MASTER’S THESIS
TEACHER QUALITY IS …
Teacher qualities identified by teachers and student teachers in Europe
Title Teacher quality is …
Author Liesbet Timmering
Student# 210520
Year 2009
Supervisor Dr Edith Hooge
Institute Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences
Hogeschool van Amsterdam | Onderwijs en Opvoeding Master’s thesis | Eindscriptie Master Pedagogiek
2 SUMMARY
There is no consensus in the relevant literature on the definition and content of teacher quality. To some, good teaching is having a lot of knowledge and the ability to convey that knowledge, whereas to others good teaching is primarily about being charismatic and being able to offer safety. There are many different perceptions of what good teaching and teacher quality are. For example, Palmer used philosophical metaphors to describe teacher quality (cited in Arnon & Reichel, 2007):
The teacher as midwife (Socrates); as artist in the use of knowledge (Plato); as the conductor of dialogue (Bergman); as purveyor of culture (Cicero); as liberator (Freire); as one who focuses on teaching discipline (Breiter); as role model (Aristotle); as empiricist (Locke); as trainer (Watson); as educator in accordance with nature (Rousseau); as essentialist (Frankel); as mediator (Freuerstein); as child-centered (Neill); and as post-modernist (Foucault).
Teacher quality is the focus of considerable debate throughout the world. The debate concentrates on quality standards and on that what teachers need to know and need to be able to do. Teachers themselves are often not involved in describing these quality standards. Goodson and Hargreaves (1996: 22-23) state that in fact, teachers are the only and the best judges of what essential teacher quality is: ‘teacher professionalism is what teachers and others experience it as being, not what policy makers and others assert it should become.’ With this in mind, the following main question for this research was developed: ‘What are essential teacher qualities according to teachers and student teachers in Europe, and how can these qualities be categorized? The answer to this research question will empower teachers and contribute to a more balanced discussion.
A total of 300 essential teacher qualities were identified by European teachers and student teachers. Focus groups, consisting of European teacher educators, developed a category framework that simplified the analysis of these qualities. In this thesis, the qualities are presented, compared between the various countries and explained. The overlaps and differences between the qualities per country are interesting. For example, not one quality in the ‘top 10 qualities’ is shared by all the countries studied.
Although it appears that each country uses a more or less specific terminology, and the interpretation of terms differs and emotional weight varies, geographical location seems to have an overarching influence on the results. The countries situated in northern Europe have very little or no overlap with countries situated in southern/central Europe. This might indicate that different cultures identify different qualities and use different concepts to identify teacher quality. These differences might create problems in developing a shared European language with respect to teacher quality. An interesting observation, and one that the responding teachers and student teachers agreed upon, is that in most of the countries (7 of the 8), teacher qualities in the category ‘personality traits’ were valued as more important (>50%) than those in the four other categories – namely ‘knowledge’, ‘skills’, ‘attitude’ and ‘overarching’ – put together (total < 50%).
Even more remarkable is the fact that these personality traits get hardly any (or no) attention in the formal national requirements. Given the paramount importance that teachers/student teachers and the literature attach to the teacher’s personality, constructing a personality profile as part of formal requirements seems to be of highest value to teachers, student teachers, teacher education, policy makers and the wider educational field. The results of this research represent a step towards the identification of essential teacher quality and reveal what teachers and student teachers in Europe regard as a teacher’s required personality traits.
3 CONTENTS
SUMMARY ... 2
FIGURES ... 5
1 INTRODUCTION ... 6
1.1 Debate on teacher quality ... 6
1.2 Comenius project: Identifying Teacher Quality ... 7
1.3 Research assignment and research questions ... 7
1.4 Research aim ... 7
1.5 Organization of this thesis ... 8
2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ... 9
2.1 Terminology ... 9
2.2 Teacher quality in the literature ... 9
2.3 Categorizing teacher quality ... 10
2.3.1 The ‘big five’ ... 11
3 RESEARCH DESIGN & INSTRUMENTS ... 13
3.1 Research model ... 13
3.2 Research design and method ... 13
3.2.1 Focus group methodology ... 14
3.3 Research instruments ... 15
3.3.1 Questionnaire ... 15
3.3.2 Focus group instructions... 15
3.4 Analysis of the questionnaires and the data reduction process ... 16
3.4.1 Analysis of the questionnaires ... 16
3.4.2 Analysis of the focus group work ... 17
3.5 The population questionnaire ... 17
3.6 Composition of focus groups... 19
3.7 Implementation ... 19
4 RESULTS ... 20
4.1 Results of the questionnaire... 20
4.1.1 Top 10 teacher qualities ... 20
4.1.2 Top 10 teacher qualities per country ... 21
4.1.3 Overlaps and differences ... 24
4.2 Results of the focus group work ... 26
4.3 The category framework... 28
4.3.1 Category framework ... 28
4.3.2 Labelling 300 teacher qualities ... 30
4.4 Distribution of teacher qualities in the category framework ... 31
4.4.1 Category distribution of the top 10 identified qualities ... 32
5 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ... 34
5.1 Sub-question 1 ... 34
5.2 Sub-question 2 ... 34
5.3 Sub-question 3 ... 35
5.4 Sub-question 4 ... 35
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6 DISCUSSION ... 38
6.1 Discussion of the research instruments ... 38
6.2 Discussion of the methodology ... 39
6.3 Final discussion and challenging questions ... 41
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ... 43
REFERENCES ... 44
APPENDICES ... 46
Appendix I Questionnaire ... 47
Appendix II Results of questionnaire ... 49
Appendix III Details of total population ... 59
Appendix IV Details of population per country ... 61
5 FIGURES
Figure 1. Research model ... 13
Figure 2. Distribution of total population: professional position ... 17
Figure 3. Distribution of teachers and student teachers ... 18
Figure 4. Distribution of age of teachers and student teachers ... 18
Figure 5. Distribution of gender of teachers and student teachers ... 18
Figure 6. Distribution of respondents per country ... 19
Figure 7. Distribution of top 10 identified teacher qualities... 20
Figure 8. Portugal: top 10 identified teacher qualities (N=26) ... 21
Figure 9. England: top 10 identified teacher qualities (N=11) ... 21
Figure 10. Sweden: top 10 identified teacher qualities (N=37) ... 22
Figure 11. Greece: top 10 identified teacher qualities (N=43) ... 22
Figure 12. Slovenia: top 10 identified teacher qualities (N=53) ... 22
Figure 13. Poland: top 10 identified teacher qualities (N=114) ... 23
Figure 14. Czech Republic: top 10 identified teacher qualities (N=37) ... 23
Figure 15. Netherlands: top 10 identified teacher qualities (N=22) ... 24
Figure 16. Number of overlapping qualities amongst countries ... 24
Figure 17. Overlapping qualities in top 10 per country ... 25
Figure 18. Results of the focus group work ... 26
Figure 19. Category framework ... 28
Figure 20. Category: knowledge ... 29
Figure 21. Category: skills ... 29
Figure 22. Category: attitude ... 29
Figure 23. Category: personality ... 30
Figure 24. Category: overarching ... 30
Figure 25. Distribution of categories per country (300 qualities) ... 31
Figure 26. Distribution of categories (300 qualities) ... 31
Figure 27. Distribution of the top 10 identified categories... 32
Figure 28. Distribution of the top 10 identified categories... 32
Figure 29. Visualizing aspects of the ‘teacher quality’ literature ... 35
Figure 30. Visualizing the categorization literature ... 36
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1 INTRODUCTION
Teacher quality has been the focus of considerable debate worldwide since the middle of the twentieth century. The debate focuses on quality standards and on what teachers need to know and need to be able to do. A wide range of studies have focused on teacher quality from various perspectives. Flores, Hilton, Klonari, Nilsen and Snoek (2008, p. 1) state that ‘a number of researchers have argued that teacher quality is the most important school-related factor influencing student achievement, while school organization, class size, leadership or financial conditions play a smaller role (Darling-Hammond, 2000; Darling-Hammond et al., 2005; Hanusek, Kain & Rivkin, 2005)’. Other studies have found positive relationships between in-service teacher training and teachers’ professional development and student’s achievement (Angrist & Lavy, 2001). In 2007, the European Commission stated that improving the quality of teacher education is an important goal for the EU’s education systems, because ‘the motivation, skills and competences of teachers, trainers … are key factors in achieving high quality learning outcomes’ (European Commission, p. C300 -7). Teacher quality is yet again a topic with a high political priority.
1.1 Debate on teacher quality
Recent research has shown that ‘good teaching matters’ (McKinsey, 2007; OECD, 2005) in more than one way. But standards regarding what ‘good teaching’ is, and what spectrum of qualities a teacher needs to have in order to be a good teacher, are context specific and therefore difficult to generalize. In addition, the process in which these standards are produced is often problematic. Flores and colleagues (2008) state that in many national and European processes aimed at identifying teacher quality, the active involvement of teachers is limited. There are many different descriptions from various sources of what the ideal teacher should know and what he or she should be able to do. In the literature on teacher quality, the descriptions of quality are broad and unspecified, and therefore open to interpretation. What one author identifies as ‘teacher quality’ another describes as a ‘professional role’, while other authors do not differentiate between these aspects. Another issue is the fact that teachers’ participation in describing their own standards seems to be minimal, which results in a lack of ownership by teachers and possibly even a lack of recognition of the standards and teacher qualities that are formulated. Van Gennip and Vrieze (2008, p. 10) state that it is often not teachers who produce these standards, but the people who write about teachers. Therefore, the answer to the question ‘What is a good teacher?’ is dependent not only on one’s view on education and society, but also on the specific context in which the question is asked. It is to be expected that government, policy makers, school boards and teachers give partially different answers to the same question. Goodson and Hargreaves (1996: 22-23) state that in fact, teachers themselves are the only and the best judge of what essential teacher quality is: ‘teacher professionalism is what teachers and others experience it as being, not what policy makers and others assert it should become.’
The reasoning of Goodson and Hargreaves prompts the question: what qualities do teachers themselves identify as being ‘essential teacher qualities’? And if teachers were asked to describe their essential qualities, to what extent would these differ from the official documents and standards as drawn up by policy makers? With this in mind, a European research project was launched to give teachers a voice in identifying their own set of quality standards, and thus to promote ownership of these standards. To do this, teachers in Europe were asked to answer the question: ‘What are the essential teacher qualities?’ This thesis describes the process and methodology behind the categorization of qualities that were identified by teachers in Europe by using expert focus groups. This specific methodology was used in order to contribute to the international debate by empowering teachers. In this thesis, it is not the policy makers or the school leaders who set the standard, but the teachers themselves.
7 1.2 Comenius project: Identifying Teacher Quality
This research was carried out as part of a Comenius project titled ‘Identifying Teacher Quality’ (ITQ). ITQ is a three-year international project. It started in October 2006 and involves 21 institutions from 12 European countries. The aim is to ‘develop a toolbox containing reflection tools that enable teachers, student teachers, teacher educators and other stakeholders to recognize, reflect upon and evaluate what contributes to teacher quality’ (Comenius Application Form, p. 32). More specifically, the aims are to:
1. Empower teachers to participate in national debates on teacher quality 2. Stimulate reflection on various aspects of teacher quality
3. Stimulate collaborative learning
4. Stimulate understanding of the perspectives of other stakeholders.
The ITQ project output will comprise the toolbox, a website detailing the tools and the evaluations, research and evaluation reports, and an account of what teachers identify as being essential teacher qualities. This overview of teacher quality is one of the outputs that were part of the formal proposal accepted by the European Commission and is the main context of this research.
1.3 Research assignment and research questions
The present research was assigned to me by drs. Marco Snoek, head of the Learning & Innovation applied research group at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam, University of Applied Sciences. The aim of this group is to support teachers in taking responsibility for innovation, and to promote a professional dialogue within the school. This aim is pursued by participating in, facilitating research into and developing reflection instruments. The main focus is the link between professional learning and the capacity of teachers to change, learn and innovate. This thesis provides an answer to the following main research question:
What are the essential teacher qualities according to teachers and student teachers in Europe, and how can these qualities be categorized?
This was broken down into five sub-questions (see research model, section 3.1): 1) How is teacher quality described in the literature?
2) What categories of qualities can be distilled from the literature on teacher quality? 3) What teacher qualities do respondents from various countries identify?
4) What categories of qualities can be distilled from international focus group work?
5) What are the overlaps and differences between the qualities identified by teachers/student teachers per country?
1.4 Research aim
The broad aim of this research was to contribute to the discussion on teacher quality. The Learning & Innovation applied research group strives to introduce the teacher’s perspective into the broad political national and international discussion on teacher quality, and thereby to create a more balanced discussion. The research also resulted in two papers that were presented1 at national (VELON) and international (ATEE) conferences.
This thesis provides an overview of the essential teacher qualities as identified by teachers and student teachers in Europe and later categorized by using a category framework. The Learning &
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8 Innovation applied research group can follow up on this research by comparing this overview with formal national documents on teacher quality.
1.5 Organization of this thesis
Section 1: Introduction, context of the research assignment and relevance of the research question.
Section 2: Theoretical background to teacher quality and categories.
Section 3: Research design, discussion of the research design and methodology, the questionnaire, the manner in which data were analysed, the population that
participated in this study, the process of working with focus groups and the way the comparative research has carried out in order to create an overview.
Section 4: Research results, discussion of the qualities that were identified by the respondents from each county, each country’s ‘top 10’ teacher qualities, the categorization, the identified qualities and the analysis.
Section 5: Conclusions and recommendations. Section 6: Discussion.
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2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Teacher quality is described in very diverse ways. It is described from the perspective of tasks or assignments (the teacher creates a safe learning environment), of roles or professional roles (the teacher as educator/transmitter of knowledge), in terms of generic professional qualities (competences) and in holistic terms (e.g. attitudes/personality). For example, Palmer used philosophical metaphors to describe teacher quality (as cited in Arnon & Reichel, 2007):
The teacher as midwife (Socrates); as artist in the use of knowledge (Plato); as the conductor of dialogue (Bergman); as purveyor of culture (Cicero); as liberator (Freire); as one who focuses on teaching discipline (Breiter); as role model (Aristotle); as empiricist (Locke); as trainer (Watson); as educator in accordance with nature (Rousseau); as essentialist (Frankel); as mediator (Freuerstein); as child-centered (Neill); and as post-modernist (Foucault).
2.1 Terminology
Since terminology is an issue when working on an international level, the term ‘qualities’ needs clarification. Each participating country has official documents describing teacher competences, teacher standards, and teacher roles and qualities. This research, however, concerns only the teacher qualities identified by teachers and student teachers in Europe and does not take into account the official documents, which could be an subject of future research. This thesis focuses on the teachers and their interpretation of teacher quality.
When discussing teacher quality, such terms as ‘competences’ and ‘standards’ are frequently used. However, the term ‘competence’ has different interpretations in different countries and is therefore open to misinterpretation. Some define the term competence as ‘the ability to perform a specific task, action or function successfully’. This is an instrumental approach to the term. Others see competences as ‘a standardized requirement for an individual to properly perform a specific job which encompasses a combination of knowledge, skills and behaviour utilized to improve performance’. This could be seen as a ‘standardizing a profession’ approach. Another approach seems to relate to another term that needs to be avoided, namely ‘standards’. A technical standard in England is seen as an established norm or requirement. In the Netherlands, for example, the term ‘standards’ would be perceived as ‘competences’. One of the main reasons to avoid this specific term is that terms are interpreted differently in varying contexts (countries) and differ in emotional weight. To avoid misunderstandings, I therefore decided to use the term ‘qualities’.
Since teacher quality is high on national and international political agendas, there is a lot of interference from outside the educational professional world by, for example, politicians or policy makers. As Goodson and Hargreaves state (in section 1.1): ‘teacher professionalism is what teachers and others experience it as being, not what policy makers and others assert it should become.’ The enormous emotional weight that is attached to terminology is a result of the gap between teaching professionals and politicians/policy makers, who hold strongly differing views on what teaching standards and competences contain. For example, Snoek and Krüger (2007, p. 11) state that the debate on teacher quality and standards on good teaching in the Netherlands is dominated by people other than teachers, and that tensions between teachers and school leaders (and policy makers) are growing. These authors stress the importance of teachers’ ownership of their own standards and the need to involve these professionals in the development process.
2.2 Teacher quality in the literature
The picture painted by Palmer (section 2) shows the complexity of describing the ideal teacher. Not only are there many aspects of teaching that can be described as qualities, but there are also many personality traits that seem to distinguish a teacher from an ideal teacher. In the literature, teacher
10 quality seems to be a combination of personal qualities and professional roles. Arnon and Reichel (2007) state that since the 1970s there have been two dominant images of the ideal teacher:
1) Teachers as developers, shapers, tutors for each of their students 2) Teachers as transmitters of knowledge in their fields.
The Association for Teacher Education in Europe (2006) pleads for a ‘balanced view on the quality of teachers’: ‘Teacher quality is an overall concept that comprises not only knowledge and skills, but also personal qualities (respect, care, courage, empathy, etc.) and personal values, attitudes, identity, beliefs, etc.’ Arnon and Reichel (2007, p. 445) state that most of the research regarding the perception of the good teacher has pointed to two important components of the ideal teacher: 1) professional knowledge of the subject taught and professional didactic knowledge, and 2) an appropriate personality. These authors state that:
In other studies, especially those examining pupils’ evaluation of their teachers, it has been concluded that personality is the most important quality of a good teacher. According to Blishen (1969), for example, the qualities of the desired teacher among pupils were understanding and patience, the ability to pay attention to the pupil, modesty and politeness, informality and simplicity, participation in pupils’ activities, the ability to develop good relations with the parents, getting to lessons on time, recognizing the importance and the value of the student, being warm and personal and understanding that students are not always ready to study.
Thus, teacher quality is not just about knowledge and skills: it is also very much about attitude and personality. Blume (1971) writes that ‘teachers teach as they were taught, not as they were taught to teach.’ This indicates that teaching flows from teachers’ personality and personal experiences. Palmer (1998, p. 10) takes this even further by saying that: ‘Good teaching cannot be reduced to technique; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher.’ It seems that teachers do not just teach what they know and what they are skilled to do, but they also teach who they are (Hamachek, 1999).
2.3 Categorizing teacher quality
Van Gennip and Vrieze (2008) state that, in their opinion, the essence of being a good teacher is fulfilling the core task of teaching, namely offering pupils an education. They also state that there are other important teacher roles, such as ‘being able to work in an organization’. Finally, they say that they find support in the literature for the following trinity of elements of good teaching:
a. Content knowledge and matching didactics
b. The pedagogic-didactic interventions that are needed c. The teacher’s personality.
The first component – content knowledge – is a comprehensive concept that can be divided and specified. Jansma (2006) identifies three types of related knowledge: theoretical knowledge, methodological knowledge and practical, situated context knowledge. In relation to content knowledge, Shulman (1986) differentiates between subject knowledge and pedagogic content knowledge. Pedagogic content knowledge is different from scientific theoretical knowledge, since it combines scientific theoretical knowledge with practical, situated context knowledge. The second component comprises the pedagogic-didactic interventions (instruments and repertoire) that a teacher has to know/own. The third component is the teacher’s personality (aspects of personality, motivation, attitudes, expectations, cognition). The emphasis on personality has two aspects:
11 2. Personality as part of a professional role – qualities that can be taught.
In the above descriptions, teacher quality comprises knowledge, skills, attitude and personality, and is to be categorized by differentiation. This is the most generic categorization to be found in the literature. However, there is another way of categorizing, namely to focus on teachers’ professional roles. For example, Verloop and Lowyck (2003, pp. 194 and 232) categorize a teacher according to these professional roles. They distinguish four roles, which they also call ‘professional identity’:
1. The teacher as someone who has a lot of knowledge 2. The teacher as an adult, balanced personality
3. The teacher as ruler of specific skills that are based on evidence/empirical research 4. The teacher as practician.
Søreide (2006) continues on the idea of identities (as roles) as categorizations and describes four identity constructions (the caring and kind teacher, the creative and innovative teacher, the professional teacher and the typical teacher). He combines professional roles with skills and personality, and argues that the negotiation between multiple identities is a necessary part of the construction of teacher identity – which brings us back to the question: ‘What are the essential teacher qualities?’ Both personal and professional qualities are considered essential, and teacher quality is seen as a combination of specific professional and personal qualities and professional roles that is needed to cover all categories of teacher quality.
The literature does not provide a framework that can be used to categorize the identified teacher qualities. This complicates discussions amongst teachers (and other stakeholders) on teacher quality, as a shared language is lacking. It therefore seems necessary to develop a common category framework that will enable educational professionals to discuss teacher quality on a universal level. The following is a summary of the results found in the literature concerning the possible categorization of teacher quality:
1. Categorize by generic elements (separating knowledge, skills and attitude)
2. Categorize by using professional roles (separating knowledge, skills and personality) 3. Categorize by professional qualities and identities
4. A combination of the above, that is: generic categorization, professional roles, and professional qualities and identities.
Since ‘personality’ is more or less a flower of speech, this concept needs to be structured. The five-factor approach is used to clarify the content and to help understand personality as mentioned in the literature.
2.3.1 The ‘big five’
In psychology, the ‘big five’ personality traits are five broad factors or dimensions of personality that were developed through lexical analysis (Thurstone, 1934 in Goldberg, 1992). The personality traits are referred to as the ‘five-factor approach’ (FFA), which is considered to be the most comprehensive empirical or data-driven inquiry into personality. The FFA is a purely descriptive model of personality that enables the categorization of research results that are focused on personality. Each factor consists of a cluster of more specific traits that correlate together. For example, extraversion includes related qualities such as sociability, excitement seeking, impulsiveness and positive emotions. The five factors are:
1. Emotional stability (stability, peace of mind, good mood, calm, carefree, relaxed) 2. Extraversion (charismatic, warm, presence, happy, positive, optimistic, humorous)
3. Openness (fantasy, aesthetic, feelings, changeability, full of ideas, intellectual curiosity, eclectic, critical towards self, reflective, meta cognitive, creative, respectful)
4. Conscientiousness (consequent, reliable, consistent, structured, morality, objective, distinguish right from wrong, integrity, aware of and to value, fair/honest)
12 modest, compassionate, empathy, kind, understanding).
As stated in the introduction, there is no consensus in the relevant literature on the definition and content of teacher quality: for some, good teaching is having a lot of knowledge and the ability to convey that knowledge, while for others, good teaching is primarily about being charismatic and offering safety.
The literature does not provide a usable framework that can be used to categorize teacher quality. The literature does state that since the 1970s there have been two dominant images of the desired teacher: 1) teachers as developers, shapers, tutors for each of their students, and 2) teachers as transmitters of knowledge in their fields. Furthermore, the literature states that most of the research regarding the perception of the good teacher has pointed to two important components of the ideal teacher: 1) professional knowledge of the subject taught and professional didactic knowledge, and 2) an appropriate personality. Although the literature emphasizes the teacher’s personality, it does not provide a clear overview of the contents of the required personality. For this research, I used the FFA to structure the concept of personality in the category framework presented in section 4.3.1.
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3 RESEARCH DESIGN & INSTRUMENTS
The present research applied mixed methods. A questionnaire was used to collect the primary data, namely teacher qualities identified by teachers/student teachers themselves. The European focus group work was used as a methodology and resulted in a category framework. This framework was then used to categorize the 300 identified teacher qualities and to provide an overview of what teachers and student teachers in Europe consider teacher quality to be.
In section 3.1, I present the main research question, the sub-questions and the research model. In section 3.2, I discuss the research design and focus group methodology. Then in section 3.3, I deal with the instruments used and the focus group instructions. In section 3.4, I discuss the analysis of the questionnaires and the data reduction process. I describe the research participants in section 3.5 and the focus group composition in section 3.6. In section 3.7, I focus on the implementation of this research.
3.1 Research model The main research question was:
What are the essential teacher qualities according to teachers and student teachers in Europe, and how can these qualities be categorized?
This question was broken down into five sub-questions: 1. How is teacher quality described in the literature?
2. What categories of qualities can be distilled from the literature on teacher quality? 3. What teacher qualities do respondents from various countries identify?
4. What categories can be distilled from international focus group work?
5. What are the overlaps and differences between the qualities identified by teachers/student teachers per country?
Figure 1 visualizes the research model:
Figure 1. Research model
3.2 Research design and method
The research comprised quantitative and qualitative research. The terminology used in the research was described in section 2.1.
The research was carried out in four steps. Step 1 consisted of the design and distribution of the questionnaire. The data were collected when the questionnaires were returned in July 2008 (section 3.3.1). A data reduction process was performed on the incoming data and the identified essential teacher qualities were reduced from 680 to 300 qualities (section 3.4). Step 2 comprised the categorization by focus groups of the identified teacher qualities, which led to the production of 10 categorization frameworks. Step 3 consisted of developing a category framework based on the results of the focus groups and the findings from the literature (section 2.3). In step 4 (the quantitative part of
14 this research2), the category framework was used to categorize the primary data, namely 300 teacher qualities.
Before discussing these four steps, the focus group methodology needs clarification. Section 3.2.1 concerns the use of this methodology. The focus group instructions are presented in section 3.3.2 and details of the composition of the focus groups are given in section 3.6.
3.2.1 Focus group methodology
The long list of essential teacher qualities identified by the teachers and student teachers needed to be understood, described and categorized. The literature does not provide a usable framework to cover all the qualities mentioned. The ITQ project group was asked to help with the categorization by acting as members of focus groups. However, the use of focus groups was an ‘accidental’ methodology: the results of the first focus group session were interesting enough to extend the methodology by holding a second, identical session. After the two sessions, educational professionals were asked to cluster the various qualities and subsequently name these clusters.
A great deal of effort was expended on interpreting of the qualities that were identified, as language played a big role. The qualities were described by teachers each of whom had his or her own professional status and cultural-historical context. As stated, terms have different meanings in different countries. For example, the term ‘didactic’ is hardly ever used in England, whereas in the Netherlands it is used regularly. Categorization makes it possible to define all the qualities that ‘belong’ to a certain terminology.
Focus groups, as seen in Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2000, p. 376), are useful for ‘developing themes’ (Krueger 1988; Morgan 1988; Bailey 1994: 192-193; Robson 2002: 284-285). In this research the themes were to be used as categorization. The use of focus groups was of added value to the existing data. Morgan (1997) states that ‘the hallmark of focus groups is their explicit use of group interaction to produce data and insights that would be less accessible without the interaction found in a group.’ In combination with other methods, focus groups can provide preliminary research on specific issues in a larger project, or be used in follow-up research to clarify the findings obtained through another method. Focus groups can be used both to generate and to answer research questions.
In this research, the purpose of using focus groups was to provide a supplementary source of data. The research relied on the primary method (questionnaire) for the incoming data, which (after data reduction) were then used in the focus groups. Morgan states that both the strengths and the weaknesses of focus groups flow directly from their two defining features: the reliance on the researcher’s focus and the group’s interaction (p. 13). In this research, the researcher’s focus was set: the categorization of the 300 qualities. The other defining feature of working with focus groups is the group’s interaction. The groups worked independently, thus removing the concern that a moderator would influence the group’s interactions (Morgan, 1997, p. 14). However, having a moderator present during the focus group sessions would have had some advantages. Morgan and Krueger (1993) note that the comparisons that participants make between each other’s experiences and opinions are a valuable source of insights into complex behaviours and motivations. This, however, remained an unknown area in this research. The focus groups worked without a moderator to keep track of behaviours and motivations, which seems a real loss since the groups did a lot of negotiating (language issues related to the interpretation of qualities). The motivations behind the categorizations remain unknown.
This research did not integrate cultural-historical backgrounds and motivations. It was therefore a context-exclusive comparison of the named qualities and categories that can be used as a universal shared language. This, however, created a corresponding weakness (Morgan, 1997, p. 15):
… because the group itself may influence the nature of the data it produces. The question of how interacting in a group influences what each individual will contribute to the group is a classic issue in social psychology (e.g., Janis, 1982). The concerns for focus groups include both a tendency toward conformity, in which some participants withhold things that they might say in private, and a tendency toward ‘polarization’, in which some participants express more extreme views in a group than in private (Sussman, Burton, Dent, Stacy, & Flay, 1991).
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15 Added to the difficulty of the possible influence of group behaviour was the fact that the focus groups were working with authentic items like ‘values’. Adamson, Bray and Mason (2007) state that ‘the concept of values is both broad and elusive. … It is almost impossible to pin down the scope of definitions of values, which extend from personal to collective levels and range between various forms of knowledge.’ This clearly states the restrictions of the focus group work. The choice was made not to look at society at large but to focus on categorizing the identified qualities. There was no focus on the definition behind the values (e.g. being a decent human being, being democratic) nor on its context or cultural-historical background.
Summing up the weaknesses and strengths of the use of focus groups in this research, the biggest strength is that focus groups are allowed to operate across traditional boundaries. There are many cases in which focus groups are not the best methodology. In this research, the focus groups were of added value when it came to searching for connections and trying to understand the data (i.e. 300 teacher qualities), especially since the focus groups were international, as the data were looked at from many angles. This raises the credibility of the focus group’s category framework. A clear weakness is the cultural bias (context-exclusive) and the language issue, that is, the lack of a shared language. Although the international composition was a plus, it was a disadvantage when it came to language and the interpretation of terms and terminology. Each country has its own set of standardized terminology, which makes it problematic to discuss and agree upon each other’s terminology.
3.3 Research instruments
A questionnaire was developed as research instrument3 for data collection purposes (section 3.3.1), while focus groups were used as a research methodology to develop a category framework (section 3.3.2).
3.3.1 Questionnaire
The questionnaire used for this research is called Data Collection S.4 It comprises one open question: ‘What do you identify as being essential teacher qualities?’ Teachers and student teachers were asked to identify a maximum of 10 essential qualities in an arbitrary order (i.e. not as a ranking list). There was some concern about the use of an open question to collect data. Some argued that a closed question would collect more concentrated data, while others argued that an open question would elicit information that otherwise would be missed. Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2000, p. 330) state that with an open question, one provides the opportunity for a response without limitations:
It is the open-ended responses that might contain the ‘gems’ of information that otherwise might not be caught in the questionnaire. Further, it puts the responsibility for and ownership of the data much more firmly into respondents’ hands.
As the open question allowed the teachers’ voices to be heard – which is one of the aims of the ITQ project and, as such, the context in which this research took place – its use seemed most appropriate. 3.3.2 Focus group instructions
The primary input at this point were the matrices made by the leaders of the pilot projects (see section 3.5). The leaders constructed these matrices by making a summary of the qualities identified by the teachers/student teachers. By comparing and analysing these data, 120 qualities were identified. These qualities were then used for the focus group methodology.
The essential teacher qualities that had been identified by the teachers were categorized by focus groups. Each group was given 120 printed cards bearing the identified qualities, as well as a considerable quantity of sheets of coloured A5 paper and a marker pen. The focus groups were given the identical task and instructions at the same time.
3 Appendix I. 4
16 1. Each focus group was given a room to work in.
2. The groups were then asked to start by organizing the qualities (clustering matching qualities on sheets of differently coloured paper).
3. After developing these clusters of matching qualities, the groups were asked to discuss possible names for the various clusters and to write the names on the coloured paper with the marker pen.
4. After naming the clusters, the groups were asked to fold the sheets of paper and staple them together so as to conceal the matching qualities from view, and then to gather together in one room.
5. Each group then presented their final way of clustering the qualities and the names of these categories.
If there were qualities that a focus group could not categorize, the group was asked to separate these from the rest and drop them into a metaphorical ‘dustbin’. The dustbin would help to, for example, remove any doubles that were still on the list of essential teacher qualities or to identify unclear qualities that all the groups were unable to categorize.
3.4 Analysis of the questionnaires and the data reduction process
The questionnaires were analysed twice. The first analysis took place while the data were still incoming and only the matrices were available. The analysed data were then used by the focus groups to develop different types of categorizations. After the two focus group sessions, the results were analysed and a category framework was developed. The second and final analysis of the questionnaires was carried out after the data collection had finished and the original questionnaires were available for analysis. Data reduction was implemented after the final analysis of the questionnaires.
3.4.1 Analysis of the questionnaires
As stated, step 1 consisted of working with the incoming data. During this process, the data were still being collected and the only available data were the matrices the pilot leaders had provided. The original questionnaires were not returned and therefore could not be processed. The data from the matrices were processed per country. The summaries of the matrices were in English and therefore translations were not necessary. After the qualities had been identified and digitalized per country, data reduction was carried out. The data were reduced by taking 2 steps:
1. Validation of formulation/semantics
For example: synonyms (‘to care’, ‘to be caring’, ‘to care for children’) and meanings expressed in different words (‘be funny and ‘have humour’) were removed.
2. Content validation
For example: ‘humble’ was considered the same as ‘humility’.
This first data analysis resulted in 120 qualities that were subsequently used for the focus group work. The focus group work analysis is presented in section 3.4.2. By the time the data collection process was finished, 402 questionnaires had been returned and approximately 4000 teacher qualities had been identified by educational professionals from nine European countries. Before the data could be digitalized, that from several of the countries5 needed to be translated as the data consisted of original questionnaires that had been completed in various languages.
3. A database in MS Excel was used for the digitalizing process. A code book was made in the database that made it possible to separate the variables, such as gender, age, professional status and missing values (age: 0, gender: UK (unknown) and professional status: NI (not
5 Translations into English: questionnaires from the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Poland. Translations into Dutch (and subsequently English): questionnaires from Greece and Portugal.
17 identified). After digitalizing the 402 questionnaires, the data (identified qualities) were reduced by filtering out the qualities that had been identified by school leaders, teacher educators and policy makers so that only the qualities that had been identified by the teachers and student teachers remained. A first analysis resulted in 680 identified qualities. The same data reduction process was implemented by taking the two steps described above (i.e. 1) Validation of formulation/semantics and 2) Content validation).
A total of 322 essential teacher qualities were identified by educational professionals; of these, 300 were identified by teachers/student teachers. The 300 qualities were the clean primary data used to fill the category framework as developed by the focus group work. The 300 qualities are presented in Appendix II.
3.4.2 Analysis of the focus group work
The focus group work resulted in 10 categorization frameworks, which are presented in section 4.2. These frameworks were analysed by:
1. Digitalizing the 10 categorization frameworks 2. Searching for overlaps in all 10 types
3. Searching for similarities (content/formulation/semantics) 4. Searching for differences
5. Creating one category framework of the overlaps and differences 6. Analysing the metaphorical ‘dustbin’ used by the focus groups.
3.5 The population questionnaire
Aim of the questionnaire was to identify essential teacher qualities according to teachers and student teachers. To be able to determine the demography of the respondents throughout Europe, multiple variables were added, such as country, age, gender and professional status. The population was selectively chosen as the questionnaire was part of an ongoing project. This research was part of the ITQ project that was developing a toolbox of reflection tools for teachers. The tools in this toolbox were piloted in each of the participating countries.6 After a pilot project had been carried out, the participants were asked to complete a tool evaluation and an additional questionnaire. Involved in piloting the tools, and therefore automatically respondents in this research, were educational professionals varying from student teachers to policy makers. The total population consisted of 3 school leaders, 40 teacher educators, 145 teachers and 198 student teachers (16 respondents did not clarify their professional status). The total population: 402 respondents.
Figure 2. Distribution of total population: professional position
6 The population consisted of persons from the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovenia, Greece, Sweden, England, Belgium, the Netherlands and Portugal.
18 The total population consisted mostly of teachers and student teachers. Although there were policy makers involved in the pilot projects, none of them returned the questionnaire. Some respondents did not answer all the questions about age, gender or professional status; these are mentioned as ‘unknown’. As stated, the research focused on teachers and student teachers and their answers only. A total of 343 questionnaires were returned by this group (198 from student teachers and 145 from teachers). Of these respondents, 80% were female, and most were aged between 18 and 35. The distribution of professional statuses is shown below.
Figure 3. Distribution of teachers and student teachers
Figure 4. Distribution of age of teachers and student teachers
Figure 5. Distribution of gender of teachers and student teachers
The following figure presents the number of respondents per country. It should be kept in mind while reading the results of this study that the number of respondents from each country differed. For example, in Poland 114 teachers/student teachers participated, while in England only 11 teachers/student teachers did so. This influences the outcomes of the questionnaires, as 3
19 teachers/student teachers in England represent 33% of the total outcome, while 3 teachers/student teachers from Poland represent only 3% of the total outcome.
Figure 6. Distribution of respondents per country
3.6 Composition of focus groups
The focus groups were composed by convenient sampling. The first focus group session was held in Uppsala (Sweden). The groups were formed by the ITQ project members, each group representing various European countries. The Uppsala focus groups composition: teacher educators (representing experts in the field) from Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, England, the Czech Republic, Greece, Poland, Slovenia, Croatia, Norway, Belgium and Portugal. In total six focus groups produced the categorizations presented in section 4.2.
The second focus group session was held in Brussels (Belgium). It was carried out as an ITQ project contribution at the ATEE conference where conference members could participate in a workshop. The workshop gave them an overall idea of the ITQ project and the participants were used as international focus groups. The Belgium focus groups composition: teacher educators (representing experts in the field) from Belgium, Italy, England, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Denmark and Finland. In total four focus groups produced the categorizations presented in section 4.2.
3.7 Implementation
The aim of this thesis is to provide an overview of the essential teacher qualities identified by teachers/student teachers in Europe and categorized by using a category framework. This will provide the Learning & Innovation applied research group with the opportunity to follow up on this research by comparing this overview with national documents on teacher quality.
The implementation at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam, University of Applied Sciences (HvA) is of another order. This report contributes to (and balances) the discussion on teacher quality amongst teacher educators. As well as empowering the discussion, the outcome could be the starting point for the curriculum commission at the Teachers’ Training College of the HvA in their mission to rethink, update and improve the curriculum. This can be done by comparing the identified teacher qualities with the HvA teacher education curriculum in order to explore to what extent the identified essential teacher qualities are integrated into and covered by the present curriculum.
20
4 RESULTS
This section presents the results of the steps taken and the methodologies used. In section 4.1, I discuss the results of the questionnaire and present a ‘top 10’ teacher quality overview as well as the overlaps and differences per country. In section 4.2, I discuss the results of the focus group work. In section 4.3, I present the category framework that was created, and in section 4.4 present an overview of the essential teacher qualities in the category framework.
4.1 Results of the questionnaire
Here, I present the questionnaire results in two ways: 1) the top 10 teacher qualities, covering all answers given in the questionnaire, and 2) differences and overlaps between the various countries. The overall questionnaire results are presented in Appendix II.
4.1.1 Top 10 teacher qualities
The teachers and student teachers identified 300 essential teacher qualities. Before data reduction (which included the results of ‘unknowns’ (professional status not specified), teacher educators and school leaders), 322 teacher qualities were identified. Teacher educators, school leaders and ‘unknowns’ identified 22 qualities that did not overlap with the answers given by the teachers/student teachers.7
A top 10 of teacher qualities is presented in figure 7. In total 343 teachers/student teachers each identified approximately 10 qualities. This top 10 of teacher qualities shows the frequency in which the specific quality was identified by the total population (198 student teachers + 145 teachers). For example, the quality ‘to be fair/honest’ was identified by 36% of the population, which means it was mentioned 125 times. The quality ‘patience’ was mentioned 110 times by the total population of teachers/student teachers. The top 10 visualizes the 10 most mentioned essential teacher qualities (of the 300 identified).
Figure 7. Distribution of top 10 identified teacher qualities
As can be seen, ‘fair/honest’ was the most mentioned, followed by ‘patient/patience’ and ‘creative’. Both ‘understanding’ and ‘communication skills’ were mentioned by 22% of the respondents. Both ‘open’ and ‘empathetic’ were mentioned by 19% of the respondents. ‘Knowledge’ was mentioned by 17%, while ‘humorous’ and ‘consequent’ were mentioned by 15%.
7
21 4.1.2 Top 10 teacher qualities per country
The figures below show the top 10 identified teacher qualities per country. This top 10 shows the frequency with which the specific quality was identified by the total population per country (for population details per country, see section 3.5).
Differences in the top 10s
As shown by the figures below, there were many differences in the answers given by the teachers/student teachers from the eight countries. For example, the respondents from Sweden included ‘knowledge’ twice in their top 10 identified qualities, while the respondents from England and Poland did not include ‘knowledge’ once in their top 10 identified qualities.
Of the respondents from Portugal, 46% mentioned ‘scientific knowledge’, which makes it the third most mentioned quality in Portugal, yet it was not identified by teachers/student teachers from any other country. One must keep in mind that language is of great importance here: the respondents from other countries included such qualities as ‘educated’ and ‘knowledge’ in their top 10 and might have meant the same. This, however, remains open to interpretation. Other qualities that were included in the top 10 in Portugal but were not included by the respondents from other countries were ‘innovative’ and ‘friendly’.
Figure 8. Portugal: top 10 identified teacher qualities (N=26)
A quality that was included by respondents from England but not by respondents from any other country in their top 10 was ‘respectful’.
Figure 9. England: top 10 identified teacher qualities (N=11)
Of the respondents from Sweden, 35% mentioned ‘presentation skills’ and 32% ‘subject knowledge’ – the third and the fourth most mentioned quality in this country. This is remarkable, as no respondents
22 from any other country included these qualities in their top 10. Another quality included only by Sweden was ‘happy’ (smile).
Figure 10. Sweden: top 10 identified teacher qualities (N=37)
The respondents from Greece included in their top 10 two qualities that do not appear in any other country’ top 10, namely ‘perseverance’ and ‘love of education’.
Figure 11. Greece: top 10 identified teacher qualities (N=43)
Of the respondents from Slovenia, 38% identified ‘professional competence’, the second most mentioned quality by teachers/student teachers from this country. Other qualities included by respondents from Slovenia in their top 10 but not included by respondents from any other country in their top 10 were ‘be interesting’ (get students interested) and ‘correctness’.
23 The respondents Poland identified two qualities that no other country had in its top 10, namely ‘consequent’ and ‘kind’.
Figure 13. Poland: top 10 identified teacher qualities (N=114)
Of the respondents from the Czech Republic, 43% identified ‘educated’ – the quality that received the fifth highest score from teachers/student teachers from this country. Other qualities included by respondents from the Czech Republic in their top 10 but not included in the top 10 of other countries were ‘love of children’ and ‘positive’.
Figure 14. Czech Republic: top 10 identified teacher qualities (N=37)
Of the respondents from the Netherlands, 41% identified ‘to offer safety’, the quality most mentioned by teachers/student teachers from this country. This is remarkable, as respondents from the other countries did not mention this quality. Other qualities identified specifically by respondents from the Netherlands and not included in the other countries’ top 10s were ‘inspirational’, ‘caring’ and ‘lifelong learning’.
24 Figure 15. Netherlands: top 10 identified teacher qualities (N=22)
4.1.3 Overlaps and differences
This section presents the overlaps and differences per country, starting with the overlapping qualities followed by the remarkable differences. When looking at the figures that show the various countries’ top 10s of identified teacher qualities, one notices overlaps. However, not all of the eight countries have at least one overlapping identified quality. In fact, Greece is the only country that has at least one quality that overlaps with all the other countries. Figure 16 presents the number of overlapping qualities amongst countries.
Po rt u g a l En g la n d Sw e d e n G re e c e Sl o v e n ia Po la n d C z e c h N e th e rl a n d s Portugal 2 2 3 1 3 2 0 England 2 5 2 0 2 3 4 Sweden 2 5 2 1 0 1 2 Greece 3 2 2 3 3 2 2 Slovenia 1 0 1 3 3 1 1 Poland 3 2 0 3 3 4 1 Czech 2 3 1 2 1 4 2 Netherlands 0 4 2 2 1 1 2
Figure 16. Number of overlapping qualities amongst countries
England and Sweden overlap five qualities, which is the highest overlap score. The Netherlands and England overlap four qualities, while Poland and the Czech Republic overlap four. It is interesting that the Czech Republic and Slovenia overlap only one quality (‘fair/honest’); however, this is the number one most mentioned quality in both countries’ top 10. The total overlaps and differences are presented in figure 17, which shows the qualities combined from the top 10 identified qualities of the total population (eight countries).
25 Po rt u g a l En g la n d Sw e d e n G re e c e Sl o v e n ia Po la n d C z e c h N e th e rl a n d s communication skills x x x x x empathetic x x x x knowledge x x x x understanding x x x x creative x x x fair/honest x x x motivator x x x open x x x patient x x x reflective x x x
ability to convey knowledge x x
adaptive x x competent x x cooperative x x demanding x x enthusiastic x x flexibility x x good listener x x humorous x x objective (unbiased) x x organizational skills x x authority x
be interesting (get students interested) x
caring x consequent x correctness x educated x friendly x happy x innovative x inspirational x kind x lifelong learning x love of children x love of education x natural authority x offer safety x perseverance x positive x presentation skills x professional competence x respectful x scientific knowledge x subject knowledge x
26 4.2 Results of the focus group work
Group 1
Knowledge
General professional qualities Managing learning
Interpersonal & social Personal values & attitudes
Group 2
Pedagogic & Didactics Reflection
Knowledge & academic attitude Organizational Citizenship Values Personal attributes Originality Group 3 Professional knowledge Skills Abilities
Traits (social skills) Personality
Ethical behaviour Attitudes & values
Group 4 Overarching qualities Social qualities Knowledge base Learning qualities Reflective qualities Personal qualities Group 5 Attitudes: • Personal • Interpersonal Skills:
• Didactics & pedagogic • Management Knowledge Professionalism Group 6 Teaching strategies Social skills Teaching skills: • Formal • Personal Cognitive skills Creativity Personal attitudes Group 7 Knowledge Personal qualities Interpersonal qualities Meta cognitive Teaching qualities promoting learning classroom management Deontological Group 8 Personal attributes Generic teaching skills Extended professional roles Professional knowledge
Group 9
General professional expectations Role model
Expertise / Knowledge Self development
Active involvement in the wider educational community
Effective educational strategies Ethics and beliefs
Inclusion Personal traits Interpersonal traits Group 10 Skills Stakeholder interaction Pupil interaction Personal qualities Didactics Professional knowledge Subject knowledge Inspire Awareness
27 As previously stated, two sessions with European focus groups were held. Ten focus groups developed their own categorization framework, which resulted in ten types of categorization. Some focus groups categorized highly specifically, while others used more generic categorizations.
Focus groups 1, 8 and 5 kept their categorization rather generic, with just 1 or 2 specified subcategories, while focus groups 2, 3, 9 and 10 categorized specifically and added more categories and subcategories. The focus group work shows overlaps that can be matched with the literature on teacher quality and the various approaches in which these qualities can be categorized, for example, the generic way of categorizing by using knowledge, skills and attitude. This also matches the previously mentioned literature on how the personality of the teacher plays a big role. The more generic categorization (knowledge, skills and attitude) stands out, as it was mentioned by all the focus groups. However, the focus group work shows that in fact professionals themselves tend to combine professional qualities with professional roles, as seen in the literature. The focus group work also shows that, as previously stated, ‘personality’ plays a big part. All the focus groups used more or less the same terms, namely personality traits, personal qualities, personal attributes, personal attitudes, personal values & attitudes, and personality.
Another interesting part of the categorizations is how two of the focus groups (3 and 9) separated ‘ethics’ from ‘personality’. They explicitly categorized ‘ethical behaviour’, ‘ethics & beliefs’ and ‘deontology’ (focus group 7). Deontology8 is more or less synonymous with ‘ethics’. This is not included as a separate category in the framework developed. The choice was made to categorize ethics and morality as a subcategory of personality traits. Next to this category, other focus groups (2 and 3) explicitly categorize ‘values’ separately from ‘personality’, ‘values’ and ‘attitudes & values’. A last category that could be part of personality is ‘awareness’.
Most of the focus groups (1, 3, 5, 8, 9 and 10) used the term ‘professional’ in their categorizations. They mentioned professional knowledge, extended professional roles, professionalism, general professional qualities and general professional expectations. Focus group 8 separated personality, skills, professional roles and professional knowledge, which makes categorizing the qualities relatively easy as there is no confusion as to where qualities belong. Focus group 10, however, separated professional knowledge from subject knowledge, didactics and skills. What is their perception of professional knowledge? This question remains unanswered for the moment, as the focus of this research was not on the contents of the categorizations of the focus groups. The focus groups served as a reference for the categorization and the development of a common framework. Questions raised as a result of the focus group work could serve as a starting point for follow-up research.
One focus group (4) added overarching qualities to its categorization framework. It seemed that there were teacher qualities that this group was unable to place in one of their existing categories. Overarching in this categorization are such qualities as competent, intelligent and good.
The focus group work produced an overview of categories that served as reference for the common framework that is presented in section 4.3. The literature on categories of teacher quality and the focus group work served as the foundation for the framework. There are five main categories, namely knowledge, skills, attitude, personality traits and overarching; each has subcategories, and some have sub-subcategories.
The metaphorical dustbin was an optional category for the focus groups to use for qualities that they were unable to place. The dustbin is not relevant to the actual framework and was merely used as a source. The dustbin mostly contained such ‘overarching’ qualities as diverse (problematic to understand its specific meaning separate from its context), desire, competent and intelligent.
8
Deontological ethics, or deontology, is an approach to ethics that focuses on the rightness or wrongness of intentions or motives behind actions, such as respect for rights, duties or principles, as opposed to the rightness or wrongness of the consequences of those actions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deontology).
