The purpose of this study is to investigate teachers’ core competencies in relation to their innovative teaching performance. Based on the literature and previous studies in this field, four competencies (learning competency, educational competency, social competency and technological competency) are theorized as core competencies for teachers’ innovative teaching. A questionnaire on teachers’ core competencies and innovative teaching performance was developed and tested. The findings indicate that teachers’ educational competency, social competency and technological competency were positively related to their innovative teaching performance. The study also shows that a supportive colleague relationship is important for teachers’ innovative teaching performance. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Wubbels, 2010). The related literature review and their relationship to the proposed four core competencies are presented in Table 1. Below we present the concept and main arguments related to these four competencies.
Learning competency
Research results indicate that learning competency is very important for innovation (Chen, 2002；Konings et al, 2007). Learning competency refers to that teachers are willing to learn for innovating teaching and improving the teaching effectiveness (Chen, 2009). And the most important is they know how to learn. They know how to meet their studying needs, how to get the learning materials and how to solve teaching problems through study, self-reflection and research. They include teachers’ ability to critically reflect upon their educational impact and value system, as well as a readiness to take the initiative and responsibility for their professional development (Pantic & Wubbels, 2010).
Social competency
Social competency refers to that an innovative teacher should have the ability to communicate with students from different backgrounds (Koster et al., 2005). They also need to be able to cooperate with others and build positive human relationships (Pantic & Wubbels, 2010). Innovation is not just fun but requires hard work (Ferrari, Cachia & Punie 2009; Runco, 2007). They should also have the ability to tolerate confusion and frustration, to relish a challenge, and not to give up prematurely (Claxton et al, 2006; Runco, 2007).
Educational competency
In order to make education more effective with the integration of every kind of elements, educational competencies of teachers are required (Sahin-Izmirli & Kurt, 2009).
An innovative teacher is well aware of the innovative educational concepts and can guide students learning innovatively based on innovative teaching and learning principles. They have the passion for the education career (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996; Bi, 2003). And they should have a wealth of subject knowledge, pedagogy, learning psychology knowledge, and the ability of integrating them into the teaching practices effectively and to promote student development (Cowen, 2002).
Technological competency
Technological competency is crucial for successful innovative performance (Cohen & Levinthal, 1990). Technology could act as platforms that help teachers to act as mentors and to build new and innovative ways of teaching (Ferrari, Cachia & Punie 2009). An innovative teacher is aware of how to integrate modern educational technologies to enhance reasoning, provoke critical thinking, and deepen student understanding. It fits very well with modern instructional theories that focus on the implementation of real-life tasks as the driving force for learning (Van Merrienboer et al, 2005). In the current society, it is also critical for teachers to be able to find the necessary information among the vast amount of information available on the internet, to integrate information coming from multiple sources, and to effectively use this information to solve teaching problems (Segers & Verhoeven, 2009).
Innovative teaching
Teachers’ competencies for innovative teaching are presented in actual teaching practices. In the literature, many researchers focus on innovative teaching behaviours, approaches or strategies. There is a lack of specific definition about innovative teaching. Some researchers emphasize the outcomes of innovative teaching, such as the development of cognitive abilities or emotional aspects of students, while others stress the innovative aspects of the teaching processes, such as the use of new methods and techniques or by managing the classroom environment. For example, Whitman (1983) viewed student-centered teaching as an innovative format, which stresses teaching students to use strategies for representing and processing new information in ways that lead to problem solving. Slabbert (1994) viewed innovative teaching from the student development perspective, and pointed out teaching should be sensitive to the individual student’s conception of himself and his role in the classroom. Other researchers point out what is expected from teachers. The concept of innovative teaching is not equivalent to “new” teaching. Innovative teaching is often associated with a “new” method or strategy, but not all new methods and strategies are necessarily innovative. For example, Ferrari et al. (2009) said that innovative teaching is the process of leading to creative learning, by implementing new methods, tools and contents that can benefit learners and their creative potential. Amabile (1989) stresses the importance of a nurturing environment where students feel rewarded, become active learners, have a sense of ownership, and can freely discuss their problems; and where teachers are coaches and promote cooperative learning methods, and kindle the creative spark of students. Recent trends on innovative teaching have been focused on constructivist and social-constructivist learning theories and student-centered learning (Brandon, 2004). Instead of passively “absorbing” the knowledge, students should be actively involved in the learning processes, and participate and collaborate in real learning situations, and work on authentic learning tasks. In this sense, innovative teaching should be ‘student-centred’, aimed at improving the learning environment and the learning processes. In summary, although expressed in different ways, we find some consensus in the meaning of innovative teaching, which refers to the use of new and diversified ideas, methods or strategies and activities by teachers to understand the individual differences of students, facilitate active learning and the development of creative potential of students, stimulate their learning interests and improve learning effectiveness in the teaching and learning processes.
Innovative teaching performance
More specifically, innovative teaching can be displayed in the following five aspects according to the teaching processes: application of innovative thoughts in teaching, the use of innovative teaching methods and teaching strategies, the innovative use of teaching content, the innovative use of teaching resources, and innovative evaluation (Chen, 2009; Ma, 2007; Tan, 2010).
Application of innovative thoughts in teaching
Application of innovative thoughts refers to the performance of divergent thinking, the tendency to practice with alternative solutions, and the sensitivity to problems (Sternberg & Lubart, 1999). The teacher integrates the trends of teaching and curriculum development into the teaching practices with an open mind (Lin, 2009). In addition, they apply the new innovative learning theories, such as social-constructivist learning and student-centered learning in their actual teaching practices.
The innovative use of teaching content
When planning for innovative teaching, there is a need to tailor the content and method based on students' interests, their prior knowledge and current level of abilities (Tan, 2010; Russ, 2003). The innovative use of teaching content refers to that the teacher adds, adapts, integrates, enriches and innovates on teaching content according to the needs of students and the learning tasks rather than being restricted to the specific and pre-set content materials in the class (Chen, 2009). In addition, materials in daily life can be incorporated into the course content innovatively to develop more suitable teaching content to the teaching context and student learning. Innovative teachers choose the content that is beneficial for students’ creative thinking, imagination, and can improve students’ learning interests.
The use of innovative teaching methods and teaching strategies
The use of innovative teaching methods and strategies refers to the need of a learner-centred pedagogy, personalisation and individualisation of learning, allowing pupils to have a say in the planning and implementation of the tasks (Craft, 2005; Williamson, 2009). The teacher breaks through the teaching inertia and uses cooperative learning, inquiry learning, and independent study to help students think actively and construct knowledge by themselves through learning activities. Applying these innovative teaching strategies can enhance students’ innovative competency and improve their academic achievement (Feldhusen & Treffinger, 1980).
The innovative use of teaching resources
The innovative use of teaching resources refers to that the teacher transfers the library, internet, school and social resources into teaching resources innovatively (Chen, 2009). So the teacher provides teaching aids and equipments from a variety of types for learning. Students can learn best when they see the relevance of what they are doing and when they are intrinsically interested in the activity or task (Williamson & Payton, 2009). The teacher collects teaching resources from a variety of channels and uses them in the classroom properly to enhance student’ interests in learning, stimulate students to think innovatively and encourage divergent learning activities (Feldhusen & Treffinger, 1980).
Innovative evaluation
Innovative evaluation refers to that the teacher uses a variety of evaluation methods and assessment, not to judge the students but to help them to understand better (Beghetto, 2005). A safe climate should be established in the classroom in which the students feel free to explore their innovative potential (Ellis & Barr, 2008). With regard to student evaluation, teachers should reward curiosity and exploration (Beghetto, 2005; Runco, 2003), handle failure or mistakes in a positive manner to help students realize errors and meet acceptable standards in a supportive atmosphere.
Supportive teaching environment
Although individual competencies are essential for innovative teaching, the mere presence of these competencies might not suffice. Innovation performances are stimulated by the environmental context (Sternberg & Lubart, 1999). A supportive organisational environment can contribute to teaching innovations by strengthening and encouraging the development of individual competencies (Zhu & Engels, in press). Bharadwaj (2000) also stresses that the organizational environment for innovation is established through providing correct methods, tools and resources to encourage innovative behavior. School environment factors such as leadership support and collegial relationship are important factors that influence teachers’ attitudes and implementation of educational innovations (Ngan, 2003; Harris, 2002, Zhu, 2012). Based on the theoretical and empirical evidence, we expect that a supportive and innovative school environment will be positively related to teachers’ innovative teaching performance.
Research problem and objectives of this research
Despite the importance of teachers’ innovative teaching strategies and performance, little is known about what innovative teaching competencies are critical underlying teachers’ innovative teaching. In available research there is a lack of general framework about core competencies for innovative teaching. Based on the available research and the arguments presented above, the main objectives of this research are 1) to develop and test an instrument to examine teachers’ core competencies that are related to teachers’ innovative teaching, 2) to investigate the relationship between the core competencies and teachers’ innovative teaching performance, 3) to examine the relationship between factors of the school environment and teachers’ innovative teaching performance. We hypothesize that teachers’ innovative teaching performance can be predicted and related to the four core competencies. Building on the theoretical base, we predict that the four core competencies are critical for teachers’ innovative teaching, with higher scores of the four competencies associated with a higher level of innovative teaching performance. We also hypothesize that a supportive school environment can be positively related to teachers’ innovative teaching performance. The theoretical model of this research is present in Figure 1.
Method
Participants
Participants of the study were 200 teachers from six secondary schools from Beijing, China. The teaching subjects of the teachers included mathematics, language, English, physics, chemistry, politics, geography, and biology. The nature and composition of the samples are presented in Table 2.
Development of the instrument
Process
The development and validation of the instrument had four phases. Phase 1: Based on literature review and extensive discussions with experts in the field of education and teacher education, we developed an instrument of Core Competencies for Innovative Teaching (CCIT) measuring teachers’ four core competencies from the sub-dimensions of attitudes, knowledge, and skills and an instrument of Innovative Teaching Performance (ITP) to measure teachers’ reported actual performance in innovative teaching. In addition, relevant school environment factors and teacher individual factors were measured. All items were self-compiled based on the understanding of the concepts and references from related literature (eg. Burt et al., 2008; Lin, 2009). Phase 2: In order to check its content validity and the consistency with the theoretical framework, consultations were conducted with 10 teachers and educational researchers. Based on their suggestions, some items were modified to be more theoretically sound and suitable for the real situation of teaching and learning in secondary school settings. Phase 3: A small-scale pilot test was conducted to check the understanding of the instrument by secondary teachers. Small adjustments of language and wording were made based on the feedback and suggestions of these secondary teachers. Phase 4: The validation study was conducted to test the reliability and validity of the instrument.
Measures
Four parts of questions were included in the instrument. All respondents were asked to complete these four parts of questions. The Likert-type scale was used to collect responses of teachers to the items.
The Core Competencies for Innovative Teaching. The first part measures teacher’s perceptions of the four core competencies. Each competency is composed of three sub- dimensions, namely knowledge, attitude and skills. For example, the scale of learning competency is composed of three sub-scales: knowledge about how to learn, attitudes towards learning and the skills or capabilities of learning. The number of items and sample items of the scales are presented in Table 3.
The Innovative Teaching Performance Scales. The second part includes the performances of innovative teaching in five educational aspects. Each item referred to teacher performance exhibited in the daily teaching activities. Teachers were asked to rate their own teaching behavior or practices on a five-point Likert scale. The number of items and sample items are presented in Table 4.
School environment factors. The third part inquires about relevant school factors, including leadership support (5 items), colleague support (7 items), and school material and administrative support (8 items). The scales are partly based on the School Culture Scales (Zhu et al., 2011).
Background characteristics of teachers. In the fourth part of the instrument, demographic factors were measured. It included teaching subject, teaching grade, gender, educational level and years of teaching.
Data analyses
In order to test the factor structure of the set of observed variables based on our theoretical hypothesis, Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was conducted. A two step CFA was conducted. First, the confirmatory factor analysis for each competency as reflected by the three sub-dimensions was conducted. After the verification of the factor structure of each competency, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to test the factor structure of the four competencies. The reliability of the scales was also analyzed. To test the relationship between teachers’ core competencies, school environment, teachers’ background variables and the teachers’ reported performance of innovative teaching, hierarchical regression analyses were conducted.
Results
Validity and reliability analysis
Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) were conducted to test whether the factor constructs fitted with our sample. First, the factor structure of each scale was tested separately: learning competency (LC), educational competency (EC), social competency (SC) and technological competency (TC). The initial factor models for the four competencies were not very satisfactory. The modification indexes indicated that three items were problematic either for too low factor loadings or relatively high factor loadings on two factors. Therefore, these three items were removed and the factor structures were re-tested. As a result, 57 items of the core competency scales remained (learning competency, 15 items; educational competency, 16 items; social competency, 13 items; technological competency, 13 items). Table 5 presents the final model fit of each scale, which was assessed through the adequacy of goodness-of-fit indicators (X2/df ratio, GFI, CFI and RMSEA). The factor model with the three sub- dimensions (attitude, knowledge and skill) for each competency fitted the data reasonably well, with the group invariance fit statistics in acceptance range (i.e., X2/df<3; GFI>0.90; CFI>0.90; RMSEA<0.08). After the confirmation of the factor structure of each competency, the means of the three components (attitude, knowledge and skill) of each scale were calculated. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted for the whole model with the four factors: LC, EC, SC and TC; Correlation between the four factors was allowed. The CFA results show that the fit of the whole model of the four competencies for innovative teaching was acceptable (X2/df=1.762, GFI=.931, CFI=.979, RMSEA=.065) (Table 5).
Reliability of each scale was analyzed using Cronbach’s alpha coefficients (see table 6). The reliabilities of the four core competencies were all greater than 0.80 and regarded as very good. The alpha coefficients for the scales of innovative teaching performance were greater than 0.70, which were regarded as adequate (Netemeyer et al., 2003). The reliability of the school environment factors were acceptable with alpha coefficients greater than 0.65.
Means, standard deviations, correlation and regression analysis
Table 6 presents the means, standard deviations of the variables. In order to examine the relationship between the core competencies for innovative teaching, teacher background variables, school environment factors and teachers’ innovative teaching performance, correlation and regression analyses were conducted. The correlation analyses show that all four core competencies were significantly correlated to the five innovative teaching performance scales, as well as the overall mean score of the innovative teaching performance (Table 6). Among the teacher background and school environment variables, the results revealed that years of teaching and colleague support were significantly positively related to the five scales of innovative teaching performance, including the overall performance score. This implies that teachers who had more years of teaching showed somewhat higher innovative teaching performance and teachers who got more support from colleagues also showed somewhat higher innovative teaching performance. Therefore, in the following regression analyses, the core competencies, years of teaching and colleague support were included as independent variables, and the innovative teaching performance as dependent variables. The other demographic characteristics and school environment factors were not significantly related to innovative teaching performance and therefore were not included in the regression analyses. In this regression model, the independent variables explained 63 percent of the variances in the whole innovative teaching performance, which was highly significant (F=51.08, p < .001).
The hierarchical regression analysis results predicting teachers’ innovative teaching performance are presented in Table 8. Three regression models were analyzed. In Model 1, the four core competencies were considered as predictors. In Model 2, the four core competencies and teacher background variables were considered as predictors. In Model 3, the four core competencies, teacher background variables and school environment factors were considered as predictors. The results show that Educational Competency was strongly related to the five aspects of teachers’ innovative teaching performance. This implies that teachers showed more innovative teaching behaviors when they had innovative educational beliefs, a wealth of subject knowledge, pedagogy and learning psychology knowledge, and could be able to integrate them into the teaching practices effectively. Social Competency showed a significant positive relationship with “Application of innovative thoughts”. It indicates that teachers were more inclined to take new perspectives on problems and apply persistence to the exploration of new pathways to solve problems in teaching when they had a good communication skill as well as the persistence in solving teaching problems. Additionally, Technological Competency was significantly related to four aspects of innovative teaching performance in Model 1, and three aspects of innovative teaching performance in Model 2. In Model 3, Technological Competency was significantly related to “Teaching methods and teaching strategies innovation” and “Teaching resources innovation”. This indicates that teachers who were technologically competent were more capable to find the desired information among the vast amount of information available on the internet, integrate the information coming from multiple sources, effectively use this information to solve teaching problems, and apply educational technology in teaching practices would have better innovative performance in innovating teaching methods and strategies. Although among the teacher background variables, years of teaching was significantly related to the innovative teaching, when considering all the factors together in Model 2 and 3, it did not have a significant contribution to the innovative teaching performance. With regard to colleague support, it was significantly related to “Application of innovative thoughts”, “Teaching methods and teaching strategies innovation”, “Teaching resources innovation”.
This implies that when teachers got more support from colleagues, they could be more inclined to have innovative thoughts, teaching methods and strategies, and use of resources. Although Learning Competency was significantly correlated with the innovative teaching behaviours (see Table 7), in the regression models, it was not a significant predictor for the innovative teaching performance. The results show that Social Competency, Educational Competency, Technological Competency and colleague support were significant predictors for the overall innovative teaching performance as reported by the teachers. Furthermore, the hierarchical regression analysis models show that Model 3 had the most contribution to the innovative teaching performance of teachers (R2adjusted from .51 to .63). However, considering the small differences of contributions between Model 1 and Model 3, we can well conclude that the four core competencies had a great contribution to teachers’ innovative teaching performance (R2 from .47 to .61)
See more:
Zhu C., Wang D,, Cai Y. H. & Engels, N. (2013). What core competencies are related to teachers' innovative teaching? Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 41(1), 9-27.
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1359866X.2012.753984