The approach taken here is similar to that used by Wilson, Floden, and Ferrini-Mundy (2001) in their review of the research on teacher preparation conducted for the U.S. Department of Education. Empirical studies that conform to a variety of accepted methodological approaches and use a range of measures of teacher effectiveness are used to ascertain what existing evidence says about the relationship between teacher attributes and their performance. In addition, this approach pays close attention to a number of contextual factors (e.g., level of education, subject area, type of student) as a way of drawing conclusions across studies. Clearly, the context of teaching is important and may affect the impact of the teacher attributes considered in this analysis. In fact, when existing studies are considered as a whole ，findings tend to be inconsistent across studies; context variables may help to explain the apparent inconsistency of the existing research. This careful attention to the context of teaching, wherever possible, helps to tease out some effects that would otherwise go undetected in reviews that neglect to consider these factors. The goal of this study is to sort through the available evidence to draw conclusions about what matters, what has been studied but has not been shown to matter, and what has not been adequately studied.
In the face of such seemingly inconsistent and inconclusive evidence, policy makers are side-stepping the research (or relying only on those studies that support their positions) to move forward with teacher policies, often without the benefit of research to guide their efforts. However, research can, and should, play a role in these decisions. For instance, numerous measures of what a teacher knows and can do have been routinely assumed to be important. However, questions continue to persist about what exactly a quality teacher is. In other words, what
teacher characteristics have been found to predict teacher effectiveness? This is a fundamental question that must precede policy discussions concerning what kinds of teacher qualities and qualifications to promote in aspiring teachers, whom to recruit and hire, what factors to use in setting salary schedules, and how to distribute teachers across different types of schools and classrooms to achieve equity and adequacy goals. This analysis examines the existing empirical literature on the relationship between teacher attributes and their effectiveness with the goal of informing policy on investing in teacher quality.
The next chapter describes the methodology used to review the literature on the relationship between teacher characteristics and their performance, and the chapter that follows presents the findings from this literature review. The final chapter concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for future research and policy.