In this article we investigate the impact of COVID-19 on teaching quality and student active teaching. The data used for the analysis is from more than 4,000 students at the University of Stavanger, collected for the Study Barometer, one of the most important metrics for assessing student satisfaction in higher education, in the period 2018-2020.…

This article is a commentary on the seven articles in this special issue of EJTE on teacher quality from international perspectives. In the article, Marilyn Cochran-Smith points to differences as well as common themes and details across the articles in the issue. The article discusses the emergence of teacher quality as a global concern, including…

Teacher quality, or 'the good teacher' is not clearly defined in Norway, nor are there specific standards for measuring teacher quality. Everybody has an opinion about the good teacher, and teacher quality is frequently debated. Moreover, in Norway there is no systematic evaluation of teachers. Nevertheless, numerous reforms and popular discourses…

The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement's (IEA) mission is to enhance knowledge about education systems worldwide, and to provide high-quality data that will support education reform and lead to better teaching and learning in schools. In pursuit of this aim, it conducts, and reports on, major studies of student…

The aim of this paper is to discuss the role of coding and observation manuals in classroom studies. While observation manuals have been a part of the methodological toolkit for measuring various aspects of instruction for decades, the field has also been suffering from "paradigm wars," fragmentation and local production of instruments.…

This study gathers evidence on policies that aim to raise students' learning outcomes through incentives and support measures to enhance teacher quality. A central concern is to identify policies that are effective and efficient. These include incentives and support systems to ensure that high-quality candidates are recruited to initial teacher…

By analysing five separate OECD reviews of evaluation and assessment practices with Norway and Sweden as cases, our study illustrates different ways in which a specific international educational reasoning is blended into more context-based national education policies and, as such, works in parallel with internal reforms and agendas. It is evident…

This article discusses how teachers construct new representations about accountability and professionalism in the context of increased external control. Over the last decade in particular, concerns about the quality of schooling and the quality of teachers has been raised by both politicians and the public alike, while prominent policy responses…

The current policy gaze on teacher quality is resulting in significant shifts in how teacher education is conceptualized, designed and delivered. Traditional approaches to teacher preparation and continuing professional development (CPD) are being challenged, and often displaced, by new models that expedite the process and experience of becoming a…

This article is documentation of the personal professional reflection processes as well as staff discussions reflecting the staff's ongoing efforts to improve the quality of teaching in the teacher education programme at the University of Bergen. The documentation is two-dimensional: video clips have been inserted into the traditional text form.…

The paper reviews research that describes good teaching in several cultures, focusing on teachers and teaching in China, England, Israel, Norway, and the United States. A root metaphor is used to describe good teaching in each culture. In China, good teacher are described as virtuosos because their art is teaching, and there is very little…

Proceedings of the eleventh international conference on improving university teaching are presented. Theme presentations and authors include: "Quality Control in Higher Education: Current Issues in Britain" (Gerald T. Fowler); "Quality Control in Higher Education: A Comparison of Current Issues in Three Countries--The Case of…