Author: Gregory J. HildenPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Effective teaching
Languages : en
Pages : 114
Book Description
The purpose of this phenomenological, qualitative study was to explore the nature of the relationship between collaboration and performance-based pay from the perspective of teaching professionals. Eighty-four educators from two suburban high schools completed a researcher-constructed survey and a total of fourteen teachers from the same schools participated in one of two focus groups. The study focused on teachers' current understanding of collaboration, how it occurs specifically in their school, and how implementation of performance-based pay could potentially influence the level of collaboration in their school. The results of this study found that teachers believe collaboration affects student achievement. However, despite demonstrating expectations for student achievement are reasonable at their school, a majority of teachers from both focus groups concurred that student achievement is not an accurate measure of a teacher's effectiveness. Teachers possess varying degrees of understanding about the nature of collaboration, how frequently it occurs, and how it can individually help improve their craft. The results generated from this study indicated the depth to which teachers collaborate is less than the frequency they actually engage in collaboration. Findings indicated collaboration could be affected by factors such as age, location of practice, and area of expertise. Almost half of the participants in this study admitted no knowledge of performance-based pay systems. Approximately the same number believed performance-based pay is not equitable. Ultimately, those who believed performance-based pay would cause either a positive effect or no effect on collaboration slightly outnumbered those who believed the implementation of such a system would cause a decrease in collaboration or create a competitive environment. An overwhelming number of participants documented that their pay possessed some degree of fairness. Similarly, a large number of educators indicated it is fair to compensate more effective teachers differently. Almost the exact same number of participants suspected performance-based pay would affect student achievement. If, the educators who thought merit-pay would affect student achievement were from the pool of purporting it is fair to compensate more effective teachers differently, it could be argued that the majority of teachers participating in this study are in favor of performance-based pay.
