For four decades, a set of research conducted in the field of education has been able to confirm the intuition of many parents: the progress of their children significantly depends on the talent and skills of their teachers.
“All else being equal,” notably at initial level and identical professional category of the parents, 10% to 15% of the differences in results observed at the end of the year between students can be explained by the teacher to whom the child has been entrusted.
These studies provide other interesting results:
- The magnitude of the “teacher effect” is greater than that of the “school effect”: the teacher has more influence on the progress of students over a given year than the school in which they are enrolled;
- The potential impact of an increase in a teacher’s pedagogical effectiveness is also greater than that of a decrease in class size;
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The effect of the teacher a student had in a given year fades quite quickly once the student changes teachers; however, the impacts of successive teachers can accumulate.
While the existence of the “teacher effect” is now well-supported, the effectiveness of a teacher cannot be easily predicted by objectively measurable factors such as their initial level of training or seniority.
It is in the interaction with students that most of the differences are made.
