Kazakhstan Teaching Observation Protocol

Abstract

Classroom observation is central to educational evaluation, yet instruments for evaluating reform-based teaching are often borrowed or applied without local validation. This study validated the Kazakhstan Teaching Observation Protocol (KTOP), a six-subscale instrument for evaluating reform-oriented STEM teaching in a multilingual system undergoing concurrent curriculum, pedagogical, and language-policy reform. KTOP was applied to 150 lessons taught by 88 secondary and university teachers, rated by two of three trained observers. Classical Test Theory and Rasch analyses showed excellent overall reliability (.94) and moderate inter-rater agreement across five of six subscales, though the content-and-language-integration subscale functioned less consistently. A bifactor model indicated that KTOP is best interpreted as a unidimensional measure of overall teaching competence rather than six subscale scores. Findings support KTOP for low-stakes, formative evaluation such as mentoring and lesson study, while cautioning against use in high-stakes appraisal, with implications for how observation-based evaluation systems are designed in reforming contexts