Towards Creating a Feedback Loop: Assessing Perceptions of Teacher Preparedness and Beliefs About Student Learning Amongst Math Teachers, University Faculty, and School District Administrators
Authors: R. Lorraine Bernotsky, Kimberlee Brown

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A specific area of analysis we explored this year was related to the alignment of teacher perceptions and school district administrator perceptions of pre-service teacher preparation programs since one of the questions examined was the congruence of preparation with perceptions of preparation.  Perhaps not surprisingly, in a number of areas, math and science teachers reported feeling less than adequately prepared by their pre-service programs.  More interesting, however, are the differences between the perceptions of teachers regarding their pre-service preparation and the perceptions of the school district administrators who employ and supervise them, especially when those differences are related to perceptions of being less than adequately prepared by math and science teacher preparation programs.   

The following tables reflect the percentage of teacher respondents indicating that they were less than adequately prepared by their universities both within their major and within the education program for the skills noted along with school district administrator responses for those questions.  For all of the tables below, school administrators N = 71, math teachers N = 108, and science teachers N = 72. 

What is striking in the first table is the difference in perceptions of underpreparedness between the teachers themselves and the administrators.   Regarding the first issue in the chart, teachers perceive themselves to be somewhat underprepared (from 16.7% in math education up to 37% in the science disciplines), but the administrators report a greater perception of teacher underpreparedness, 50% in math and 41% in science.  In a similar vein, the teachers' show greater confidence in their ability to align assessment to local, state, and national standards, as indicated by lower teachers' perceptions of their underpreparedness than the administrators' perceptions of the teachers' underpreparedness.


Teacher Respondents' Self Report of Perceptions of Under?Preparedness

Administrator Perceptions of Teacher Under? Preparedness

Math Teachers

Science Teachers

Math Teachers

Science Teachers

Percentages Reporting Underprerparedness Regarding:

Within specialty area

Within education program

Within specialty area

Within education program

Overall

Overall

Constructing effective learning experiences/outcome experiences, closing the feedback loop and assessing continuously

23.4%

16.7%

37%

22%

50%

41%

Aligning assessment to local, state, and national standards

29.7%

27%

37.9%

14.3%

42%

41%

The issue of assessment is interesting as well for the simple reason that the sheer proportion of respondents reporting feeling underprepared is troubling.  For the assessment issues in the table below, at least 25% of respondents reported perceptions of underpreparedness for most of the cells.  Because assessment continues to play such an important role in the work teachers are expected to do, this is an intriguing finding.  In addition, our initial focus group work with university faculty suggests that this is an area where faculty feel they are doing well in terms of preparing future math and science teachers, so the potential disconnect here is critically important to understand. 

 

Teacher Respondents' Self Report of Perceptions of Preparedness

Administrator Perceptions of Teacher Preparedness

Math Teachers

Science Teachers

Math Teachers

Science Teachers

Percentages Reporting Underprerparedness Regarding:

Within specialty area

Within education program

Within specialty area

Within education program

Overall

Overall

Using assessment data to improve instruction

47.5%

43.1%

66.7%

39.3%

54%

51%

Employing various authentic assessment strategies to accommodate diverse learners

32.8%

24.2%

55.6%

31%

62%

48%

Utilizing both formal and informal assessment techniques

25.0%

19.7%

46.4%

21.4%

30%

27%

The tables above are only a very small example of a few of the 72 survey data variables we analyzed over the past two years related to perceptions of teacher preparation.  However, the data collection and analysis process was only the first part of our work.  As noted above, the data were examined by focus groups we held with administrators, university faculty, and teachers to try to move towards a model that would allow us to determine what would be needed to create a sustainable feedback loop between these three constituencies.