IN -SERVICE TEACHER TRAINING ASSESSMENT IN SOUTH ASIAN REGION: A CRITICAL META ANALYSIS PERSPECTIVE

Educational Research ( Social Science)

The current study investigates the assessment practices in in-service teacher training programs in South Asian regions. The aim of this research is to systematically synthesize the literature on the teacher professional development construct and assessment design data to decode the training effect on the performance of social studies teachers. This paper analyses the training assessment design along with associated factors contributing to the high effect size of the training. To this purpose, a meta-analysis approach with a mixed method approach consisting of estimation of the effect size of different in-service training assessments followed by qualitative synthesis of information on training design has been adopted. The findings of the study showed that the pooled effect size of in-service teacher training at the secondary level was 0.51 which is considered an ‘intermediate effect’ as per the effect size classification of Cohen, 1988. As further revealed by this study, around 50% of the studies were conducted with a pre-post comparative design where the effect size was 0.78 (High effect) with a variation in the range of 0.70 to 0.81 in each study. Further, 7% of the studies were conducted with PSM research design where the effect size was 0.01 (No effect). Similarly, 29% of the studies were conducted with a time-series design where the effect size was 0.29 (low effect) with a variation in the range of 0.01 to 0.45 in each independent study. Contrastingly, it is found that 14% of the studies were conducted with RCT research design; considered as one of the robust designs to eliminate the selection biases, where the effect size was 0.34 (Moderate effect) with the variation in the range of 0.31 to 0.38 in each study. This indicates a trend that the research studies adopting the pre-post comparative research design had more effect size on in-service training programs than any other research design in the South Asian region. Therefore, the discussion around the issues of RCT and PSM as good designs in the field of quantitative measurement of intervention and at the same time less usage of this design invites the attention of policymakers and assessment experts in this knowledge domain.

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