The Measurement And Assessment Of Teachers' Teaching Performance In Science Classrooms

To meet the rapid development of science education reform, promoting science teacher professional development is an important research issue for science educators in China and other countries. How to measure and assess the quality of science teachers is gradually going to be a great concern in PD programs for science teachers. However, several limitations could be found in previous related Chinese studies:focus on indirect inference rather than direct measurement; pay great attention on theoretical argumentation more than empirical validation; and prefer non-disciplinary instrument to subject content-specific instrument. The main principles of research on measuring science teachers are authenticity, disciplinarity and positivity.Thus, the measurement of science teachers'teaching performance (STTP) on the core concept of "properties and changes in matter" (PCM) is conducted in this study. Five major sections are shown in this dissertation:Introduction, Theoretical Study, Main Study, Applied Study, and Conclusion.Chapter 1 is the section of Introduction, mainly presents the context of this research, research questions, methodology, and the meanings of this study. How to construct and validate a content-specific assessment system for measuring STTP is the ultimate research question in this study. In order to answer this ultimate question, we designed an entire research plan, and further illustrated the ontological, theoretical, and practical value of this research.Chapters 2-4 are the contents of Theoretical Study, mainly focus on the literature reviews and theoretical framework of the STTP. Chapter 2 is literature reviews, summarized the related previous studies on STTP; and Chapter 3 is theoretical framework, mainly about the development of science education reform and learning theories, In the Chapter 4, based on the literature reviews, we first defined the terminology, characteristics and elements of STTP, and then constructed a STTP theoretical model based on the theoretical framework in Chapter 3.Chapters 5-6 are the contents of Main Study, mainly aim to develop and validate an instrument for measuring STTP on the PCM concept. Chapter 5 is the development and validation of this STTP instrument. Reviewing the developing history and curriculum design of these concepts, we first developed 45 indicators in STTP instrument by revising items in previous instrument, and utilized many-facet multi-dimensional Rasch model to process the stages of pilot test, revision, and field test, and finally validated the quality of this STTP instrument. Chapter 6 is identification of the STTP evaluation standards. The Rasch scores and empirical levels were anchored as the qualitative and quantitative standards of the STTP evaluation standards.Chapter 7 is the content of applied study, mainly measured science teachers'teaching performance on the PCM concept by using the STTP instrument and evaluation standards. In this chapter, firstly, we summarized the overall features of STTP levels; secondly, the main factors and its degrees of affecting STTP were explored by using Multinomial Logistic Regression Models; finally, the comparison studies of STTP on different PD stages, lesson designs and school levels were analyzed by ANOVA.Chapter 8 is the section of conclusions; mainly reviewed the primary results in the contents of theoretical, main, and applied studies, and pointed out the limitations and further interests of this STTP research.In conclusion, this STTP research can be treated as a preliminary example on how to conduct a content-specific PD evaluation program in science education. Since this STTP is a pioneer study, the rationality of this theoretical framework should be further validated and extended to be used in other disciplinary core concepts in science education.