College of Education and Research, New panvel
