Perception of the Degree of Importance of Teacher’s Professional Competences from the Perspective of Teacher and Head Teacher in the Evaluation Process of Educational Efficiency

The research study concentrates on the detection of perception of the degree of importance of selected teacher’s professional competences in the teacher’s evaluation process, i.e. teacher’s success in teaching. Perception of the degree of importance of professional competences of teachers is realized depending on the variables teacher versus head teacher and the degree of importance (1–5). We set up the hypothesis that there are differences in the perception of the importance degree of teacher’s professional competences with respect to teacher and head teacher. We based our assumption on Frey’s evaluation theory, or diagnosis of teacher’s competences and Bandura’s theory of self-efficacy. The research was conducted with 730 respondents from among teachers and 146 respondents from among head teachers of primary and secondary schools in Slovakia during the period from September 2015 to January 2016. Teacher’s perception of the degree of importance of teacher’s professional competences we surveyed using the Teacher’s competence assessment questionnaire for teachers and the head teacher’s perception of the degree of importance teacher’s professional competences using the Teacher’ competence assessment questionnaire for head teachers. The questionnaires were developed within the research project APVV-14-0446 Evaluation of teacher’s competences. We found out that the teachers’ and head teachers’ perception of the degree of importance of various teachers’ professional competences is different. The perception differs in the following professional competences: can identify psy-

Abstract.The research study concentrates on the detection of perception of the degree of importance of selected teacher's professional competences in the teacher's evaluation process, i.e. teacher's success in teaching.Perception of the degree of importance of professional competences of teachers is realized depending on the variables teacher versus head teacher and the degree of importance (1)(2)(3)(4)(5).We set up the hypothesis that there are differences in the perception of the importance degree of teacher's professional competences with respect to teacher and head teacher.We based our assumption on Frey's evaluation theory, or diagnosis of teacher's competences and Bandura's theory of self-efficacy.The research was conducted with 730 respondents from among teachers and 146 respondents from among head teachers of primary and secondary schools in Slovakia during the period from September 2015 to January 2016.Teacher's perception of the degree of importance of teacher's professional competences we surveyed using the Teacher's competence assessment questionnaire for teachers and the head teacher's perception of the degree of importance teacher's professional competences using the Teacher' competence assessment questionnaire for head teachers.The questionnaires were developed within the research project APVV-14-0446 Evaluation of teacher's competences.We found out that the teachers' and head teachers' perception of the degree of importance of various teachers' professional competences is different.The perception differs in the following professional competences: can identify psy-

Introduction
The issue of teacher's competences, their definition (design of competency models), or requirements for professional training and teacher's performance is a significant trend in the Central European context since the 90s of the 20th century (Veal et al., 1999;Belz & Siegrist, 2001;Hrmo & Turek, 2003;Baumert & Kunter, 2006;Kasáčová et al., 2006;Švarbová, 2008 and others).According to Šarníková (2010), Vítečková (2014) and Jakubovská (2015) university education of pre-service teachers is only to a small extent focused on the acquisition of competences, that is why it is necessary to acquire them in the context of continuing education during teaching practice, but also within the educational process.Current research is aimed at standardization of professional competences of teachers (Pavlov, 2013), support of teacher's professional development and their special professional knowledge and skills through various trainings for teachers (EC, 2012;Schleicher, 2012;Švarbová, 2012;Procházka, 2014;Kuhn et al., 2016;De Wever et al., 2016;and others), at the quality and efficiency of educational programmes (Blömeke et al., 2011;Fritsch et al., 2015;Kleickmann et al., 2013).Various studies have examined the general pedagogical knowledge of teachers (König et al., 2011;Gold & Holodynski, 2015;and others), and determinants of competence development (Helm, 2015).Nevertheless, the research aimed at the evaluation of teacher's competences from their own perspective and particularly from the perspective of head teachers is one of the under-explored areas.These are primarily tools for assessing the quality and results of their educational activities, taking into account: educational and psychological as well as professional and subject readiness, ability to communicate, manage educational activities, classes, diagnose and assess children, reflect on their own work, advice, collaborate and counsel parents of pupils, including their personal qualities.The process of competences evaluation by head teacher is considered to be a key issue in the work of the teacher, as it can contribute to the educational success of the teacher.For the success of teacher's educational activities, it is therefore essential that the head teacher and teacher identically perceive the degree of importance of teacher's competences.If the perception of the degree of importance of teacher's competences by head teachers and teachers is identical, one can assume successful performance of the teacher in the educational process, his personal growth, motivation and progress and thus the increase of quality of his teaching.We take into consideration the studies written in the life of the research project APVV-14-0446 Evaluation of teacher's competences (Gadušová et al., 2015(Gadušová et al., , 2016a;;Čeretková et al., 2016;Fandelová et al., 2016;Gadušová & Hašková, 2016;Magová et al., 2016) in which the issue of the assessment of teacher's professional competences in European and Slovak context, assessment of teacher's competences depending on the length of their work at school, perception of teacher by head teacher depending on the oral and written evaluation, assessment of teacher's competences in terms of teacher's leadership skills and others were analyzed.
The aim of the study is to detect perception of the importance degree of teachers' professional competences based on teachers' and head teachers' point of view, and the degree of their importance with regard to the efficiency of their teaching.The study is designed as follows: theoretical basis of the assessment of teacher's professional competences and perception of their self-efficacy, data collection and procedure, analysis of the research results, discussion and conclusions.

Theoretical basis of the assessment of teacher's professional competences and perception of their self-efficacy
The assessment of teacher's competences assumes defining performance criteria in terms of professional standards for different categories of teachers and conditions of their work at school.The aim of evaluation is to improve and develop the educational work of teachers, or their educational efficiency.Assessment and diagnosis of teacher's competences by Sokolova et al. (2014) has several aims -research of competences, diagnostics of competences, and self-evaluation.A prerequisite for these objectives are valid and reliable methods and tools for the assessment of teaching competences.To assess their level is, however, a difficult task for several reasons (Frey, 2006;Philpott et al., 2014;Sokolova et al., 2014): a) The specification and indicators of different competences are not clearly defined, different experts and different educational concepts use different competence models and emphasize different areas of competences.b) The individual tools for the assessment of competences usually cover only certain content category, or only one component of competence, so teacher's competence profile is then reduced and distorted.c) Quantitative tools (mainly questionnaires) dominate; they, however, just like in other areas, also in evaluating teaching competences, have limits and increase the risk of becoming a mechanical evaluation tool, which so to say "quantifies quality", i.e. it classifies, but does not penetrate deeper to teacher's individual characteristics and abilities and fails to capture the process of their changes.According to Frey (2006)  a certain time period and where they moved.For developmental portfolios, it should be noted that they are far more time consuming than, for example, self-evaluative scales or questionnaires.Many times the point is that these are not standardized methods, and it is therefore necessary to consider also potentially subjective approach of each evaluator.For this reason, Frey (2006) recommends a combination of different methods of the assessment of teachers' competences.Assessment can thus motivate teachers, it can be more inspiring for making teaching activities and management processes in schools more efficient.
Perception of the degree of importance of teacher's competences is closely related to perception of their personal and professional proficiency, or efficiency.This is the concept of self-efficacy, which refers to how a person perceives their potentiality to perform a particular activity.It is the belief of what an individual can do in a situation in which they operate.Judgment about oneself is a very strong regulation factor, and that is why we are talking about their beliefs, not opinions.The theoretical basis of the concept of personally perceived abilities and efficiency is based on two fundamental approaches.One is Rotter's (1966) theory of internal and external control of activities; the other is based on Bandura's concept of social and cognitive learning (Bandura, 1991).Rotter's theoretical concept expresses the extent to which an individual believes he is able to manage (control) events, situations and activities (location of control, externalists and internalists) (more see Rotter, 1966;Gavora, 2008).The second theoretical trend explains human action as the interplay of three dimensions: 1) personal factors, such as cognitive, affective, and biological characteristics of a man, 2) the environment in which he operates, and 3) his activities -past and present (Bandura, 2006).Building on the theories described above, it can be stated that if the teacher can identify their personal and professional proficiency, then they can also assess the importance of different competences for success of their own teaching.If the head teacher believes that teachers can teach under the conditions in which they work, he can value their work and identify himself with the teacher's perception of the importance of different competences.

Data Collection
The teacher's perception of the degree of importance of teacher's professional competences has been surveyed using the Teacher's competences assessment questionnaire for teachers and the head teacher's perception of the degree of importance of professional competences by using the Teacher's competences assessment questionnaire for head teachers.The questionnaires were developed within the research project APVV-14-0446 Evaluation of teacher's competences.Both questionnaires can be considered as primary instruments for the measurement of the importance of teacher's professional competences in the Slovak educational context.The questionnaires were anonymous and they were administered to 730 respondents from among teachers and 146 respondents from among head teachers of primary and secondary schools in the period from September 2015 to January 2016.The idea was to get a picture of the current state of teacher's evaluation in Slovakia from the point of view of the evaluated and evaluators.
The questionnaire for teachers consisted of 11 items and in addition to basic data on teachers (e.g.sex of teacher, length of teaching experience, major subjects, type of school they teach at, and so on), it tried to find information regarding the degree of importance of teacher's professional competences in relation to the success of their teaching activities, teacher's assessment methods and procedures.The questionnaire was also focused on the opinions of teachers about the evaluation of their professional competences.The questionnaire for head teachers consisted of 12 items and it was aimed at finding out similar indicators as the questionnaire for teachers, but from the point of view of the evaluator.
The paper deals with statistical processing of the data collected for the item No. 6 (No. 8) of the questionnaire for teachers (head teachers).In this item we investigated the degree of importance of individual teacher's professional competences regarding to the success of their teaching.Statistical processing of the other variables in the questionnaire is the subject of scientific articles to which we refer in the references, or they will still be processed in the context of other researches which will follow.Item No. 6 (No. 8) in the questionnaire was formulated as follows.
The wording of the item No. 6 (No. 8) Use numbers 1-5 to assess the degree of importance of the listed teacher's professional competences for their successful teaching activity (1 = low importance, 5 = high importance) A) can identify developmental and individual characteristics of pupils, B) can identify psychological and social factors of pupils' learning, C) can develop pupil's personality and their competences, D) can create a positive climate in the classroom, E) can plan and implement his own professional development, F) have mastered the content and methodology of the subjects they teach, G) can plan and design teaching/educational process, H) can select and implement teaching forms and methods, I) can use material resources and aids in the teaching process, J) can evaluate the progress and results of teaching and student's learning.
ISSN 1392-0340 E-ISSN 2029-0551 Pedagogika / 2017, t. 127, Nr. 3 Research hypothesis: There are differences in the perception of the degree of the importance of teacher's professional competences with respect to the teacher and head teacher 1 .
The sated research hypothesis should be operationalized because of clarifications and refinements of the function of different variables.As the first (one-dimensional) variable we consider the degree of the importance of the listed teacher's professional competences for the success of their teaching.This variable is within the scale range of 1-5.The second variable of the determined research hypothesis has two levels, namely affiliation of the respondent either to the group of teachers or head teachers.
For the purpose of statistical processing and analysis of the collected data, we used the known methods of descriptive statistics, where we focused on describing basic statistical indicators (mean, minimum, maximum, median, mode, obliquity and sharpness).
In connection with the search for an answer to the question asked, whether there are any differences in the perception of the degree of importance of teacher's professional competences among teachers and head teachers, and if so, which professional competences are perceived differently by teachers and head teachers, or which teacher's professional competences show statistically significant differences.We used two tests -the Friedman test and Mann-Whitney U test.The Friedman test was used in the first phase to determine the existence of differences and the Mann-Whitney U test was used to identify significant differences in the perception of the degree of importance of different competences with respect to the teacher and head teacher.

Results, analysis of the impact of observed variables
Table 1 illustrates the descriptive statistics on different teachers' competences depending on the variables teacher and head teacher.For this study we work with the following descriptive parameters: mean, minimum, maximum, median, mode, standard deviation, variance, skewness (characteristic feature of the degree of frequency character symmetry distribution -collected scale point evaluation of different competences in comparison with the normal distribution), kurtosis (characteristic feature of the degree of flattening/ skewness distribution of character frequency -collected scale point evaluation of different competences in comparison with the normal distribution).We find the highest score for the competence D) can create a positive climate in the classroom (mean 4.7, teachers), C) can develop pupil's personality and their competences (mean 4.67, head teachers) and competence F) have mastered the content and methodology of the subjects they teach (mean 4.7, teachers and 4.64, head teachers).
Within the variable teacher we observed the order of other competences: J) can evaluate the progress and results of teaching and student's learning, G) can plan and design teaching/educational process, C) can develop pupil's personality and their competences, H) can select and implement teaching forms and methods, A) can identify developmental and individual characteristics of pupils, I) can use material resources and aids in the teaching process, B) can identify psychological and social factors of pupils' learning.
Within the variable head teacher we observed the importance of further competences in the following order: D) can create a positive climate in the classroom, G) can plan and design teaching/educational process, J) can evaluate the progress and results of teaching and student's learning, H) can select and implement teaching forms and methods, A) can identify developmental and individual characteristics of pupils, B) can identify psychological and social factors of pupils' learning, I) can use material resources and aids in the teaching process.
The option E), can plan and implement his own professional development, has reached the lowest mean in both groups of the respondents.The order of the selection frequency from among the competences is confirmed also by the median value for the selected answers.
To verify the set research hypothesis we applied the Friedman test and Wilcoxon signed-rank test (Mann-Whitney U test).The Friedman test was used in order to determine the existence of differences in the perception of the importance of professional competences by head teachers and teachers.This test can be considered to be a well-chosen method as it was used to compare a few essential data sets starting from the dependent sample.But yet the assumption about the normal distribution of essential data sets may not necessarily be fulfilled (Markechová et al., 2011, p. 321).Due to this fact we set the null hypothesis H0 (the degree of the importance perception of teacher's professional competences by teachers and head teachers is the same) and related to it alternative hypothesis H1 (the degree of the importance perception of teacher's professional competences by teachers and head teachers is different).Based on the evaluation of the collected data using SPSS software, the tested hypothesis H0 was rejected at the significance level α = 0.05 in favor of the alternative hypothesis H1.The degree of the importance perception of different professional competences by teachers and head teachers is then different.The result is presented in Table 2.We also were interested to find cases in which the degree of the perception of professional competences was significantly different.For this purpose we used the Mann-Whitney U test which is also called the Wilcoxon signed-rank test.It allows testing the hypothesis about a match between two distribution functions (Markechová et al., 2011, p. 309).In our research, we understand under such distribution functions (referred as F, G) a random selection from the core set of point evaluation of the competence by teachers (choice 1) and point evaluation of the same competence by head teachers (choice 2), while the number of values with respect to both choices does not have to be the same.It is also our case, since the number of teachers and head teachers who responded to this question in the questionnaire, is different.Let us test the null hypothesis H0: F = G (the differences in the perception of the importance of the competence by teachers and head teachers are not significant) against the alternative hypothesis H1: F ≠ G (the differences in the perception of the importance of the competence by teachers and head teachers are not significant).The data were processed by SPSS programme (Table 3).The value of the testing statistics is given in the table as Z.

Table 3 Statistical indicators according to the Mann-Whitney test (SPSS output)
Mann-Whitney U 50549.5 48559.0 50172.0 53248.5 47290.5 52922.5 52807.0 51642.0 45721.5 50178.5 From the table we can see that for the selected level of statistical significance α = 0.05 we reject the tested hypothesis H0 in these cases, or the importance of the identified professional competences B (teacher can identify psychological and social factors of pupils' learning), E (teacher can plan and implement his own professional development), and I (teacher can use material resources and aids in the teaching process) is perceived differently by teachers and head teachers.

Discussion and conclusion
The main focus of the research was aimed at determining the degree of the importance perception of teacher's professional competences by teachers and head teachers in the process of evaluation of teacher's educational efficiency.We expected that there were some differences in the perception of the assessed teacher's professional competences by teachers and head teachers.We found out that there were statistically significant differences in the perception of the importance degree of teacher's professional competences, as perceived by teachers and head teachers, what can affect the success and efficiency of teachers in their educational activities.We tested which specific competences show statistical differences.Our findings showed that those are the following competences: can identify developmental and individual characteristics of pupils, can identify psychological and social factors of pupils' learning, can develop pupil's personality and their competences, can create a positive climate in the classroom, can plan and implement his own professional development, have mastered the content and methodology of the subjects they teach, can plan and design teaching/educational process, can select and implement teaching forms and methods, can use material resources and aids in the teaching process, can evaluate the progress and results of teaching and student's learning.The discussion of the research results is based primarily on theories of teachers' competences (Belz & Siegrist, 2001, 2003;Baumert & Kunter, 2006;Kasáčová et al., 2006;Gavora, 2008;EC, 2012;Schleicher, 2012;Pavlov, 2013;Sokolová et al., 2014;Helm, 2015;Kuhn, et al., 2016;De Wever et al., 2016).The research in this area is unique.The differences were found in the degree of importance perception of such competences as: teacher can identify psychological and social factors of pupils' learning, teacher can plan and implement his own professional development, and teacher can use material resources and aids in the teaching process which teachers see as more important compared with head teachers.Teachers found these competences more fundamental for their own success in teaching activities than head teachers did.Teachers saw it to be more important to know the individual differences (special needs, learning disabilities, talent, etc.), or social influences (family background, education of parents, relationships with other classmates, etc.) for student's learning so as they were able to adapt the teaching process to the specific needs of their pupils.Also they considered it more substantial to be able to use all kinds of material in teaching process.For head teacher their position seems to be rather limiting, that is time-consuming and stressful.They try to imitate what they have got incorporated into their managerial competences and responsibilities, it is part of their managerial work at school.
On the other hand, this may mean that teacher's perception of the above mentioned competences appears to be more detailed, or their categorization in the process of information processing is narrower (more details see in the research of cognitive style "width of categorization"; Sarmány-Schuller, 1992, 2007), and head teacher's perception seems to be more global.More detailed perception of teachers supports also the research carried out by Sokolova et al. (2014).They found that pre-service teachers more increasingly focus on interpersonal competences and least important they consider managerial and leadership skills.Different perceptions of the importance degree of various teachers' competences by teachers and head teachers are backed also by findings of the National Institute for Education (2011).Attitudes and beliefs of teachers and head teachers are different.Teachers consider it as the most important to innovate strategies and methods, and head teachers -to innovate educational content.
Paradoxical finding, for us, was statistically significant difference in the competenceteacher can plan and implement his own professional development.Teachers as well as head teachers attributed to the competence the least importance; they perceived it as the least significant for their successful teaching activity.
For the other teacher's professional competences, we have not seen any statistically significant difference in their importance perception by teachers and head teachers.They were the following competences: teacher can identify developmental and individual characteristics of pupils, teacher can develop pupil's personality and their competences, teacher can create a positive climate in the classroom, teacher has mastered the content and methodology of the subjects they teach, teacher can plan and design teaching/educational process, teacher can select and implement teaching forms and methods, teacher can evaluate the progress and results of teaching and student's learning.These are the professional competences, which often occur in various forms of pedagogical documentation and policy instruments of the currently used school legislation (State educational programme, evaluation tools of the Slovak school inspection, documents of methodological centres, etc.).The question remains, however, whether teachers and possibly also head teachers are trained to perceive these professional competences and put them into practice under the meaning of these documents.
Within the programmes of continuous professional development both teachers as well as head teachers are continuously offered various training modules in which teachers have the opportunity to learn and become aware (in a sufficient range) of the main starting points and principles of the professional competence.But they will also be given the specific tools how to develop the competence in their teaching practice 2 .
The comprehensive view at all these competences shows us a certain coherence and synergy among them.Evaluation and interpretation of the results of education provides feedback not only to direct actors of the educational process -teachers and students, but also to parents, representatives of the school authorities and to designers of national and transnational educational concepts.It is therefore in the interest of both the teacher and the head teacher to achieve the best possible assessment.Competence assessing the progress and achievements of teaching and learning of pupil should therefore integrate also other competences related to the mastery of the subject taught, the use of appropriate teaching tools, selection of appropriate forms and methods of teaching, which the teacher decides to use when planning the educational process in order to integrally ISSN 1392-0340 E-ISSN 2029-0551 Pedagogika / 2017, t. 127, Nr. 3 developmental portfolios have important implications.They show the development and changes in competences with the help of the products generated by the diagnosed person.They also can reveal what the person achieved within Pedagogika / 2017, t. 127, Nr. 3

Table 1
Descriptive statistics of the degree of the importance of teacher's professional competences as perceived by teachers and head teachers

Table 2
Statistical indicators according to the Friedman test