TITLE:
Educational Policies and the Quality of Teaching: Perceptions of Portuguese Teachers
AUTHORS:
Ana Maria Costa e Silva, Rosalinda Herdeiro
KEYWORDS:
Educational Policies, Teaching Work, Quality of Teaching
JOURNAL NAME:
Creative Education,
Vol.5 No.11,
June
24,
2014
ABSTRACT: The educational and curricular policies of the last two decades reflect
attention to the quality of teaching by associating it with educational success,
the improvement of student learning and the professional development of
teachers. In this article we present some of the results of an investigation
carried out with Portuguese teachers from the first cycle of basic education,
who had, as their main objective, the understanding of the impact of
educational and curricular policies on the development and identity of teachers,
as well on the quality of teaching. We took as references various legal
documents, especially the new Statute for a Teaching Career (STC) and the
Evaluation of Teacher Performance (ETP) and other programs implemented by the
Portuguese Ministry of Education. This longitudinal study was carried out over
three years and it adopted a methodology of both a qualitative and
quantitative nature, which permitted us to understand the perceptions of
teachers of the first cycle of basic education using: 1) written and oral
biographical narratives; 2) discussion groups formed specially for the
purpose; and 3) replies from 249 questionnaires returned by teachers of this
cycle. In this text we will report the results of analyzing the replies from
the questionnaires and the statistical analysis made with the Chi-squared Test
and the T-Test, which corroborate other studies carried out, particularly at an
international level and which reveal that the teachers felt that the
educational policies interfered negatively with their work, thus provoking: a
weakening of their professional relationships, interaction with their peers and
their collaborative work, as well as professional demotivation and disinvestment
with a resulting negative impact on the quality of their teaching.