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The purpose of this paper is to examine student performance on both criterion- and norm-referenced measures, linked with teacher and student communication orientations.

The study used a pre-post design. During the pre-study phase, teachers underwent three days of intensive training in the Process Education Model®. In total, 21 middle and high school teachers at an independent school were the subject group. Each teacher identified ten students, five of whom they classified as “easy to communicate with” and five others whom they classified as “difficult to communicate with.” Approximately, 200 students participated in the study. Teachers and students provided communication preferences via the Kahler Personality Pattern Inventory® (1996). Performance data were gleaned from student grade point averages (GPAs) and grade-appropriate versions of ACT instruments.

The PPI reveals, in part, perceptual preferences in an assessing matrix. Intrinsic and extrinsic orientations were one set of distinctions. Most (more than 85 percent) of the teachers had intrinsic orientations, compared with 63 percent of the “easy” students and 47 percent of the “difficult” students. Both GPA and ACT comparisons were significantly different (p<0.001) on both pre- and post-measures, with the easy students outstripping their difficult counterparts. No significant differences were observed on the ACT Aspire, taken by students in grades 6–9.

The study was conducted at one site.

Student performance appears to be linked with connecting with teachers’ preferred delivery and communication styles. The more like their teachers the students are, the better their performance. Reinforcing new knowledge and skills was recognized as an important component of training.

If connecting better with students is tied with performance, teachers who learn how to shift their delivery methods may foster better outcomes. Also, attention should be paid on how distress may impact teacher performance, especially as they interact with students whose communication preferences may differ from theirs.

The voice of school principals represents the principals' thoughts and experiences because of their as teachers' evaluator. It provides principals' perception on making sense the teacher evaluation. In qualitative research, voice can provide the truth and meaning of principals' experience in teachers evaluation. Their voices in the qualitative interviews are recorded and transcribed into words (Jackson and Mazzei, 2009 and Charteris and Smardon, 2018). By listening to the voices of principals in five provinces in Indonesia, this study, a qualitative research, intends to explore the principals' sensemaking in teacher evaluation.

This study adopted a qualitative approach, as it was principally concerned with capturing participants' direct experiences in their natural setting as both the teachers' evaluator and school leader (Patton, 2002). The qualitative interview and content analysis were used in this study. The qualitative interview is a type of conversation used to explore informants' experiences and interpretations; in this study, the headmaster (Mishler, 1986; Spradley, 1979 in Hatch, 2002). Researchers used the interviews to uncover the structure of meaning used by principals in making sense the policies that determine teacher evaluations and that are used to carry out evaluations within principal's local authority. The implicit structure can be discovered from direct observation, and the qualitative interviews can bring this meaning to the surface (Hatch, 2002). Therefore, by applying the qualitative interviews, it is expected that information or “unique” interpretations from the principal can be obtained (Stake, 2010). Content analysis is a research technique for making valid conclusions from oral texts into a research context. This analysis can provide new insights, improve researchers' understanding of certain phenomena, or inform other practical actions through the use of verbal data collected in the form of answers to open interview questions (Krippendorff, 2004).

There are three important findings relating to principals' sensemaking of teachers' evaluation; they are teachers' length of service, principals' perceptions of teacher evaluations and consistency in teacher performance improvement. The principals' perception greatly influences their beliefs and sensemaking of teacher evaluation. In essence, teacher evaluation has not been used to identify high-quality teachers. Principals focus more on the improvement of teachers' welfare than teacher actual performance.

Future research should explore principals' attitude toward the stakeholders when student achievement is not in line with the consistent increase in teachers' performance ratings. And, it is also necessary to investigate the policy makers response to see the consistent improvement in teacher's evaluation is not in line with student achievement. Finally, how to eliminate the culture of joint responsibility without causing frictions in the school environment.

The authors hereby declare that this submission is their own work, and to the best of their knowledge, it contains no materials previously published or written by another person, or substantial proportions of material that have been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma any other publishers.

The purpose of the current study is to assess Omani teachers’ performance on tasks related to the stages of engineering design. To achieve this, data from an engineering design test was used, and demographic variables that are correlated with this performance were identified.

This descriptive study employed a cross-sectional design and the collection of quantitative data. A sample of preservice science teachers from Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) (n = 70) participated in this study.

Findings showed low and moderate levels of proficiency related to the stages of engineering design. Differences between males and females in terms of performance on engineering design tasks were found, with females scoring higher overall on the assessment. Biology preservice teachers scored higher than teachers from the other two majors (physics and chemistry) in two subscales. There were also differences between teachers studying in the Bachelor of Science (BSc) program and the teacher qualification diploma (TQD) program.

This study provides an overview, in an Arab setting, of preservice science teachers’ proficiency with engineering design process (EDP) tasks. It is hoped that the results may lead to improved instruction in science teacher training programs in similar contexts. Additionally, this research demonstrates how EDP competency relates to preservice teacher gender, major and preparation program. Findings from this study will contribute to the growing body of research investigating the strengths and shortcomings of teacher education programs in relation to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education.

Grounded on the distributed theory and the social exchange theory, the current study investigates the determinants that positively influence job performance among educators within the realm of higher education in India. It particularly assesses the impact of perceived academic leadership on performance and explores the mediating and moderating effects of organizational citizenship behavior and informal institutional leadership.

Employing a descriptive research design, this study encompasses a broad cross-section of faculty members from various higher educational institutions across India. Data were gathered from 826 educators using a snowball sampling technique, with questionnaires administered online. Each variable was measured using prevalidated scales.

The findings from the moderated mediation model indicate a significant indirect relationship between perceived academic leadership and job performance, which is mediated by organizational citizenship behavior. Furthermore, informal institutional leadership demonstrates significant conditional indirect effects, enhancing the link between academic leadership and job performance up to a threshold, beyond which its influence diminishes.

This study pioneers the exploration of academic dynamics beyond mere titles and ranks in the Indian educational sector. It delineates both the direct and indirect roles these dynamics play in enhancing faculty performance, providing a novel insight into the complexities of academic leadership.

University students' ratings of teaching and teachers' performance are used in many parts of the world for the evaluation of faculty members at colleges and universities. Even though these ratings receive mixed reviews, there is little conclusive evidence on the role of the intervening variable of teacher and student gender in these ratings. Possible influences resulting from gender-related differences in different socio-cultural contexts, especially where gender combination in student and faculty population is not proportionate, have not been adequately investigated in previous research. This study aimed to examine Iranian university students' ratings of the professional performance of male and female university teachers and to explore the differences in male and female university students' evaluation of teachers of the same or opposite gender. The study was a questionnaire-based cross-sectional survey with a total of 800 randomly selected students in their different years of undergraduate study (307 male and 493 female students, reflecting the proportion of male and female students in the university) from different faculties at the University of Kashan, Iran. The participants rated male and female teachers’ performance in observing university regulations, relationship with colleagues, and relationships with students. The researchers used descriptive statistics, means comparison inferential statistics and focus-group interview data to analyze and compare the students’ ratings. The results of one-sample t-test, independent samples t-test, and Chi-square analyses showed that a) overall, male university teachers received significantly higher overall ratings in all areas than female teachers; b) male students rated male teachers significantly higher than female students did; and c) female students assigned a higher overall mean rating to male teachers than to female teachers but this mean difference was not significant. These results are studied in relation to the findings in the related literature and indicate that gender can be an important intervening variable in university students' evaluation of faculty members.

Competition among higher education institutions has pushed universities to expand their competitive advantages. Based on the assumption that the core functions of universities are academic, understanding the teaching–learning process with the help of student evaluation of teaching (SET) would seem to be a logical solution in increasing competitiveness. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The current paper presents a narrative literature review examining how SETs work within the concept of service marketing, focusing specifically on the search, experience, and credence qualities of the provider. A review of the various factors that affect the collection of SETs is also included.

Relevant findings show the influence of students’ prior expectations on SET ratings. Therefore, teachers are advised to establish a psychological contract with the students at the start of the semester. Such an agreement should be negotiated, setting out the potential benefits of undertaking the course and a clear definition of acceptable performance within the class. Moreover, connections should be made between courses and subjects in order to provide an overall view of the entire program together with future career pathways.

Given the complex factors affecting SETs and the antecedents involved, there appears to be no single perfect tool to adequately reflect what is happening in the classroom. As different SETs may be needed for different courses and subjects, options such as faculty self-evaluation and peer-evaluation might be considered to augment current SETs.

The present study explores five Iranian English language teachers’ hopes by drawing on an ecological approach as its conceptual underpinning.

Data were collected from narrative frames and semi-structured interviews.

Analyses of our data highlighted how teacher- and student-related factors caused fluctuations in teachers’ hopes. In addition, our findings indicated that while teachers’ past teaching experiences increased their hope, teachers’ lack of agency and economic inflation were among the most significant factors that decreased teachers’ hope in their profession.

This study is one of the first studies in the field of language studies with an ecological perspective on language teachers' hope.

Meeting the 21st century skills is critically significant to ensure success in today's world, collegiate context and neoteric careers. This qualitative study turns attention to teachers' mindsets, dispositions and perceptions concerning 21st century life competencies required to meet the current, emerging and future needs of learners.

One-to-one structured interviews were conducted with English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers (N = 8), where open-ended questions were asked in order to determine the participants' perception of, support to, and integration of the life competencies into an EFL classroom setting. In addition, teachers' performance and implementation of life competencies (males and females) was observed in the classroom over a long time.

The results showed that teachers' practices contradict their conceptions of the life competencies. Critical thinking was seen as a priority from teachers' perspectives. Teachers perceived learning to learn and critical thinking as the most important competencies for students to learn. Findings of the study indicated that teachers hold positive attitudes toward integrating life competencies into EFL context; however, they lack a clear vision about how to incorporate them.

This study recommends equipping teachers with professional training and customized orientations offering new insights into how life-competency-oriented instruction might be designed.

Career readiness should be a prominent aim of education where students are equipped with life skills or competencies. EFL practitioners need to understand, support and implement life-competency-instruction.

The study aims to present a logic map linking the Professional Development School (PDS) Nine Essentials as a PDS theory of action and offer an analysis of dissertations that compare outcomes of learning in PDS and non-PDS contexts.

For this current study, the authors identified 25 of the 210 dissertations from a larger study that used a comparison methodology to provide a window into how learning in PDS and non-PDS settings may differ. In reviewing these comparison studies, the authors identified a set of clustered themes, as well as a variety of comparison constructs and measurements researchers used to determine the impact of PDS.

Five themes emerged including (1) the experience of learning to teach in a PDS setting vs. a non-PDS; (2) the experience of teaching in a PDS vs. non-PDS; (3) teacher candidate quality in a PDS vs. non-PDS; (4) teacher quality in a PDS vs. non-PDS; (5) school leader quality in a PDS vs. non-PDS; and (6) K-12 student learning in PDS vs. non-PDS.

Limitations of this study include the complications related to comparison, logic-related fallacies and the complexity of capturing simultaneous renewal.

In the 30th year of PDS work, the study utilizes a theory of action comprised of linking the PDS Nine Essentials to situate the comparison dissertation analysis of outcomes in PDS and non-PDS contexts suggesting challenges and possibilities and perhaps a direction for new research questions.