Exploring teacher effectiveness via students' perspectives

Abstract

The aim behind this study is to discover students' perspectives with regards to teaching effectiveness. It aims to explore the experiences and views of students about teachers and teaching and it aims to gather data on areas such as gender, discipline, teachers' subject knowledge and professionalism, which will then be put together into a list of characteristics which will constitute the criteria teachers need to have in order to be considered 'effective teachers'. The data collected provided me with the necessary feedback about teacher effectiveness and enabled me to put forward recommendations as to how one can improve his teaching strategies in order to become a more effective teacher. Research was carried out in six different schools: two state, two church and two private and 30 Form 3 students were randomly chosen to be interviewed - unstructured interviews were used. From the data analysis, it was concluded that teachers should have various characteristics: these referred to three kinds of attributes being; personal qualities, interpersonal skills and professional development. As the study revealed, a good and effective teacher should have a number of characteristics from each of the three different attributes: it is each and every teachers' responsibility to make sure that all the necessary attributes are present in his/ her teaching.