In Search of the ‘Good Teacher’

Research on learning and instruction agrees that whether students are taught by a good or not-so-good teacher has a long-lasting impact on their learning and development. However, what constitutes a “good” teacher? One common research approach is to define good teachers by their outcomes, i.e., observed teaching quality or student achievement gains. This research shows that substantial differences in teacher effectiveness exist. However, this approach only describes which teachers are more or less effective, but not why these differences exist, thus offering only limited implications for teacher recruitment, selection, or professional development.

It is therefore important to directly study individual characteristics of effective teachers, a research trend that has gained currency in recent years. Research to date has mainly taken either one of two perspectives. Some researchers have investigated the personal prerequisites that predict later success as teachers, focusing on generic variables like cognitive abilities, personality, or social skills. Others have focused on specific aspects of the teaching profession such as subject-matter and pedagogical knowledge, or teaching motivations. While findings from the first strand have practical relevance for teacher recruitment and selection, findings from the second are useful for the design of teacher training or professional development courses.

The E-CER aims to join the two perspectives. The group will unite researchers who have been working on theoretical models about "good teachers", and who have developed novel methods to assess teacher variables directly. Our aim is two-fold. First, we will collectively consider ways of consolidating the diverse theoretical approaches, working towards a shared meta-theoretical model. Second, we will establish new research connections through sharing and advancing teacher assessment instruments, joint work on existing study data, resulting in collaborative studies with international samples that allow for a high degree of generalization. As a practical outcome, we aim to provide the research community with a comprehensive set of standardized teacher assessment instruments, eventually in the form of a searchable repository.