Polish teachers and principals – an international perspective. Key findings of TALIS 2013

Published on Wednesday, 20 May 2015 13:00

An interim report from the second round of the Teaching and Learning International Survey TALIS 2013 - an international study focusing on the working conditions of teachers, their beliefs about teaching, and their teaching and learning environment at schools.

TALIS aims to provide information about teachers and teaching, including data for international comparisons of educational systems. It focuses on such issues as professional development opportunities, teaching beliefs and practices, teacher performance appraisal and feedback from principals and colleagues as well as other issues relevant to leadership and school climate. An analysis of these measures creates grounds for the comparison of countries facing similar challenges, facilitates tapping into various experiences and formulating conclusions on the impact of the policy towards teachers on the learning environment at schools.

This report is an interim analysis of data gathered during the survey and, therefore, has a purely descriptive character. While reading the report, please keep in mind that TALIS methodology is driven by declarations of teachers and school principals that form a picture of the broadly interpreted working conditions of teachers seen from their perspective. It should also be stressed that being an international survey, TALIS creates grounds for cross-country comparisons and features standardised questions, some of which fail to accurately reflect the Polish reality.

Data presented in this report mainly concern lower secondary school teachers and principals. This is due to the fact that lower secondary school teachers and principals are the basic unit of the TALIS analysis design. School surveys focusing on other ISCED levels were optional. Also, a much wider reference for lower secondary school data is available. It is clearly stated whenever analysed data are relevant to primary and upper secondary schools.

We hope that findings from TALIS will help identify strengths of teachers and principals and pinpoint areas which are still in need of development.

The Download the report [pdf, 1 MB]