International Portal of Teacher Education

Source: Educational Researcher, Vol. 46, No. 4, 2017
(Reviewed by the Portal Team)

This study aimed to examine the relationship between policies related to the recruitment, selection, preparation, and certification of new teachers and (a) the quality of future teachers as measured by their mathematics content and pedagogy content knowledge and (b) student achievement in mathematics at the national level.

Methods
The authors used data collected for the Teacher Education and Development Study in Mathematics, which compared the ways in which 17 countries prepared teachers of mathematics for the primary and secondary levels. The authors gathered data from the following countries: Botswana, Canada, Chile, Chinese Taipei, Georgia, Germany, Malaysia, Norway, Oman, the Philippines, Poland, Russian Federation, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, and the United States.

Discussion and Conclusions
The findings revealed statistically significant associations between the overall strength of these quality assurance arrangements and the quality of graduates. The authors found that countries with strong quality assurance arrangements, such as Chinese Taipei and Singapore, scored highest, whereas countries with weaker arrangements, such as Georgia and Chile, tended to score lower on these measures.
The results also showed a statistically significant relationship between quality assurance arrangements and the mathematics achievement of students.

The authors argue that these findings have important implications for policymakers concerned with promoting teacher quality through investing in teacher education.
First, it was found that quality assurance system through policies and practices in teacher education does matter. The findings point to the importance of ensuring that policies designed to promote teacher quality at each stage are coordinated and mutually supportive.
Furthermore, it was found that entry to the profession correlates most strongly with PISA scores.

The authors conclude that recruitment and selection is consistently associated with all of the desirable outcomes, accreditation of programs most strongly with school content–related content measures, and entry to the profession with an outcome focused less directly on school content and more on the ability to use mathematics in the outside world.
The authors suggest that both recruitment and accreditation should be important considerations for policymakers.