Evaluation of Biology Trainee Teachers' Effectiveness using their Students' Perceptions of Teaching Behaviour

The study determined the degree of agreement between the evaluations of trainee biology teachers using students' perceptions of teacher skills and characteristics obtained from the Science Student Perception Questionnaire (SSPQ) and the evaluations of these same teachers by their university supervisor and their school supervisors. The results indicated that such agreement did exist between these sets of data. This finding helped to establish the validity of the SSPQ as a means of assessing trainee teachers' performance and characteristics in the classroom. Also, students irrespective of their age, the teacher being assessed or the topics being taught, tended to exhibit similar perceptions of the instructional behaviour and personality characteristics of their trainee teachers. A few significant differences between the two age groups did occur, but these were always found to be in favour of the older students, who tended to rate their teachers more favourably.