A New Assessment Tool Can Predict How Successful A Teacher Would Be

As an attempt to track teachers’ progress in their early careers and to gain an understanding into their performance, researchers from Clemson University conducted a study. This was in collaboration with researchers from Northwestern University and the University of Virginia. Their aim was to find a tool that could help understand the level of performance of a teacher and also predict how his, “future classroom behaviours,” lead author of the paper and assistant professor in Clemson's Eugene T. Moore School of Education, Faiza Jamil explained.

The study is crucial as it helps assess a teachers potential, the press release states. The education system is wholly dependent on a teacher and reforms in this sector are also dependent on the teachers. Hence, a mechanism to assess their future performance will benefit the education system.

A new video assessment tool, Video Assessment of Interactions and Learning (VAIL) would detect and identify a teacher’s skills. It involves showing teachers videos and asks them the different strategies teachers would use “to support specific aspects of learning and development,” the release states.

Jamil stated that the VAIL was given to 270 teachers who were just starting their careers. They had to watch videos of interactions between teachers and students and identify effective interactions. They were then marked on their interaction with students using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System. The paper states that ability to identify effective interactions predicted the quality of their own teaching behaviors.

"The Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation has called for the development of tools that will help identify students who have the important underlying skills that make good teachers and the VAIL shows promise in that predictive ability," according to the researchers. The tool can help in the selection of teachers, irrespective of age and ethnicity. The tool can also be used for teacher training and would ultimately benefit the students, the paper states.

The study was published in The Elementary School Journal.

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