The federal Race to the Top initiative signified a shift in American education policy whereby accountability efforts moved from the school to the teacher level. Using administrative data from Tennessee, we explore whether evaluation reforms differentially influenced mobility patterns for teachers of varying effectiveness. We find that the rollout…

The identification, measurement, and composition of playfulness (pf) and its complementary trait, nonplayfulness (nonpf), as well as the influence of sex, age, grade, and subject matter area on this behavior is the focus of this research. High school students representing above average, average, below average, and heterogeneous achievement levels…

Teacher effectiveness research has used changing criteria over the years in assessing and evaluating teacher performance and its effect on student achievement. Early researchers accepted the idea that there should be a relationship between the personality or traits of the teacher and student outcomes. Lists of characteristics of superior teachers…

A review of past methods of observing teacher behavior is presented, with comment on the relative effectiveness of each method provided. A research model using videotape recording of teachers' in-classroom behavior is suggested, and information given concerning the current use of similar methods of observation. (LH)

This study seeks to determine the degree to which certain behavioral measures interact with intelligence, whether in a linear or curvilinear fashion, to help one predict academic achievement in Head Start children to a greater degree than would be possible were intelligence test performance alone used as the predictor variable. Children were…

Since the 1890s, researchers have been studying the impact of teachers' characteristics and styles on their students' progress. Many attempts to quantify basis of quality teaching have been made. The research into teaching styles has traveled through four distinct phases. The first was concerned with describing the characteristics of the effective…

Although student evaluation of instruction has been shown to produce reliable results over class averages, considerable within-class variability exists that has not been investigated. This study looked at examples of student evaluations in which students diametrically differed in their evaluation of the same instructor. Patterns were noted. A…