Oxford Review of Education, 2017 Do standards

VOL. 43, NO. 1, 109–126 improve or

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03054985.2016.1243522 narrow teaching
practice?

My initial
thoughts: I think
that standards
Professional standards for teachers—what are they good for? will improve the
level of the
teachers coming
Misty Adonioua and Mary Gallagherb out of teacher
training/universit
y and will
a
University of Canberra, Australia; bAustralian Catholic University, Australia increase the
expectations of
employers/scho
ols. I also think
that the
ABSTRACT KEYWORDS standards will
This article reports on a study of teacher and principal attitudes Teacher education; improve peoples
to newly mandated teacher standards in Australia. The qualitative teacher induction; teacher teaching
study of 36 teachers and principals was conducted over 12 months registration; teacher practice as it
standards gives teachers
as the new educators in five schools completed a mandatory teacher something to
probation process framed by the teacher standards. The study found strive towards
positive attitudes to teacher standards from both teachers and and clearly lays
out expectations
principals. Contextual reasons, including teacher ownership over the for
standards and their implementation, are discussed as possible reasons professionalism
for the positive manner in which the participants in the study received and behaviour. I
think that having
these new standards for teachers. standards will
increase the
level of
professionalism
and will help
1. Introduction other
professions and
people see
Standards for teachers have begun appearing in countries around the world since the begin- teachers as
professionals.
ning of the new millennium (Allard, Mayer, & Moss, 2014; Caena, 2014; Ingvarson, 2012; Page, This is because
2015). However, support for the introduction of teacher standards is by no means universal. most
professions
The literature reports a range of oppositional findings with regard to teacher standards. have a set of
standards/criteri
Some studies report that teacher standards can improve teacher practice (e.g. Ingvarson, a/expectations
2012; Swabey, Castleton, & Penney, 2010), and, by inference, student learning outcomes, that they are
expected to live
and improve teacher standing in the broader community through increased credibility and up to and meet
in their
accountability. Conversely there are claims that teacher standards can narrow teaching prac- profession and
tice, reduce teacher autonomy, and de-professionalise teachers (e.g. Bourke, Ryan, & Lidstone, aslong as they
hold that job for.
2013, Connell, 2009). Given the diversity of findings, further research into the ways teacher "Teachers are
second only to
standards are used and experienced by teachers is warranted. This paper reports on research nurses in public
conducted in Australia following the introduction of national teacher standards in 2011. esteem", and
are role models
In Australia, the introduction of standards for the teaching profession reflects a global to students,
therefore the
trend, over the past two decades, to describe the work of teachers through sets of standards public/parents/c
or competences (Forde, McMahon, Hamilton, & Murray, 2016; Page, 2015). The almost simul- ommunity/etc,
expects
taneous global interest in defining teacher work through teacher standards, particularly in teachers to act a
certain way and
the Western economies of the UK, Europe, US, and Australia, has been linked to dominant be professional.
neoliberal political ideologies underpinning those economies. The focus on advancement I think having
standards will
through competition has prompted a new focus on the work of schools and their role in the be helpful for
teachers as it
production of workers who will be assets in the global economic competition between shows them
where the
boundaries and
lines are and
CONTACT  Misty Adoniou  misty.adoniou@canberra.edu.au what they
© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group should be doing.
 110   M. ADONIOU AND M. GALLAGHER

nation states (Clarke & Moore, 2013; Goodson, 2001). Measures of the effectiveness of schools
in producing these workers are manifested in global education competitions, for example,
the OECD’s Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). The published league tables
resulting from this assessment programme have been hugely influential in changing edu-
cational policy and process in countries around the world (Moss, 2012; Page, 2015) as nations
seek to improve their international standing. Responses to improving student performance
have substantially focused on improving teacher quality, given fairly robust evidence linking
teacher quality with learner outcomes (Hattie, 2009). The development of teacher standards
The quality of
has subsequently been identified as key to improving teacher quality (Forde et al., 2016).
teaching/the Although some research has reported that standards may have a positive effect on teacher
teacher does
have an effect professional learning (Mayer, Mitchell, Macdonald, & Bell, 2005), there is currently scant
on
student/learner
evidence of a direct link between the establishment of teacher standards and improved
outcomes. student learning outcomes as measured by standardised tests. Given the lack of evidence
for teacher standards as a causal factor for student improvement, it has been suggested that
the motivation for the development of teacher standards is more closely aligned to a political
desire to control the profession through regulation and compliance tools.
It is this contested space that the research reported in this article seeks to shine more
light upon.

2. Context
In 2011, the Australian federal government released the Australian Professional Standards
for Teachers (APST). In the ensuing years, Australia’s state and territory jurisdictions have
been incorporating the APST into their varying processes for teacher registration and teacher
promotion. This has occurred in different ways in each of the country’s eight jurisdictions,
as education is primarily a jurisdictional, rather than a federal governance issue. This paper
reports on a study conducted in one of the eight jurisdictions in Australia where the federal
APST have been integrated into local processes for teacher registration, teacher probation,
as well as teacher certification for promotion pathways.
The jurisdiction in the study has taken a unique approach to the implementation of
processes around the APST, which bears some description as it provides a context for this
study and its findings. The jurisdiction had no teacher accreditation agency, or local teacher
standards prior to the institution of the APST. A teacher accreditation agency was established
from scratch the same year as the APST were mandated. This enabled them to build all their
processes around the new APST, which they did under the advice of a number of cross-
sectorial advisory boards and working groups involving the three schooling sectors—
independent, Catholic, and government—as well as the two teacher education universities
in the jurisdiction. These groups comprised teachers, principals, union officials, university
lecturers, and educational bureaucrats. Key actions included the use of the APST for common
assessments for graduates from both universities and the development of career portfolios
built around the APST, and renewed at each career level—Graduate, Proficient, Highly
Accomplished, and Lead. It was also agreed that each sector, and each school, would manage
the assessment process at Proficient level according to their own schooling context. This has
given schools significant autonomy in the ways in which they use the APST in their schools.
As researchers who were involved in the preparation of final year teacher education stu-
dents, we had worked together across our two institutions to incorporate knowledge of the
 OXFORD REVIEW OF EDUCATION   111

APST into our courses in order to prepare them for their future encounters with the standards
in their first years of teaching. We were therefore curious to understand more about the ways
in which new graduates experience the standards in their first school placement as new
graduates (Adoniou, 2013a). The aim of the study was to document both teacher and prin-
cipal responses to the standards, and the ways in which they were using the standards in
their school operations. In particular we were interested in comparing the profession’s
responses to teacher standards to those described in the literature.

2.1.  The evolution and structure of the Australian Professional Standards for
Teachers
Over the past 12 years there has been a considerable change in the space that teacher
standards have occupied in the teaching landscape in Australia. Teacher standards first
appeared in 2002 and they were voluntary, subject specific, and developed by teachers’
associations. Their primary purpose was as professional development guides that helped
define the specificity of each of the disciplines, mathematics, science, and English (Partridge
& Debowski, 2008).
Today, those voluntary subject-specific standards still exist, but the dominant teacher
standards on the professional landscape are the mandatory generic standards, the APST,
developed by the federal government agency, the Australian Institute for Teaching and
School Leadership (AITSL). Although the rationale behind their development was to provide
a national language for talking about teaching (Ministerial Council on Education, 2003),
currently they are substantially used to regulate:

• provisional teacher registration upon graduation;

• the awarding of full teacher registration after 12–24 months employment; and
• the annual renewal of teacher registration of all teachers (AITSL, 2012).

The APST describe seven standards, organised under three domains, as follows:

• Professional Knowledge

(1)  Know students and how they learn.

(2)  Know the content and how to teach it.

• Professional Practice

(3)  Plan for and implement effective teaching and learning.

(4)  Create and maintain supportive and safe learning environment.
(5)  Assess, provide feedback, and report on student learning.

• Professional Engagement

(6)  Engage in professional learning.

Teachers
need to be
(7)  Engage professionally with colleagues, parents/carers, and the community (AITSL,
continually 2012).
learning...
 112   M. ADONIOU AND M. GALLAGHER

These same seven standards are further described in nuanced ways across a career con-
tinuum of Graduate, Proficient, Highly Accomplished, and Lead teachers (see Appendix 1
for an example of how the APST are described across the career continuum).
The APST have moved beyond the ‘professional learning’ and ‘professional credibility’ role
for which they were originally conceived by the teachers’ associations. They have moved
into a regulatory space, as teachers must provide evidence against the Proficient and
Graduate standards in order to achieve and maintain teacher registration. Certification
against the Highly Accomplished and Lead standards remains a voluntary exercise, although
it is promoted by teacher accreditation agencies in the various jurisdictions.

3.  Review of the literature

Australia’s search for national standards for teachers is not unique, and an existing body of
research on standards development and implementation provides a useful reference for
observing and analysing Australia’s experience. Research on teacher standards has been
primarily document reviews (e.g. Bourke et al., 2013; Page, 2015) or commentaries which
have theorised the possibilities of standards implementation (e.g. Ingvarson, 1998; Sachs,
2003).
Less prevalent in the literature have been studies that have sought to incorporate the
profession’s voice into the debate (see for example, Swabey et al. [2010], who conducted a
qualitative study with pre-service and newly graduated high school PE teachers). The
research reported in this article adds to this body of literature with a study that seeks out
the voices of new graduates, as well as experienced teachers and school leaders.
Two general positions can be found in the literature—those against and those for. Those
against argue that the standards narrow teaching practices (Ryan & Bourke, 2013) and reduce
teacher autonomy (Sachs, 2003). Those who support standards for teachers argue they may
guide teacher professional development (Ingvarson, 1998) and improve the standing of the
profession in the broader community (Yinger & Daniel, 2010), and provide a framework for
developing teacher identity (Swabey et al., 2010).

3.1.  Standards as static and reductionist

As standards are anchored in the time they were written, they come with inherent problems.
They are necessarily reflective of the ideas and knowledge bases of that time, and definitions
of good teaching change over time (Eaude, 2014). As Darling-Hammond warns
Standard setting in all professions must be vigilant against the possibilities that practice could
become constrained by the codification of knowledge that does not significantly acknowledge
legitimate diversity of approaches or advances in the field. (1999, p. 39)
Interesting point - if
a standard was
written 5 - 10 years Further to this concern regarding the flexibility of the standards to adapt to new knowl-
ago it could be edge and changing contexts, the literature reports concerns that when standards become
outdated and not
apply... that's a regulatory in nature they may prompt teachers to stop seeking innovation in their teaching
negative to the
standards I hadn't and focus their efforts on meeting standards. Others warn that teachers may focus on admin-
thought of before. istrative work to ‘prove’ their work against standards and may spend less time on creative

and responsive lesson planning (Ryan & Bourke, 2013; Sachs, 2003). Sachs (2003, p. 183)
warns that the process could become a burden—‘a chronic and persistent overload’—that
 OXFORD REVIEW OF EDUCATION   113

may come at the expense of other actions like keeping up with new developments in the
field.
Similarly, it has been argued that regulatory control reduces teacher autonomy (Ryan &
Bourke, 2013; Sachs, 2003; Taubman, 2009) and reduced autonomy has been correlated with
teacher attrition (Ryan & Bourke, 2013; Torres, 2012). Standards have been described as a
neoliberal mechanism which serve managerial agendas which reduce teaching to simplistic
descriptions of what teachers should do, that are then easily measured in order to decide
who the good and bad teachers are (Ball, 1994; Bourke et al., 2013; Groundwater-Smith &
Mockler, 2009; Sachs, 2003). Ryan and Bourke (2013, p. 420) suggest that standards docu-
ments ‘represent teachers as cogs in the bureaucratic machine, who need to be told what
to do, what to know’.
A number of researchers (Berliner, 2004; Eaude, 2014; Moore & Atkinson, 1998) suggest
that teacher standards or descriptors of teacher competencies cannot adequately describe
all that it is to be a teacher, nor can they adequately respond to the diverse contexts within
which teachers work (Bourke et al., 2013; Connell, 2009; Sachs, 2003). Moore and Atkinson
(1998) warn that standards risk decontextualising the work of teachers. Teaching happens
in the social, cultural, and economic milieu that schools represent. Moore and Atkinson
suggest, then, that judging a teacher by individualistic standards may risk blaming the
teacher ‘for failings that in reality lie elsewhere’ (Moore & Atkinson, 1998, p. 181). They further
assert that standards encourage ‘a reductive, mechanistic approach … which ignores the
idiosyncratic, contingent aspects of teaching and learning’ (Moore & Atkinson, 1998, p. 171).
Eaude (2014, p. 16) concurs, suggesting that many aspects of teaching are ‘likely to be dis-
tinctive to individuals and only partially open to public codification’.
As those not inside the profession may not have knowledge of all aspects of the profes-
sion, it is desirable that the profession itself is called in to participate in the construction of
the standards. Some claim it is crucial that teachers indeed see standards as their own, as a
valid and reliable representation of the profession (Darling-Hammond, 1999; Hargreaves,
2000; Sachs, 2003). In the US context, Zionts, Shellady, and Zionts assert that ‘there is little
empirical evidence documenting the validation of professional standards, even by profes-
sional classroom educators’ (2006, p. 5), further observing that teacher input in teacher
standards has most frequently been in the form of responses to already adopted
standards.

3.2.  Standards as positive and empowering

A contrasting discourse of teacher standards positions them as a tool for promoting profes-
sional learning and development (Forde et al., 2016; Mayer et al., 2005; Tillema, 2010) and
providing a framework for career-long professional learning (Ingvarson, 1998; Partridge &
Debowski, 2008) which, in turn, increases the esteem within which the profession is held
(Darling-Hammond, 1999; Ingvarson, 1998; Yinger & Daniel, 2010). Ingvarson (1998) suggests
that professional standards are a means by which the profession can control the agenda for
the profession.
Less evident in the literature, but a plausible function of standards, is as an organiser for
teachers to record their own professional journeys—from pre-service to in-service.
Importantly, standards written across the career stages, as per the APST, provide a common
language for pre-service and in-service teachers (Forde et al., 2016; Swabey et al., 2010), and
114   M. ADONIOU AND M. GALLAGHER

link different career moments across the same continuum. For example, assessment within,
and graduation from, teacher education; probation in the employment context; and future
promotion to leadership roles can all be mapped against the teacher standards. It may be,
then, that teacher standards that span the career of a teacher from pre-service to in-service
could potentially offer one avenue for reducing the theory–practice gap which is well estab-
lished in the literature on teacher preparation (Adoniou, 2015; Alexander, 2008; Fresko &
Nasser-Abu lhija, 2009).

4.  About the study

The study reported upon in this paper was a broad exploration of the implementation and
use of the new Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST) in one of Australia’s
eight states and territories. A particular focal point was the regulatory requirement in the
jurisdiction to use the APST as the framework for achieving full teacher registration. Teachers
in their first 12–24 months of teaching are required to collect and present evidence they
have achieved a Proficient level of understanding and practice against the APST.
This requirement manifests itself in the production of a portfolio (digital or paper) of
evidence of practice against each of the 37 descriptors across the seven standards. Evidence
is most usually artefacts of teaching and learning, including teacher lesson plans, student
work, communications with parents, resources made, records of mentor or peer feedback
on lessons etc. Each piece of evidence must contain a descriptive reflection of both teacher
learning and impact upon student learning. This portfolio of evidence is presented to a panel
in the teacher’s school and forms part of the overall assessment of the teacher’s suitability
to progress to full teacher registration. The use of portfolios in this process of teacher accred-
itation is reported elsewhere. In this article we focus on the responses to the Standards,
rather than the process put in place to record the Standards in this particular jurisdiction.

4.1.  Research design

The research was a qualitative study carried out across five sites in the jurisdiction. An email
was sent out to all schools in the jurisdiction (n=128) explaining the project’s aims and
requesting expressions of interest in participating in the research. Ten responses were
received and five schools were selected using the following criteria:

• mix of primary and secondary schools;

• mix of government, Catholic, and independent schools, chosen because this is a reflec-
tion of the cross-sectorial nature of schooling across all jurisdictions in Australia; and
• numbers of newly graduated teachers in the school seeking to achieve full teacher
registration—preferably more than one in order to broaden the number of participants.

The final selection consisted of

• a government primary school with five newly graduated teachers teaching in infants
and primary grades using the Australian Curriculum;
• a government special needs high school with two newly graduated teachers teaching
students with an intellectual disability using a functional, life skills curriculum;
 OXFORD REVIEW OF EDUCATION   115

• a Catholic primary school with five newly graduated teachers teaching in infants and
primary grades using the Australian Curriculum;
• a Catholic high school with two newly graduated teachers teaching secondary physical
education, social science, and mathematics, Years 7–10; and
• an independent K-12 school with two newly graduated teachers teaching English and
Science to Years 9–10.

Interviews were conducted with the newly graduated teachers, their assigned mentor
teachers, and the principals in each school. In total there were 16 newly graduated teachers,
15 assigned mentors (in one school one mentor was responsible for two teachers), and five
principals. Mentors were assigned to new graduates using different criteria, depending upon
the school and sector. Some of the mentors shared the same grade and subject; other men-
tors were in leadership positions, outside of the new graduate’s teaching area.
The interviews were semi-structured which gave room for narrative-style questioning
(Hollway & Jefferson, 2000) which, in turn, allowed for the individual stories to be told. The
aim of the interviews in this study was to ‘produce rich data filled with words that reveal the
respondents’ perspectives’ (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007, p. 97). Some questions were pre-
determined, although room was left for more natural conversations with the interviewees.
Interviews were conducted three times in each school, across the timeframe allowed for
achieving full registration. This ranged from 12 to 18 months, as government schools require
the process completed within 12 months of full-time teaching, whilst the Catholic and inde-
pendent sectors allow up to 24 months. The collection of the data at three points throughout
the process was a deliberate part of the research design. Point-in-time studies are less useful
for describing shifts in the participants’ perspectives, thoughts, attitudes, and skills over time.
The interviews were designed to answer specific questions about the registration process
and standards and to respond to some of the gaps identified in the literature in these areas.
The first interviews were conducted with the mentor and new graduate together and the
principal separately. The first interviews aimed to introduce the researchers to the partici-
pants. As each school had autonomy over the ways in which they implemented the regis-
tration process, the first interview was used to hear what the mechanics of that process were
in their context, to introduce the research project, and to ask for their signed consent to
participate in the project. Once consent was received subsequent interviews were conducted
with each group separately to allow each participant—teacher, mentor, and principal—to
answer questions from their own perspectives, and to do so freely and without influence
from others. Data from these individual interviews are reported in this article. Each of the
interviews lasted approximately one hour and each was conducted within the school setting.
The guiding interview questions are included in Appendix 2.

4.2.  Research process

Ethical clearance was granted from the Universities’ Ethics Committee, the local Education
and Training Directorate, the Catholic Education Office, and the individual processes within
the independent school.
The interviews were recorded and transcribed by an external service provider. At the end
of each interview round, the transcripts were read by each researcher and highlighted for
recurring ideas and themes. These ‘draft’ themes were illustrated by indicative quotes from
 116   M. ADONIOU AND M. GALLAGHER

the transcripts, and served as a general guide for the construction of question prompts for
the next round of interviews. The individual analyses were then shared and discussed, after
each ‘round’. Through this iterative process, by the end of the data collection phase, the two
researchers established the following consensual themes (Cresswell, 2003; Holliday, 2002):

• Process;
• Portfolios;
• Standards;
• Identified challenges; and
• Supports.

With all the data collected, further sub-themes were identified by looking closely at the
data in each theme, and referring to the literature in the field. It is the data collected under
the theme of ‘Standards’ that are examined in detail in this paper. The following sub-themes
were identified within the larger theme of Standards.
Standards as:

• professional learning;
• regulators;
• personal story; and
• professional credibility.

Each participant set was analysed across the three collection points to identify changes
in attitude and knowledge over the 12–18 months of the process. A grid was made for each
participant set, with the sub-themes listed vertically, and the interview dates listed horizon-
tally. Relevant transcript quotes and researcher memos were placed in each grid square. The
researchers then conducted a horizontal analysis across all three participant sets that allowed
for comparisons of differences and similarities in the themes across the participants, and
over time, in what is described as a constant comparative method (Boulton & Hammersley,
2006).
The findings as we observed them within the theme of Standards are explored in the next
section, using the identified sub-themes as the organisers.

5. Findings
5.1.  Standards as professional learning
There was clear support from all participants for the role the APST played in professional
development and growth. The newly qualified teachers felt the Standards focused their
attention on all aspects of their teaching. The requirement to collect evidence and reflect
on their performance against the Standards, encouraged them to stop and take stock—
forcing them to reflect upon their practice when otherwise they might just fill their time
with just creating more ‘stuff’, as one teacher reported:
Actually, it [collecting evidence against the Standards] gives you something to focus on for
growth otherwise you tread water for a year trying to learn everything, do everything, take
things on board but you don’t take the reflection time. There is so much else that can consume
your time in this career that it’s one of the things that you wouldn’t do and I think that’s actually
a value of it.

Reflection is key - the

standards can provide an
opportunity for that and give
teachers criteria to reflect on.
 OXFORD REVIEW OF EDUCATION   117

The mentors also felt positively about the Standards as a professional learning tool. They
used the Standards as a guide for their interactions with their mentees. They reported the
Standards offered a common language and focal point for helping underperforming teachers
rather than punishing them. The mentors were particularly keen to make the point that they
saw them as a useful frame for formative feedback, rather than as a summative
assessment.
I think the Standards as part of a mentoring program are really useful in developing teachers. I
don’t like to see it as a way of just measuring this is a proficient teacher.
The principals also believed that the requirement for their newly graduated teachers to
collect evidence against the Standards, and to provide reflections on that evidence, encour-
aged their professional growth. As one principal explained:
They can see what areas they’re strong in and what areas they might be weak in and just rather
than fluffing along, it gives you something to aim for.
They also felt the Standards were helpful in framing professional learning for all their staff,
Gives
and all reported using them as a means for teachers to set their professional learning goals. teachers
something to
It was clear that the introduction of this process of registering progress from Graduate to aim for.
Proficient levels against the Standards had substantially changed professional development
practices in each school in the study. At one site this Standards-driven professional learning
was changing the culture of the school for all teachers, not just newly qualified teachers:
The other thing we are going to do with it next year is set up a peer observation professional
learning community where people who are interested can nominate to be part of a group where
they each watch each other’s classes and give feedback. So trying to open up classrooms so that
it’s not my little classroom and just starting that professional dialogue in a more formal sense.
Another site had made multiple and far-reaching changes, including the establishment
of two specialist mentor positions to work with new teachers, as they explained:
The portfolio doesn’t just happen. We talk to them about how to collect the evidence. We start
with the core document of standards and send them off to collect their evidence. We talk to
them as a whole group about what they might put in and it’s a very generic meeting at the
beginning and then we work individually.
Principals were keen for the registration process not to feel competitive. They all encour-
aged collaboration between both new teachers undergoing the process, and all the other
staff in the school. In all sites, the newly qualified teachers worked together on the process.
There was a sense that collegiality and collaboration was important to their desire to see
standards as a driver of professional learning rather than a regulatory device. As one principal
said:
I think in order to make this not feel like a compliance activity this just needs to be an under-
current of dialogue the whole year.

5.2.  Standards as regulators

Newly qualified teachers and mentors did not wish to see the APST used for regulatory
mechanisms. The principals, however, did see a dual professional growth/regulatory role for
the Standards. The principals reported that the Standards provided them with both the
language and an ‘official’ framework to talk to underperforming teachers about their practice.
This principal’s response was indicative of the principal cohort:
 118   M. ADONIOU AND M. GALLAGHER

I think that they help frame and articulate and give reference to expectations of teacher per-
formance and behaviour that are always there but never articulated as well or expressed so
succinctly .
During the course of the study, two of the schools indicated they had already used the
Standards for this purpose, as another principal recounted:
We have an issue with a staff member where there’s been complaints and the standards are
being used like a benchmark of what should be happening.

5.3.  Standards as a personal story

As well as helping focus on a broader range of teaching activity, the newly graduated teachers
felt the Standards helped them to describe their growth over time:
Where you were last year is probably different to where you are now, different to where you’ll
be in two years’ time. It does show that growth and it shows the track of learning.
In fact, there was a deal of support for the descriptions of career growth in the Standards
from all respondents. One school site described the ways in which they were using the
Standards with all their teachers starting with a whole school staff meeting:
We talked about what the Standards looked like—we used the AITSL website, the short clips,
and that sort of thing—and then we got them in faculty groups to look at the proficient stand-
ards and do that matching activity, that sort of thing and then we’ve encouraged all the staff
to do their self-reflection where they actually might fit, where they themselves in their career
fit against the standards.
They felt the Standards provided a framework to work within and goals to work towards.
Two mentors had embarked upon the process of applying for Highly Accomplished teacher
status, with one teacher saying they had deliberately chosen to do so because of their role
as a mentor to a new teacher going through a similar process at the Proficient level.
The newly graduated teachers felt the Standards served as a reminder of all the aspects
of their job, as one commented:
When you do a self-reflection, if you’re like me, I tend to reflect on particular things and I tend
to dwell on the same sort of things. When you’re looking at standards, it reminds you about
the other factors that you’re not considering in your reflection if you just keep dwelling on the
same things.
Despite the generally positive response to the Standards, there was, however, a recurring
concern that the Standards did not allow for a full description of all the attributes of a teacher.
There was an agreement amongst all respondents that there is something indefinable, an
‘essence’, about good teachers. The newly graduated teachers identified these missing attrib-
utes which included patience, open mindedness, consistency, being non-judgmental, and
going with the flow, as reflected in these comments:
Well it [the evidence against the standards] doesn’t show how you react, how you treat the
children, how you show respect, how you encourage them, how you nurture, it doesn’t show
anything like that.

The standards don’t allow you to demonstrate a passion for teaching, authenticity in the want
and the love for it.
Similarly, mentors and principals felt the Standards did not capture all that they look for
in a teacher. They described ‘intangibles’ they were looking for in their new teachers which

While the standards are

beneficial, some important
aspects of teaching and who a
teacher is are missed. Doesn't
really cover the self as teacher.
 OXFORD REVIEW OF EDUCATION   119

were not in the Standards, which included resilience, empathy, passion, vocation, toughness,
flexibility, generosity of spirit, and emotional intelligence.
They all agreed that articulating and measuring these were difficult:
There are the things that are missing; those subtleties. How do you articulate those things and
how do you measure them?
However they reported that their absence from the Standards did not concern them as
they felt it was impossible to capture them in standards anyway, and they would apply their
own judgment on these attributes, alongside the more tangible skills and knowledge
described in the Standards.

5.4.  Standards as professional credibility

Professional credibility was a key theme with the mentors and principals in the study. Their
responses indicated a general belief that the Standards helped to explain the teaching pro-
fession to the broader community. There was an overwhelmingly majority response— four
principals and 14 mentors— that the Standards play an important role in raising the profes-
sional profile of teaching in the community, an advantage widely recorded in the literature
(Darling-Hammond, 1999; Ingvarson, 1998; Yinger & Daniel, 2010).
This is now talking about not only teaching as a practice but as a profession. It’s a way of saying to
the community we’re not just pulling things out of a hat; these are things we’re actually working
towards and with; like the Medical Board Standards teachers have actually got standards. Yes,
it definitely enhances your profession.
One mentor reported that she tells parents and others in her personal circle of friends
outside of school about the APST to help them understand what her job is. Others felt the
Standards helped articulate the complexity of teaching to those in the community who have
a simplistic view of what it entails, and were an important part of being ‘accountable’. As one
said:
I think it’s not a bad thing for a profession to have a set of standards and say this is who we are
as a profession and this is what we can do.
One mentor noted that it was all part of a greater movement to deprivatise practice
between teachers so that there is more sharing of practice, but also with the public so there
is more understanding of the professional practice of teachers.
However, there were two dissenting voices, from one principal and one mentor. One
mentor teacher was concerned about being held accountable by a general public through
a set of standards when they were not privy to the actual enactment of the Standards:
I don’t like that idea that people who don’t know the job hold us to account. I wouldn’t go and
hold the medical profession to account when I don’t know what their standards refer to.
A principal also felt that the introduction of standards may feed into a negative public
discourse about teaching, implying that ‘standards’ were necessary because teachers were
previously below standard. Also using the analogy of the medical profession, the principal
said:
It sends a message to the Australian public that we’re fessing up. We don’t have quality teachers
but we’re working hard to get there. I’m thinking that’s disrespectful because you don’t hear
hospitals say we want quality doctors; that would make you very nervous before you went under
the knife because currently they don’t have quality doctors.
120   M. ADONIOU AND M. GALLAGHER

6. Discussion
In this paper we organised the literature review around two constellating positions—
standards as static and reductionist, and standards as positive and empowering.
In this study we found potential for both of these positions for the Australian Professional
Standards for Teachers.

6.1.  Standards as positive and empowering

In the five sites we found many examples of agency, where schools and teachers personalised
the use of the Standards to better reflect their own contextual needs, in ways which we
would characterise as positive and empowering. In particular we found evidence to support
the position that teacher standards can be a tool for promoting professional learning and
development (Mayer et al., 2005; Tillema, 2010) and provide the framework for career-long
professional learning (Ingvarson, 1998; Partridge & Debowski, 2008).
The participants in this study believed the APST were a reasonable representation of the
profession, countering concerns that teachers may feel no ownership of the standards (Sachs,
2003) and that this may impact upon the ways in which they respond to them.
There was evidence that the Standards, and the process of gathering evidence against
them, also eased some of the challenges new educators face in the first years of teaching
(Adoniou, 2013b). The Standards focused their attention, helping them to prioritise their
work. Principals also reported that the Standards focused the new educator’s reflections on
their teaching, confirming the findings of others (Ingvarson, 1998; Partridge & Debowski,
2008; Tillema, 2010).
All schools were attempting to integrate the Standards and accompanying regulatory
processes into existing practices in order to quell concerns of teacher overload or teacher
backlash. One principal explained that this was mostly a matter of managing teacher con-
cerns by explaining the Standards are simply common sense:
I think sometimes there’s that panic or hysteria about the standards and it’s going to mean, you
know, that panic that none of us will be able to meet them or that they’re unrealistic standards.
I don’t actually think they are. I think you need to handle them a lot and to see that there’s a lot
of value, I do believe that there’s value in them and I’m not concerned that they’re here to make
life more difficult. I actually think that they help us.
Most sites had taken the opportunity to incorporate the Standards into other processes
in their schools, from guiding professional conversations to providing the focus for profes-
sional learning. Significantly, the introduction of the Standards and the accompanying evi-
dence process had increased both the amount of mentoring the new educators received as
well as the amount of collaboration between teachers. Contrary to concerns noted in the
literature that teacher standards could lead to individualistic and decontextualised
approaches to teaching (Moore & Atkinson, 1998), there was a clear theme of collegiality in
the respondents’ discussion of the processes and supports. Whilst the Standards per se were
not the source of this collaboration, their introduction, and the attendant requirement to
gather evidence of teaching practice and student learning, had prompted changes in the
ways new educators are supported and provided a common language and focal point for
interactions with each other and their mentors.
 OXFORD REVIEW OF EDUCATION   121

It was also apparent that the introduction of the registration process and the Standards
had impacted upon the professional learning of the mentors, and not just the new teachers
they were involved with. In all the research sites, the process of moving to full teacher reg-
istration, and the requirement that the Standards provide the language for the process, had
opened classroom doors and talk about teaching had become public.
Overall the participants in their various roles felt the APST made a useful contribution to
the teaching landscape. However the sentiment was neither unanimous, nor without
caveats.

6.2.  Standards as static and reductionist

Whilst both principals and teachers agreed that the Standards described what teachers need
to ‘know’ and ‘do’, there was also a consensus that they were less successful in describing
what teachers need to ‘be’—that is, the more elusive personal qualities of teachers.
Although this gap was noted by the participants in this study, it did not appear to reduce
their confidence in the Standards. They felt the Standards were a part of their broader toolkit
for describing teachers, and that these more intangible personal teacher qualities were not
easily captured in a document in any case. That is, although they felt the Standards were a
good representation of teaching, they were not sufficient, and other, less quantifiable, judg-
ment processes need to be used. This does raise some concerns then about the usefulness
of standards as a guarantee of transparency in the assessment of teachers (Goepel, 2012) if
there appears to be general agreement that unquantifiable and personal judgments will
continue to be used in the assessment of teachers.
The level of comfort with gaps within the Standards may become less evident should the
Standards take on more regulatory roles, performing gate-keeping functions to induct or
remove teachers from the profession. In this study, the teachers were unanimous in their
position that the Standards work primarily in the professional growth space rather than in
a regulatory space, and their current experience of the Standards was as a guide for profes-
sional learning.
The principals in this study were less adamant that this was the sole role of the Standards.
In fact, some had already begun to use the Standards as a gate-keeping tool and govern-
ments also see useful regulatory roles for teacher standards (Ingvarson, 2012). A shift in the
balance between the regulatory and professional learning functions of the APST could
prompt a shift in teachers’ attitudes to the Standards.
Ryan and Bourke (2013) warn that registration processes governed by standards may
place administrative burdens on new teachers that take them away from pursuing innovative
teaching. The new teachers in this study confirmed that the time consumed by the admin-
istration of the task of preparing a portfolio of evidence against the APST was an added
pressure in their first year of teaching. However, they did not report that it took time away
from their teaching. The Standards themselves did not constrain or reduce teacher innova-
tion, but the process of gathering evidence against the Standards did increase the workload
of the newly qualified educators. This is of some concern, given that the literature notes that
the administrative burdens of the first years of teaching can be a contributor to teacher
attrition (Dinham & Scott, 1998; Kyriacou & Kunc, 2007; Watt & Richardson, 2008).
122   M. ADONIOU AND M. GALLAGHER

7. Conclusion
The introduction of standards into the teaching profession has been a global movement
(Allard et al., 2014; Caena, 2014; Ingvarson, 2012; Page, 2015) that has attracted both sup-
porters and critics (Bourke et al., 2013). The study reported in this paper has shown that the
principals, mentors, and newly qualified teachers across the five sites in the study were more
supportive than critical of the APST. They reported some concerns that the Standards were
not able to provide a full picture of all that an effective teacher must be and do, and teachers
and mentors in particular were keen that the Standards not be used as a regulatory gate-
keeper to the profession. However, overall, the participants felt the Standards offered sub-
stantial support for professional development and career growth, as well as playing a key
role in increasing the credibility of the profession in the broader community.
This positive response to teacher standards runs counter to findings in some of the liter-
ature. This alternative discourse around standards in this study may be attributable to both
the ways in which the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers were developed, and
the ways in which they were implemented in this particular jurisdiction.
Firstly, there was the considerable consultation with the profession conducted over eight
years. A similar iterative consultation process has been described as successful in the Irish
context (Caena, 2014).
Secondly, in this study, locally adapted processes that were attached to the federal
Standards may explain the positive engagement with the Standards. Key to these processes
was the flexibility given to schools in this particular jurisdiction to engage with the Standards
in ways that were school specific, and relevant to the local context. This enabled them to
integrate their use of the Standards into existing structures within each school. Principals
were given autonomy in the way in which the Standards were used in their schools, and in
this study they used the Standards to streamline existing performance review and support
processes in schools. For example, in the government schools existing probation processes
were realigned to the APST and were merged with the new teacher registration process. In
individual schools existing mentoring programmes were now framed around the APST and
supported the teacher registration process.
Policy implementation processes that engage teachers and principals are noted as being
more effective, particularly when they allow them to enact the policy in ways that achieve
their own goals and activities (Cerna, 2013) and in response to their local contexts (Spillane,
Reiser, & Reimer, 2002). A shift, then, to more top down policy implementation processes,
which could include standardised, centralised, and regulatory functions for the Standards,
would likely also prompt a shift in teacher attitudes to the teacher standards.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors
Misty Adoniou is an Associate Professor in Language Literacy and TESOL at the University of Canberra,
Australia. She is a past President of both TESOL Greece and the Australian Council of TESOL Associations,
and she is currently on the Board of Directors of TESOL International. She researches in the areas of
early career teachers, teacher standards, and curriculum development.
 OXFORD REVIEW OF EDUCATION   123

Mary Gallagher has over two decades’ experience as a classroom educator and presently lectures in
Education Studies and Literacy at the Australian Catholic University. She has been engaged in inter-
national education since 2001 and is currently contributing to reforming Islamic tertiary education
in Indonesia. Her PhD research is focusing on the impact of Professional Standards on teachers and
principals.

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Appendix 1. Standards across a career continuum

Table A1. APST Standard 1—Know students and how they learn (1.3. Students with diverse linguistic,
cultural, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds).

Graduate Proficient Highly Accomplished Lead

Demonstrate Design and implement
knowledge of teaching
strategies that are
responsive to the learning
strengths and needs of
students from diverse
linguistic, cultural,
religious, and socioeco-
nomic backgrounds
Support colleagues to
teaching strategies
that are responsive to the
learning strengths and
needs of students from
diverse linguistic,
cultural, religious, and
socioeconomic
backgrounds
Evaluate and revise school
develop effective learning and teaching
teaching strategies programmes, using
that address the expert and community
learning strengths and knowledge and
needs of students from experience, to meet the
diverse linguistic, needs of students with
cultural, religious, and diverse linguistic, cultural,
socioeconomic religious, and socioeconomic
backgrounds backgrounds

Appendix 2. Interview questions

First round interviews, conducted with beginning teachers and their mentors
together
Questions for beginning teachers:

• How familiar are you with the Teaching Standards?

• Which Standards and focus areas do you feel most confident/least confident in?
• How do you, or will you, go about gathering evidence for, and reflecting on, the Standards?
• What support is being provided to you in relation to collecting, collating, and reflecting upon
achievements as you move from Graduate to Proficient level?

Questions for mentor teachers:

• How familiar are you with the Teaching Standards?

• What are your observations of the ways in which the beginning teachers in your school are pre-
paring for full registration against the Proficient Standards?
• What support is being provided to you in relation to supporting beginning teachers in collecting,
collating, and reflecting upon achievements as they move from Graduate to Proficient level?

Second round interviews—conducted with each group separately

Questions for beginning teachers:

• Where are you in the process of collecting evidence against the Standards for your panel for full
registration?
• Have you begun the process of annotating and reflecting evidence?
• What is your understanding of what is required for annotating and reflecting?
• How have you annotated it? How have you reflected upon it?
• We have two Standards descriptors to show you—one at Graduate level and one at Proficient.
Can you talk to us about what you think the difference is between the two? How would the
evidence be different?
• What talk is there about the Standards in your school?
• How would you rate your knowledge of the Standards in comparison to your colleagues?
• In your opinion, what is the purpose of the process and why were Standards introduced?
126   M. ADONIOU AND M. GALLAGHER

Questions for mentor teachers, supervisors, and principals:

• What is your understanding of the Teacher Standards?

• What is the role of the Standards in the continuing development of teachers in your school?
• How do you engage professionally with the beginning teachers in relation to the Standards?
• Do conversations around the Standards provide insight into beginning teachers’ practices and
needs?
• What are your observations of the ways in which the beginning teachers in your school are pre-
paring for full registration against the Proficient Standards?
• Do their evidence and reflections against the Standards effectively describe their growth and
development of knowledge and skills?

Final interviews—conducted with each group separately

Questions were the same for all participants:

• You have now participated in the registration process using the Proficient Standards. Can you
talk to us about that experience?
• This project was particularly interested in understanding the movement from Graduate Standards
to Proficient Standards. On reflection what would you say the key differences are—what marks a
graduate teacher from a proficient teacher?
• Have the Standards contributed in any way to improved knowledge, practice, or engagement?
• To what extent would you have engaged with the Standards if you were not a part of this process?
• Standards are often described in two distinct ways:

1.  as quality assurance, a measure of teacher quality that can be used to reassure others of the
quality of the teaching workforce; and/or
2.  as a teacher development tool—a framework for teacher reflection on practice and guide
for future development.
Can you talk about each of these from your own experiences with the Teacher Standards this year?

• The power and success of any innovation relies heavily upon its credibility with the profession.
Can you comment on this with reference to two aspects of the Standards:

1.  The Standards themselves—are they a credible description of the work of teachers, do they
enjoy credibility in the profession?
2.  This process of accreditation to full teacher registration—moving from Graduate to Proficient
Standards. Is the process credible, does it or will it enjoy credibility in the profession?
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