The effect of school leaders’ feedback on teaching quality perceived by students – results of an intervention study

ABSTRACT

Feedback from school leaders often is of low quality and not always effective. Because school leaders spend only limited time on instructional leadership activities, an intervention was developed to assist them in efficiently providing high-quality feedback to teachers. The effectiveness of the intervention was evaluated within a quasi-experimental study. N = 11 school leaders were trained in conducting classroom observations and providing feedback. School leaders observed teachers of the intervention group (N = 26) and provided feedback with regard to 14 teaching characteristics. N = 27 teachers served as a control group. It is examined whether the intervention leads to improvements in teaching quality perceived by students. Multilevel regression analyses were conducted. For three of the 14 teaching characteristics, intervention group students (N = 518) rated changes in teaching quality significantly better than control group students (N = 551). The results provide first evidence for the effectiveness of the intervention.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher evaluation
• feedback
• school improvement
• instructional leadership
• intervention study

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 After general education, vocational schools in Germany prepare students for a specific occupation. Therefore, vocational schools offer a variety of different educational programmes, some of which are combined with on-the-job training.

2 There are no meaningful differences between IG and CG classes in relation to subject grade, class size, and class composition (e.g., proportion of girls, proportion of low-socioeconomic status [SES] students).

3 Although the observational data from the web-based feedback portal are available, due to data protection regulations, it is not possible to relate the observational data to individual teachers. However, for the entire sample it is feasible to estimate how often IG teachers received feedback with regard to each teaching characteristic.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Grant number 283241518.

Notes on contributors

Christopher Kellermann

Christopher Kellermann is a research assistant and PhD candidate at the Freie Universität Berlin. His research interests relate to feedback to teachers as a means for improving the quality of teaching, teachers’ professional development, and school improvement.

Max Nachbauer

Max Nachbauer is a research assistant at the Freie Universität Berlin. He majored in educational science at the University of Bamberg. His main research interests are educational effectiveness, equity in education, and school improvement.

Holger Gaertner

Holger Gaertner is Professor for Teaching and School Evaluation and scientific director of the Institute for School Quality Improvement (ISQ) at the Freie Universität Berlin. After obtaining his doctorate in psychology, he initially worked at the ISQ as a project manager responsible for projects on the internal and external evaluation of schools. He conducts research on questions of data-based decision making to support school and instruction development.

Felicitas Thiel

Felicitas Thiel studied educational science and sociology at the University of Bamberg and the Freie Universität Berlin. She received her doctorate in 1994 and her habilitation in 2003. After holding a professorship at the University of Vechta, she returned to Freie Universität Berlin in 2006 as Professor of School Pedagogy/School Improvement. Her research interests are teachers’ professional development, classroom management, and school improvement.