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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Teacher Evaluation and Teacher Effectiveness

Introduction, purposes of teacher evaluation.

• International Policy and Research Reports
• US Policy and Research Reports
• Textbooks on Teacher Effectiveness and Teacher Evaluation
• Early Models of Teacher Evaluation
• Contemporary Models of Teacher Evaluation
• Measuring Teacher Effectiveness
• Value-Added Models in Teacher Evaluation
• Teacher Observation in Teacher Evaluation
• Impacts of Teacher Evaluation on Teacher Quality

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Teacher Evaluation and Teacher Effectiveness by James H. Stronge , Leslie W. Grant , Xianxuan Xu LAST REVIEWED: 28 July 2021 LAST MODIFIED: 28 July 2021 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756810-0138

Teacher evaluation has evolved over time from focusing on the moral values of a teacher in the early 1900s to standards-based evaluation models of today that seek to include measures of student academic progress. Often, teacher evaluation systems seek to serve two needs: accountability and improvement. Changes in teacher evaluation have been influenced by political winds as well as a desire to create systems that are fair and balanced. This article begins with an overview of the purposes of teacher evaluation. Next, often-cited international and US policy and research reports as well as foundational textbooks related to teacher effectiveness and teacher evaluation are highlighted. The article then provides an overview of early models of teacher evaluation focused on the roles and responsibilities of a teacher and the evolution to contemporary models of teacher evaluation with a focus on a standards-based and/or outcomes-based approach to evaluation. The next section highlights seminal works that emerged in measuring teacher effectiveness as well as value-added models to support an outcomes-based approach by including student academic progress as part of evaluation. Including student outcomes has been the topic of intense discussion as policymakers and researchers debate the validity of the use of student test scores in terms of value-added modeling and other growth models. Researchers do not agree on the stability of such models and whether they do differentiate between effective and less effective teachers. Research will continue to inform and enrich this debate and discussion. Teacher observation remains a critical part of the evaluation process and the article provides a historical overview of common practices and challenges of teacher observation. Finally, works that illuminate impacts of teacher evaluation are provided, including texts and reports related to teacher growth and development, teacher retention, and teacher compensation.

Teacher evaluation that is intended to be productive and actionable must address either teacher growth and support, the quality of teacher performance, or both. In essence, teacher evaluation can and should consider purposes for helping teachers improve their performance as well as providing accountable for their work. While other teacher evaluation purposes are identified periodically (e.g., school improvement), the most commonly accepted purposes for teacher evaluation are: (1) supporting teacher personal and professional growth that leads to improved and sustained quality performance, and (2) documenting results of teaching practices for reporting and accountability. There is considerable discussion and little agreement in the extant literature regarding whether both purposes can and should be achieved within the same performance evaluation system. One point of agreement is that regardless of the purpose— teacher professional growth or teacher accountability—the intended purpose(s) of teacher evaluation must be actionable if evaluation is to a worthwhile endeavor. Earlier publications— Peterson 2000 , Gordon 2006 , and Stronge 2006 —posit the rationale for a connection among evaluation of teacher performance, teacher growth and development, and school improvement. A case for using evaluation for the purpose of accountability, or teacher dismissal, more specifically, is made in Chait 2010 . A case for using evaluation for the purposes of teacher development is described in Donaldson and Peske 2010 . Crowe 2010 argues that the first evaluation of a teacher occurs in her teacher education program and that we should have a strong accountability system for teacher education programs to make sure the graduates have the knowledge and skills to be effective with students. Huber and Skedsmo 2016 frames the primary purposes of teacher evaluation as formative (teacher growth and support) and summative (teacher accountability). A report from the National Council on Teacher Quality, Gerber 2019 advocates for teacher evaluation designs that help teachers improve their practice and support distribution of teacher quality equitably across schools.

Chait, Robin. 2010. Removing chronically ineffective teachers: Barriers and opportunities . Washington, DC: Center for American Progress.

Chait recognizes that teachers have a tremendous impact on student achievement and that teachers vary greatly in their effectiveness. This report focuses on one critical piece in the human capital systems in school—the dismissal of chronically ineffective teachers. The challenges in removing teachers who are persistently ineffective and fail to improve even with intensive support over time are described.

Crowe, Edward. 2010. Measuring what matters: A stronger accountability model for teacher education . Washington, DC: Center for American Progress.

Crowe extends the argument of accountability and teacher evaluation into the sector of teacher preparation. He maintains that teacher education programs should serve as a real quality control and use empirically based indicators to measure the extent to which graduates help their students learn.

Donaldson, Morgaen L., and Heather G. Peske. 2010. Supporting effective teaching through teacher evaluation: A study of teacher evaluation in five charter schools . Washington, DC: Center for American Progress.

This text reports findings from a study of teacher evaluation practices in five charter schools. The authors find that a rigorous teacher evaluation system can influence teachers’ instructional capabilities in a positive way.

Gerber, Nicole. 2019. Teacher evaluation that’s meaningful . Washington, DC: National Council on Teacher Quality.

This report provides a short review of teacher evaluation trends and practices in the United States that directly or indirectly are related to making the purposes of teacher evaluation meaningful. Included in the review are findings related to teacher evaluation rating categories, frequency of evaluations, use of observations, evaluation components, and student growth measures.

Gordon, Stephen P. 2006. Teacher evaluation and professional development. In Evaluating teaching: A guide to current thinking and best practice . 2d ed. Edited by James H. Stronge, 268–290. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

DOI: 10.4135/9781412990202.d105

Gordon makes a case for the alignment among teacher evaluation, professional development, and school improvement goals—with all aspects moving toward the same common denominator of improving student learning.

Huber, Stephan G., and Guri Skedsmo. 2016. Teacher evaluation—accountability and improving teaching practices. Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Accountability 28:105–109.

DOI: 10.1007/s11092-016-9241-1

This journal article discusses the importance of both teacher growth and teacher accountability as important purposes for teacher evaluation. The authors frame their review and arguments in terms of formative (ongoing growth orientation) and summative (accountability orientation) purposes of teacher evaluation.

Peterson, Kenneth D. 2000. Teacher evaluation: A comprehensive guide to new directions and practices . 2d ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

This book recognizes that the evaluation of teachers is a complex activity. It provides an examination of the many purposes of teacher evaluation. The purposes include to protect children, provide feedback to teachers regarding the quality of their practice, reassure audiences who are stakeholders in quality teaching, make personnel decisions, inform teacher educators, and shape future practice.

Stronge, James H. 2006. Teacher evaluation and school improvement: Improving the educational landscape. In Evaluating teaching: A guide to current thinking and best practice . 2d ed. Edited by James H. Stronge, 1–23. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

DOI: 10.4135/9781412990202.d4

In this book chapter, Stronge suggests that a conceptually sound and properly implemented evaluation system for teachers is a vital component of successful reform efforts. The chapter discusses key features of effective teacher evaluation systems and offers one model for designing a quality teacher evaluation system for school improvement and teacher growth.

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Teacher Evaluation and Retention: What the Research Shows

Research has identified teacher effectiveness as the most important driver of student achievement. That makes the retention of good teachers a high priority for school districts. Two recent studies explore the role of teacher evaluation in retaining good teachers. And a meta-analysis contributes to the understanding of why teachers stay or leave.

In Is Effective Teacher Evaluation Sustainable?, Thomas Dee of Stanford University, Jessalynn James of Brown University, and Jim Wyckoff of the University of Virginia, found that after a decade, the IMPACT teacher evaluation system in the District of Columbia is encouraging some low-performing teachers to leave the school district and prompting others to improve their performance. In a related study, Teacher Evaluation and Teacher Turnover , James and Wyckoff find that D.C.’s relatively high rate of teacher turnover is largely the result of these low performers leaving. Their departure leads to better student achievement.

A recent meta-analysis, synthesizing data from 120 studies, bears out that finding, reporting that teacher performance evaluations do not appear to negatively affect teacher attrition but may improve the workforce by keeping the most effective teachers and removing the most ineffective teachers. In  The Factors of Teacher Attrition and Retention: An Updated and Expanded Meta-Analysis of the Literature,. Tuan Nguyen of Kansas State University, Lam Pham and Michael Crouch of Vanderbilt University, Mathew Springer of the University of North Carolina also found that average teacher turnover rate has climbed to 15 percent in recent years. That trend is negatively associated with student achievement, even for students whose teachers did not leave.

The meta-analysis also reported that many teachers leave because of personal reasons, particularly for higher paying jobs. Attrition is higher among teachers in STEM fields or specialty courses because they have more access to better jobs. Job satisfaction plays a key role, too. Attrition is lower when teachers are satisfied with effective disciplinary systems, administrative support, professional development, and adequate teaching materials.

By Dina Masri

Published: January 8, 2020

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Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Teacher Evaluation

DOI link for Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Teacher Evaluation

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In the wake of national interest in teacher evaluation, this book examines what we have learned about how and whether teacher evaluation holds teachers accountable and improves their practice.

Drawing on literature in psychology, economics, and sociology, this multi-disciplinary and multi-perspectival book explores teacher evaluation’s intended goals of development and accountability, as well as its unintended consequences, especially as they relate to equity. Blending theory from diverse disciplines with decades of research, this book provides new insights into how teacher evaluation has played out in schools across the United States and offers recommendations for research, policy, and practice in the years to come. Insights include how to embed teacher evaluation in a larger culture of continuous learning; rethinking assumptions on accountability and development aims; and highlighting the importance of equity in the design, implementation, and outcomes of teacher evaluation.

Every chapter concludes with practical recommendations informed by theory and research to guide policymakers, researchers, and district and school leaders as they seek to understand, design, and implement better teacher evaluation systems.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1 | 9  pages, introduction, section section 1 | 104  pages, disciplinary perspectives on teacher evaluation, chapter 2 | 36  pages, teacher evaluation through the lens of psychology, chapter 3 | 31  pages, teacher evaluation through the lens of economics, chapter 4 | 35  pages, teacher evaluation through the lens of sociology, section section 2 | 115  pages, the consequences of teacher evaluation, chapter 5 | 38  pages, teacher evaluation as an accountability mechanism, chapter 6 | 34  pages, teacher evaluation as a developmental enterprise, chapter 7 | 33  pages, the potential and actual downsides of teacher evaluation reform, chapter 8 | 8  pages.

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Study: Teacher evaluation reforms failed to improve student outcomes

Reforms of teacher evaluation systems across the country during the last dozen years have largely failed their primary goal: To raise student academic performance.

That’s one of the findings of a new study co-authored by UNC School of Education researcher Matthew Springer, Ph.D., published in December as a working paper by the Annenberg Institute at Brown University.

The study, which its authors say provides the broadest and most generalizable evidence of the efficacy of teacher evaluation reforms in the U.S., concludes that despite billions of dollars spent reforming teacher evaluation systems, the reforms have had almost zero positive effect on student outcomes.

“These data show that on average across the country, teacher evaluation reforms haven’t had their intended effect,” said Springer, the Robena and Walter E. Hussman, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Education Reform. “We found that while linking teacher evaluations to student performance has worked in a few places, it has proved to be very difficult for most school districts to establish these systems in ways that contribute to better academic outcomes for students.”

Racing to nowhere

Before the reforms, teacher evaluations relied primarily on observations, had little direct connection to teacher compensation or employment, and saw nearly all teachers receiving satisfactory ratings, leaving no way to differentiate among the teachers’ performances, researchers have documented. Citation Joshua Bleiberg, Eric Brunner, Erica Harbatkin, Matthew A. Kraft, and Matthew Springer. (2021). The Effect of Teacher Evaluation on Achievement and Attainment: Evidence from Statewide Reforms. (EdWorkingPaper: 21-496). Retrieved from Annenberg Institute at Brown University: https://doi.org/10.26300/b1ak-r251

Reform proponents advocated that teacher evaluation systems that take into account student performance would make it possible for school districts to reward effective teachers, while also identifying lower-performing teachers in need of professional development or to be removed from their jobs.

Incentivized by the federal government’s Race to the Top grant competitions between 2009 and 2017, 44 states and the District of Columbia implemented reforms aimed at linking the evaluations of teachers to the academic performance of their students.

A team of researchers — Springer and colleagues from Michigan State University, Brown University, and the University of Connecticut — set out to analyze the effects of the reforms, measuring student performance during the period 2009 to 2018 on standardized mathematics and English Language Arts exams, augmented with data on the student attainment outcomes of high school graduation and college enrollment.

The bottom line: The reforms had no discernable effect on student achievement in mathematics or English Language Arts and little effect on educational attainment.

The team went on to examine whether differences among teacher evaluation systems produced different results, finding that they did not.

Why didn’t the reforms work?

Analysis by Springer and team confirmed those findings, giving the team confidence in the validity of their analytical methods.

But, the team said, while the findings of successful reforms in a few places demonstrate that it is possible to create teacher evaluation systems that take into account student outcomes, the very few examples of success highlight the fact that it is difficult to do so. The experiences in those few districts and states are not generalizable across the nation as a whole, the researchers said.

The actual design and implementation of reformed evaluation systems across the country frequently failed to follow proven best practices for performance management systems, with the result being systems that only vaguely resembled what reformers had envisioned, the team said. As a result, reformed evaluation systems often were not meaningfully different than the status quo, the team said. Additionally, states that did adopt more rigorous features in their evaluation systems typically failed to sustain them over time.

The reform efforts also may have had unintended consequences of driving down job satisfaction among educators and imposing burdensome demands on administrators’ time, perhaps displacing other more productive activities, the team said.

Another word with Matthew Springer

Following is a Q&A with Springer regarding the findings of the study: Why have teacher evaluation reforms generally failed to lift student achievement?

Springer: My hunch is there are two primary culprits — implementation and design. Successful implementation of top-down policies and programs like the one studied in this paper are highly dependent on a change to the behavior of key actors, namely the principals and teachers responsible for student performance. A large amount of research has documented the failure of top-down policy reforms, particularly in the education sector where “mandates” filter from federal to state and district levels and eventually reach schools, classrooms, teachers, and students.

More than 45 states and the District of Columbia have invested in so-called next-generation teacher evaluation systems, which include tenure reforms, widespread use of standards-based teacher performance rubrics, and more frequent and structured observations. But at the same time, the federal government has provided design waivers to states, which, as we note in the paper, essentially allowed some districts and states to water down the implementation of these reforms.

This study looked at the effects of teacher evaluations on students’ academic achievement and attainment. But what about teacher compensation? You’ve done other work studying the use of compensation practices, particularly incentives to reward highly effective teachers, finding that those systems can lead to higher student achievement.

What more do we need to learn about how to make effective incentive programs that can more widely support student achievement and educational attainment?

Springer: A growing body of research documents the important role strategic compensation policies can play in retaining highly effective educators and, ultimately, improving educational opportunities for students. My work with Luis Rodriguez of New York University and Walker Swain of the University of Georgia shows that a retention bonus can shift teachers’ decisions to persist in the challenging work environments of high-accountability, high-poverty, racially isolated schools, and promote higher levels of learning than would have occurred had these teachers left.

However, we have to remember that for many teachers, additional pay alone is inadequate to overcome pressures to leave, and only affects the underlying learning and working conditions to the extent that retained teachers improve the leadership culture in the building. Moving forward, we need to gain a better understanding the role of non-financial incentives, such as the interactions between working conditions and simple salary improvements, as well as how financial incentives can improve teacher supply.

Should policymakers and administrators shift from pressing for high-stakes teacher evaluation systems? Or, are there workable ways to make these systems more effective?

Springer: A first order concern is how districts and states respond to changes in federal guidance regarding teacher evaluation. Even though places like Cincinnati, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., demonstrate that teacher evaluation reforms can realize their intended purpose, states are starting to back off on teacher evaluation reforms and related components. If states continue to disinvest in these policies and related infrastructure, then the potential utility will ultimately fade. And, this includes losing one of the most critical components of teacher evaluation systems today — post-observation performance feedback. Unlike other aspects of state evaluation systems, feedback takes an explicitly developmental approach to achieve better outcomes: Teachers develop as professionals and improve their skills in response to direct feedback on their practice.

In another related study, with my colleague Seth Hunter of George Mason University, we conducted the first large-scale study of post-observation performance feedback provided to early-career teachers and examine how it relates to measures of teacher human capital. While prior research from outside the education sector shows feedback can be an important driver to improve employee performance, we find that few teachers are receiving the individually tailored and substantive feedback that can help them improve their practice.

The bottom line is that if next-generation teacher evaluation policies are to be successful, we need to pay close attention to proper design and implementation.

February 8, 2022

By Michael Hobbs

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A Review of the Literature on Teacher Effectiveness and Student Outcomes

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Researchers agree that teachers are one of the most important school-based resources in determining students’ future academic success and lifetime outcomes, yet have simultaneously had difficulties in defining what teacher characteristics make for an effective teacher. This chapter reviews the large body of literature on measures of teacher effectiveness, underscoring the diversity of methods by which the general construct of “teacher quality” has been explored, including experience, professional knowledge, and opportunity to learn. Each of these concepts comprises a number of different dimensions and methods of operationalizing. Single-country research (and particularly research from the United States) is distinguished from genuinely comparative work. Despite a voluminous research literature on the question of teacher quality, evidence for the impact of teacher characteristics (experience and professional knowledge) on student outcomes remains quite limited. There is a smaller, but more robust set of findings for the effect of teacher support on opportunity to learn. Five measures may be associated with higher student achievement: teacher experience (measured by years of teaching), teacher professional knowledge (measured by education and self-reported preparation to teach mathematics), and teacher provision of opportunity to learn (measured by time on mathematics and content coverage). These factors provide the basis for a comparative cross-country model.

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• Opportunity to learn
• Teacher education
• Teacher experience
• Teacher quality
• Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS)

2.1 Defining Teacher Effectiveness

Researchers agree that teachers are one of the most important school-based resources in determining students’ future academic success and lifetime outcomes (Chetty et al. 2014 ; Rivkin et al. 2005 ; Rockoff 2004 ). As a consequence, there has been a strong emphasis on improving teacher effectiveness as a means to enhancing student learning. Goe ( 2007 ), among others, defined teacher effectiveness in terms of growth in student learning, typically measured by student standardized assessment results. Chetty et al. ( 2014 ) found that students taught by highly effective teachers, as defined by the student growth percentile (SGPs) and value-added measures (VAMs), were more likely to attend college, earn more, live in higher-income neighborhoods, save more money for retirement, and were less likely to have children during their teenage years. This potential of a highly effective teacher to significantly enhance the lives of their students makes it essential that researchers and policymakers properly understand the factors that contribute to a teacher’s effectiveness. However, as we will discuss in more detail later in this report, studies have found mixed results regarding the relationships between specific teacher characteristics and student achievement (Wayne and Youngs 2003 ). In this chapter, we explore these findings, focusing on the three main categories of teacher effectiveness identified and examined in the research literature: namely, teacher experience, teacher knowledge, and teacher behavior. Here we emphasize that much of the existing body of research is based on studies from the United States, and so the applicability of such national research to other contexts remains open to discussion.

2.2 Teacher Experience

Teacher experience refers to the number of years that a teacher has worked as a classroom teacher. Many studies show a positive relationship between teacher experiences and student achievement (Wayne and Youngs 2003 ). For example, using data from 4000 teachers in North Carolina, researchers found that teacher experience was positively related to student achievement in both reading and mathematics (Clotfelter et al. 2006 ). Rice ( 2003 ) found that the relationship between teacher experience and student achievement was most pronounced for students at the secondary level. Additional work in schools in the United States by Wiswall ( 2013 ), Papay and Kraft ( 2015 ), and Ladd and Sorenson ( 2017 ), and a Dutch twin study by Gerritsen et al. ( 2014 ), also indicated that teacher experience had a cumulative effect on student outcomes.

Meanwhile, other studies have failed to identify consistent and statistically significant associations between student achievement and teacher experience (Blomeke et al. 2016 ; Gustaffsson and Nilson 2016 ; Hanushek and Luque 2003 ; Luschei and Chudgar 2011 ; Wilson and Floden 2003 ). Some research from the United States has indicated that experience matters very much early on in a teacher’s career, but that, in later years, there were little to no additional gains (Boyd et al. 2006 ; Rivkin et al. 2005 ; Staiger and Rockoff 2010 ). In the first few years of a teacher’s career, accruing more years of experience seems to be more strongly related to student achievement (Rice 2003 ). Rockoff ( 2004 ) found that, when comparing teacher effectiveness (understood as value-added) to student test scores in reading and mathematics, teacher experience was positively related to student mathematics achievement; however, such positive relationships leveled off after teachers had gained two years of teaching experience. Drawing on data collected from teachers of grades four to eight between 2000 and 2008 within a large urban school district in the United States, Papay and Kraft ( 2015 ) confirmed previous research on the benefits experience can add to a novice teacher’s career. They found that student outcomes increased most rapidly during their teachers’ first few years of employment. They also found some further student gains due to additional years of teaching experience beyond the first five years. The research of Pil and Leana ( 2009 ) adds additional nuance; they found that acquiring teacher experience at the same grade level over a number of years, not just teacher experience in general (i.e. at multiple grades), was positively related to student achievement.

2.3 Teacher Professional Knowledge

A teacher’s professional knowledge refers to their subject-matter knowledge, curricular knowledge, and pedagogical knowledge (Collinson 1999 ). This professional knowledge is influenced by the undergraduate degrees earned by a teacher, the college attended, graduate studies undertaken, and opportunities to engage with on-the job training, commonly referred to as professional development (Collinson 1999 ; Rice 2003 ; Wayne and Youngs 2003 ). After undertaking in-depth quantitative analyses of the United States’ 1993–1994 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) and National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data sets, Darling-Hammond ( 2000 ) argued that measures of teacher preparation and certification were by far the strongest correlates of student achievement in reading and mathematics, after controlling for student poverty levels and language status.

As with experience, research on the impact of teacher advanced degrees, subject specializations, and certification has been inconclusive, with several studies (Aaronson et al. 2007 ; Blomeke et al. 2016 ; Hanushek and Luque 2003 ; Harris and Sass 2011 ; Luschei and Chudgar 2011 ) suggesting weak, inconsistent, or non-significant relationships with student achievement. However, several international studies comparing country means found that teacher degrees (Akiba et al. 2007 ; Gustaffsson and Nilson 2016 ; Montt 2011 ) were related to student outcomes, as did Woessman’s ( 2003 ) student-level study of multiple countries.

2.3.1 Undergraduate Education

In their meta-analysis of teacher effectiveness, Wayne and Youngs ( 2003 ) found three studies that showed some relationship between the quality of the undergraduate institution that a teacher attended and their future students’ success in standardized tests. In a thorough review of the research on teacher effectiveness attributes, Rice ( 2003 ) found that the selectivity of undergraduate institution and the teacher preparation program may be related to student achievement for students at the high school level and for high-poverty students.

In terms of teacher preparation programs, Boyd et al. ( 2009 ) found that overall these programs varied in their effectiveness. In their study of 31 teacher preparation programs designed to prepare teachers for the New York City School District, Boyd et al. ( 2009 ) drew from data based on document analyses, interviews, surveys of teacher preparation instructors, surveys of participants and graduates, and student value-added scores. They found that if a program was effective in preparing teachers to teach one subject, it tended to also have success in preparing teachers to teach other subjects as well. They also found that teacher preparation programs that focused on the practice of teaching and the classroom, and provided opportunities for teachers to study classroom practices, tended to prepare more effective teachers. Finally, they found that programs that included some sort of final project element (such as a personal research paper, or portfolio presentation) tended to prepare more effective teachers.

Beyond the institution a teacher attends, the coursework they choose to take within that program may also be related to their future students’ achievement. These associations vary by subject matter. A study by Rice ( 2003 ) indicated that, for teachers teaching at the secondary level, subject-specific coursework had a greater impact on their future students’ achievement. Similarly Goe ( 2007 ) found that, for mathematics, an increase in the amount of coursework undertaken by a trainee teacher was positively related to their future students’ achievement. By contrast, the meta-analysis completed by Wayne and Youngs ( 2003 ) found that, for history and English teachers, there was no evidence of a relationship between a teacher’s undergraduate coursework and their future students’ achievement in those subjects.

2.3.2 Graduate Education

In a review of 14 studies, Wilson and Floden ( 2003 ) were unable to identify consistent relationships between a teacher’s level of education and their students’ achievement. Similarly, in their review of data from 4000 teachers in North Carolina, Clotfelter et al. ( 2006 ) found that teachers who held a master’s degree were associated with lower student achievement. However, specifically in terms of mathematics instruction, teachers with higher degrees and who undertook more coursework during their education seem to be positively related to their students’ mathematics achievement (Goe 2007 ). Likewise, Harris and Sass ( 2011 ) found that there was a positive relationship between teachers who had obtained an advanced degree during their teaching career and their students’ achievement in middle school mathematics. They did not find any significant relationships between advanced degrees and student achievement in any other subject area. Further, using data from the United States’ Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-K), Phillips ( 2010 ) found that subject-specific graduate degrees in elementary or early-childhood education were positively related to students’ reading achievement gains.

2.3.3 Certification Status

Another possible indicator of teacher effectiveness could be whether or not a teacher holds a teaching certificate. Much of this research has focused on the United States, which uses a variety of certification approaches, with lower grades usually having multi-subject general certifications and higher grades requiring certification in specific subjects. Wayne and Youngs ( 2003 ) found no clear relationship between US teachers’ certification status and their students’ achievement, with the exception of the subject area of mathematics, where students tended have higher test scores when their teachers had a standard mathematics certification. Rice ( 2003 ) also found that US teacher certification was related to high school mathematics achievement, and also found that there was some evidence of a relationship between certification status and student achievement in lower grades. Meanwhile, in their study of grade one students, Palardy and Rumberger ( 2008 ) also found evidence that students made greater gains in reading ability when taught by fully certified teachers.

In a longitudinal study using data from teachers teaching grades four and five and their students in the Houston School District in Texas, Darling-Hammond et al. ( 2005 ) found that those teachers who had completed training that resulted in a recognized teaching certificate were more effective that those who had no dedicated teaching qualifications. The study results suggested that teachers without recognized US certification or with non-standard certifications generally had negative effects on student achievement after controlling for student characteristics and prior achievement, as well as the teacher’s experience and degrees. The effects of teacher certification on student achievement were generally much stronger than the effects for teacher experience. Conversely, analyzing data from the ECLS-K, Phillips ( 2010 ) found that grade one students tended to have lower mathematics achievement gains when they had teachers with standard certification. In sum, the literature the influence of teacher certification remains deeply ambiguous.

2.3.4 Professional Development

Although work by Desimone et al. ( 2002 , 2013 ) suggested that professional development may influence the quality of instruction, most researchers found that teachers’ professional development experiences showed only limited associations with their effectiveness, although middle- and high-school mathematics teachers who undertook more content-focused training may be the exception (Blomeke et al. 2016 ; Harris and Sass 2011 ). In their meta-analysis of the effects of professional development on student achievement, Blank and De Las Alas ( 2009 ) found that 16 studies reported significant and positive relationships between professional development and student achievement. For mathematics, the average effect size of studies using a pre-post assessment design was 0.21 standard deviations.

Analyzing the data from six data sets, two from the Beginning Teacher Preparation Survey conducted in Connecticut and Tennessee, and four from the United States National Center for Education Statistics’ National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), Wallace ( 2009 ) used structural equation modeling to find that professional development had a very small, but occasionally statistically significant effect on student achievement. She found, for example, that for NAEP mathematics data from the year 2000, 1.2 additional hours of professional development per year were related to an increase in average student scores of 0.62 points, and for reading, an additional 1.1 h of professional development were related to an average increase in student scores of 0.24 points. Overall, Wallace ( 2009 ) identified professional development had moderate effects on teacher practice and some small effects on student achievement when mediated by teacher practice.

2.3.5 Teacher Content Knowledge

Of course, characteristics like experience and education may be imperfect proxies for teacher content knowledge; unfortunately, content knowledge is difficult to assess directly. However, there is a growing body of work suggesting that teacher content knowledge may associated with student learning. It should be noted that there is an important distinction between general content knowledge about a subject (CK) and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) specifically related to teaching that subject, each of which may be independently related to student outcomes (Baumert et al. 2010 ).

Studies from the United States (see for example, Chingos and Peterson 2011 ; Clotfelter et al. 2006 ; Constantine et al. 2009 ; Hill et al. 2005 ; Shuls and Trivitt 2015 ) have found some evidence that higher teacher cognitive skills in mathematics are associated with higher student scores. Positive associations between teacher content knowledge and student outcomes were also found in studies based in Germany (Baumert et al. 2010 ) and Peru (Metzler and Woessman 2012 ), and in a comparative study using Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) data undertaken by Hanushek et al. ( 2018 ). These findings are not universal, however, other studies from the United States (Blazar 2015 ; Garet et al. 2016 ; Rockoff et al. 2011 ) failed to find a statistically significant association between teacher content knowledge and student learning.

The studies we have discussed all used some direct measure of teacher content knowledge. An alternative method of assessing mathematics teacher content knowledge is self-reported teacher preparation to teach mathematics topics. Both TIMSS and IEA’s Teacher Education and Development Study in Mathematics (TEDS-M, conducted in 2007–2008) have included many questions, asking teachers to report on their preparedness to teach particular topics. Although Luschei and Chudgar ( 2011 ) and Gustafsson and Nilson ( 2016 ) found that these items had a weak direct relationship to student achievement across countries, other studies have suggested that readiness is related to instructional quality (Blomeke et al. 2016 ), as well as content knowledge and content preparation (Schmidt et al. 2017 ), suggesting that instructional quality may have an indirect effect on student learning.

2.4 Teacher Behaviors and Opportunity to Learn

Although the impact of teacher characteristics (experience, education, and preparedness to teach) on student outcomes remains an open question, there is much a much more consistent relationship between student achievement and teacher behaviors (instructional time and instructional content), especially behaviors related instructional content. Analyzing TIMSS, Schmidt et al. ( 2001 ) found an association between classroom opportunity to learn (OTL), interpreted narrowly as student exposure to instructional content, and student achievement. In a later study using student-level PISA data, Schmidt et al. ( 2015 ) identified a robust relationship between OTL and mathematics literacy across 62 different educational systems. The importance of instructional content has been recognized by national policymakers, and has helped motivate standards-based reform in an effort to improve student achievement, such as the Common Core in the United States (Common Core Standards Initiative 2018 ). However, we found that there was little research on whether teacher instructional content that aligned with national standards had improved student learning; the only study that we were able to identify found that such alignment had only very weak associations with student mathematics scores (Polikoff and Porter 2014 ). Student-reported data indicates that instructional time (understood as classroom time on a particular subject) does seem to be related to mathematics achievement (Cattaneo et al. 2016 ; Jerrim et al. 2017 ; Lavy 2015 ; Rivkin and Schiman 2015 ; Woessman 2003 ).

2.5 Conclusion

This review of the literature simply brushes the surface of the exceptional body of work on the relationship between student achievement and teacher characteristics and behaviors. Whether analyzing US-based, international, or the (limited) number of comparative studies, the associations between easily measurable teacher characteristics, like experience and education, and student outcomes in mathematics, remains debatable. In contrast, there is more evidence to support the impact of teacher behaviors, such as instructional content and time on task, on student achievement. Our goal was to incorporate all these factors into a comparative model across countries, with the aim of determining what an international cross-national study like TIMSS could reveal about the influence of teachers on student outcomes in mathematics. The analysis that follows draws on the existing body of literature on teacher effectiveness, which identified key teacher factors that may be associated with higher student achievement: teacher experience, teacher professional knowledge (measured by education and self-reported preparation to teach mathematics), and teacher provision of opportunity to learn (time on mathematics and content coverage).

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Burroughs, N. et al. (2019). A Review of the Literature on Teacher Effectiveness and Student Outcomes. In: Teaching for Excellence and Equity. IEA Research for Education, vol 6. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16151-4_2

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