Developing and Assessing Teacher Performance Models: Emphasizing Critical Thinking and Innovation in Teaching Practices

Abstract

The 21st century is the era of knowledge economy, and talents have become the decisive factor for economic and social development. At present, the economic competition at home and abroad is getting more and more intense, and the essence of economic competition is the competition of talents. How to find talents, acquire talents, evaluate talents and reasonably use talents are the core contents of human resources development and management nowadays. The researchers hope to develop and validate a teacher performance assessment model that integrates the dimensions of critical thinking and innovative teaching to support educators in improving teaching effectiveness in the current rapidly changing educational environment. Through quantitative analyses of 300 Chinese university teachers, this study provides insights into how critical thinking and innovative teaching work together to improve teachers' teaching performance. The study used structural equation modelling (SEM) to analyse the direct effects of critical thinking and innovative teaching on teachers' performance and their interactions, while considering the moderating effects of teachers' background variables (e.g., educational background, years of teaching experience, etc.). The results of the study showed that critical thinking and innovative teaching had a significant positive impact on improving teacher performance and there was a positive interaction effect between them. Teachers are the main contributors to the enhancement of innovation in colleges and universities, and the study of teacher performance appraisal for the enhancement of innovation in colleges and universities actually aims to find out the key performance indicators of teachers that have an important impact on the enhancement of innovation in colleges and universities, and then improve the performance appraisal of teachers in order to effectively enhance the innovation in colleges and universities. Based on the findings, the researcher proposes a set of practical tools for teacher performance assessment, which provides a scientific basis for university administrators and policy makers to promote the improvement of education quality, and provides new perspectives and empirical evidence to promote the scientific and systematic evaluation of teacher performance.