Teacher education and student results in PISA

Sören NielsenEuropean Training Foundation

Belgrade, 16 June 2011

The challenge

Denmark scores low in PISA tests and asks itself why ?

The Government asked a group of researchers to find out whether teacher education (for teachers at primary and lower secondary levels) in Denmark is different from three countries all high-flyers in PISA and TIMMS tests – Finland; Canada; Singapore

Researchers were asked to analyse structures but in particular contents (curriula, syllabii and textbooks) in the 4 countries and answer two questions:

• Characteristics of teacher education in the top-3 countries and Denmark in terms of contents in selected (in particular the pedagogical subjects?

• Similarities and differences between teacher education between the countries?

The hardest evidence: quality of teachers

• Quality of teachers most important factor for student performance in schools; international research is in complete agreement

• International teacher education research: the expertise of teachers in terms of knowledge and competences key single factor to explain student results (Darling-Hammond & Brasford, 2005; Darling-Hammond & Young, 2002; Day, day, Qing & Stobart, 2009)

• Teacher quality significantly and positively correlated with student performance and its effect is much higher than the impact of student earlier learning results, class size, school organisation/leadership, ethnic factors and socio-economic status (Hanushek, 2002)

• A school system’s quality boundary is identical with the quality of its teachers (Barber & Mourshed, 2007).

The PISA results 2006

Science Reading Mathematics

Finland (1) Singapore (1) Finland (1)

Canada (3) Finland (2) Singapore (2)

Singapore (7) Canada (3) Canada (5)

Denmark (18 ) Denmark (19) Denmark (10)

Differences and similarities

Structural differences

• In the top-3 countries teacher education is placed at universities and the teacher education is a research-based education.In Denmark teacher education is placed at university colleges and the education is development based.

• In two of top-3 countries the education lasts 5 years (Canada and Finland). In Denmark the education lasts 4 years.

• The background of teacher educators are different: in top-3 countries PhD level is required. In Denmark the requirement is a Master degree.

• In the top-3 countries the education to become a teacher is highly attractive and only a lower percentage is given access.In Denmark there is no competition to get access and all qualified candidates are enrolled.

Differences and similarities

Differences in contents

• Teaching practice (Practicum) is lowest in Finland and highest in Denmark.

• Unlike the top-3 countries, in Denmark practice teaching takes place in ordinary, normal schools where not all mentor teachers have received training in practice guidance.

Differences and similarities

Differences in contents

Concerning curriculum and literature used in the four countries, there is a clear difference:

Top-3 countries differ clearly from Denmark in the use of literature:

• Denmark uses remarkably more texts about philosophical oriented, normative profession knowledge in teacher education than the top-3 countries. In this category we find topics such as socialization theory, “Bildung”, action competence, and theories on democracy. This strong emphasis is the defining characteristics of Danish teacher education!

• In Finland there is a very strong emphasis on research methodology so that teachers can carry out their own school-based research.

• In the top-3 countries there is an emphasis on evidence-based profession knowledge which relates to and combines research and teaching practice.