Measuring the effectiveness of teaching is, in brief, a complex educational process consisting of observation, counting and assessment in preparation for the next step, which is judging the teacher or the subject of teaching by comparing it with specific local and/or international standards in what is referred to as evaluation.
There is nothing new and extraordinary about measuring effectiveness except for abandoning the method of personal diligence and randomness and losing planning and objective standards that were prevalent in education until the end of the last twentieth century, in favor of adopting a studied set of quantitative, qualitative and qualitative standards that determine the quality of the teacher or teaching or not.
The failure of education programs and quality measurement that some countries import from abroad is due to their literal adoption of education systems without testing them or modifying them and cultivating them in their local environments. The crucial issue for measuring effectiveness is its reliance on contemporary, non-contradictory standards that combine the local and the international at the same time. It describes:
1- Validity, meaning that it is objective and directly related to the nature and requirements of the educational situation.
2- Modernity: It must be contemporary and keep pace with developments taking place globally in its field, provided that these developments do not contradict the data and needs of national education, and that it works to raise the status of local education to the level of education in developed countries. The best way to obtain modernity of quality in standards is to compare the specifications of the local measurement subject (as absolute standards) with the specifications of another similar one in developed countries (as relative standards) and then modify the final quality specifications based on that.
3- Effectiveness in achieving the goals of national education for its continued progress locally and globally
Philosophical schools for measuring teaching quality
There are three important philosophical schools that guide the goals and processes of measuring teaching quality, which we briefly explain as follows:
The behavioral school:
According to this school, the subject of measurement is the behavior or apparent achievement of the teacher. It views teaching as the first of these behavioral indicators as a set of skills, knowledge and tendencies that the teacher learned during his professional preparation and worked to integrate into his personality. Accordingly, we see the evaluation here focusing on identifying the competencies and behavioral aspects that the teacher needs to develop or improve, to raise his functional capabilities in general.
The humanistic school:
This school views the teacher as a developing human being who is useful to himself and to those around him from the members of the school and local community. While the teacher is considered an effective and equal partner in rights and responsibilities with other members of the school community in directing and implementing the educational process, measurement according to this school aims to provide him with feedback to develop himself and improve his teaching methods and functional interaction.
While behavioral measurement is concerned with the number of competencies that the teacher possesses to carry out the teaching process, human measurement distinguishes itself by the quality of these competencies and the extent of their response and suitability to the teacher’s personal characteristics and needs.
In general, measurement that is based on behavioral philosophy is objective and technical and uses unified objective standards for all teachers and teaching environments, while human measurement is personal and differs from one teacher or quality specialist to another and from one teaching environment to another.
Pragmatic School:
This school limits the adequacy or suitability of teaching or the teacher’s behavior during it to the extent of the effects it produces on students’ learning – their achievement. In this, it is the opposite of the two previous schools that are concerned with the outcomes of teaching without its circumstances and stage processes, which is not justified by many logical, moral and human considerations in education.
General purposes for measuring the quality of teaching
The most important purposes for measuring the quality of teaching in education are summarized as follows:
1- Improving teaching by revising, modifying or renewing educational methods, materials, knowledge and curricular activities, and preparing training programs for teachers who need it.
2- Providing administrators with feedback on teachers’ achievements and difficulties if necessary, constructive control over preparing students for learning in the classroom, modifying or revising the curriculum and modifying or renewing school educational facilities.
3- Providing stakeholders in the local community, such as students’ families, community leaders and those interested in it, with feedback on the general educational achievements of teachers and the school in order to obtain more psychological and material support from them for the school community.
4- Motivating teachers to respond to the psychological and educational requirements and needs of students.
5- Verifying the degree to which the teacher or school has achieved educational objectives or verifying that teachers are teaching the curriculum and implementing its requirements.
6- Identifying ineffective teachers for the purpose of improvement and raising their competencies.
7- Taking appropriate administrative decisions regarding promotions, exceptional incentive bonuses, retirement, exemption from service, and transfer to other higher or lower responsibilities.
8- Providing teachers with feedback on their personal and professional behavior for the purposes of development and self-guidance.
9- Providing the responsible administrative bodies with feedback on the trends and achievements of school education and its strengths and weaknesses.
10- Judging the effectiveness or impact of a school, region, or entire educational system, as this is often reflected in the benefit of teachers, administrators, and curricula by allocating additional resources and capabilities if needed.