Development of an instrument to evaluate the effectiveness of teachers in guiding small groups

In many student-centred curricula, teachers work in small groups with students. Guiding small groups is rather complex. Teachers need to aim to stimulate students in these groups towards constructive, self-directed, contextual and collaborative learning. It is also important that teachers demonstrate adequate interpersonal behaviour towards students. In this study, an instrument was developed to provide teachers with feedback about their performance to improve their behaviour. The aim of this study is to report on the development, reliability and validity of an instrument to evaluate teachers' performance in guiding small groups. The items of the instrument were based on five theoretical dimensions: constructive, self-directed, contextual and collaborative learning and the teacher's interpersonal behaviour. Students were asked to fill out this instrument and evaluate the performance of the teacher guiding the small group at the end of several courses. The instrument was tested in a pilot-study. Confirmatory factor analysis and generalizability studies indicated that the instrument is fairly valid and reliable when six student responses are available per teacher. Teachers receive detailed feedback about their performance indicating strong and weak aspects. Further research is needed to determine whether this feedback indeed leads to improvement of teachers' behaviour.