THE IDENTIFICATION OF IMPORTANT TEACHING SKILLS: COMBINING PHILOSOPHICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES, RESEARCH FINDINGS, AND LEGAL AND ACCREDITATION STANDARDS

There were two purposes to this study. First, to identify a valid set of teaching skill statements that reflected: (a) practice in successful teacher education programs, (b) findings of research on teacher effectiveness, (c) accepted principles of learning, and (d) existing legal and accreditation requirements. Second, the statements identified were used to determine and compare the degree of importance of the skills as perceived by groups in Nebraska who are involved with public education and by a group of national experts in the field of teacher education. A list of thirty-six teacher skill statements was formulated by combining the evaluative criteria from eight leading teacher education programs in the United States. Each of these statements was validated through the use of three screens: (a) philosophical-psychological, (b) research, and (c) legal-accreditation. A modified Delphi method was used to further validate the list of statements. A questionnaire was then developed which asked respondents to rate the importance of each of the thirty-six skill statements on a four point scale. Participants were randomly selected from public elementary and secondary schools in Nebraska that were identified by the deans or chairpersons of Nebraska\u27s teacher education programs as schools which hired significant numbers of their graduates. A representative sample of each of the following populations was asked to participate in the study: (a) students in grades ten through twelve, (b) parents, (c) first year teachers, (d) tenured teachers, and (e) administrators. In addition, a representative, randomly selected sample of teacher educators in Nebraska was asked to participate, as was the group of nationally recognized experts identified in the study. Thirty-eight school districts completed the data collection and returned the results in time to be included in the analysis. A total of 995 responses from the various groups was analyzed. Means were calculated for each statement and for each group. These were used as a basis for rank ordering the statements for each group. Rank order correlations were determined using Kendall\u27s tau to compare the perceptions of the groups. Conclusions. (1) A research design was developed which can be used to determine the knowledge, practices, and values that underly the development of teacher education programs and the evaluation of teacher effectiveness. With modification, the design could serve as a means to conduct status studies of any social system. (2) Thirty-six teacher skill statements have been identified which are considered as being important or very important by the following groups in Nebraska: (a) students in grades ten through twelve, (b) parents, (c) first year teachers, (d) tenured teachers, (e) administrators, and (f) teacher educators. These groups were in substantial agreement about the relative importance of each of the thirty-six skills. Summary. The substantial agreement among the groups that participated in this study about the importance of each of the teacher skill statements can be used as a basis to evaluate teacher effectiveness, but only with respect to the values and perceptions held by the various groups involved with public education in Nebraska as the 1980\u27s begin. Attempts to determine teacher effectiveness based on empirical, causal links between teacher skills and student outcomes are not appropriate until a more solid research and knowledge base is established