In the process of teaching and learning, evaluation aspects must be considered as a key element. Teachers define the criteria of the evaluation by selecting of the dimensions of competence that considerer most important, those selections can be considered an operational definition of his/her didactical/methodological choice. These choices should have an impact on the learning outcomes of his/her pupils. In this sense, the main objective of the present research has been to identify those factors that explain difference in students' performance levels. In order to achieve this goal, it has been analyzed how teachers attitude toward evaluations have influence on their students' performance on English as Second Language at 14 European Countries. This analysis help us to define the most effective teacher attitude in a European context. Modify teacher beliefs is a feasible way to improve the performance in a English as a second language
Together with the individual and family characteristics of students, it is important to note the role of teacher characteristics on their pupil performance. These factors may influence on their teaching practice, creating learning environments in a second language and, in turn, can affect on student outcomes. In this way, patterns of teacher behavior in the classroom have a direct influence on learning (Garcia Legazpe, 2008). The European Survey on Language Competences (ESLC) was carried out to obtain information about the foreign language proficiency of secondary students. The intention was not only focused in the language competences, the survey that should be able to provide information about language learning, teaching methods and curricula (European Commission, 2007). The main idea is that it is important to be able to contextualize the data, supplemented with questionnaires to teachers and pupils in order to obtain contextual information.
The ESLC sets out to evaluate student’s ability in three main competences: understand spoken (listening), understand written texts (reading) and express themselves in writing (writing). Their language proficiency is described in terms of the levels of the Common European Framework of Reference (Council of Europe, 2001), to enable comparison across participating educational systems.
Teachers' cognitive believes affect what they teach and how they teach. In turn, this believes are influenced by training, by the context of teaching and by teaching experiences (Tsui, 2011). The most common way to study how the teacher thinks is to analyze self-reports with the planning objectives for their classes, the pedagogical principles on which it is based, and activities are developed in the classroom. However, probably the best place where teacher's methodological and didactic options are expressed is the evaluation process.
It is in the content and assessment criteria where teachers provide operationally what it believes is more important or relevant for his students. The evaluation of what he considers very important to assess, is also a reference that he has taught in the classroom, and can be considered an indirect indicator of expectations about their student performance.
The methodology used in this study is conditioned to the nature of ESCL, since it is a secondary analysis of data from that one. ESCL design responds to a complex pattern of measurement, we have made use of the methodology of plausible values (Wu, 2005, 2010) based on previous work by Rubin (1976, 1987, 1996) on multiple imputation and a sampling design adapted to the structure of the population, so for calculation of the statistical errors of some resampling requires procedures suitable to study object.
