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11 – 20 of over 33000The purpose of this paper is to look across six first-year principals to investigate their engagement with and sensemaking of specific messages of instructional leadership around…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to look across six first-year principals to investigate their engagement with and sensemaking of specific messages of instructional leadership around teacher evaluation.
Design/methodology/approach
This research project, a cross-case study, was carried out using in-depth qualitative observations and interviews of six first-year principals over one school year. Sensemaking theory was used to analyze both how and the mechanisms through which principals understood their roles as teacher evaluators.
Findings
The results demonstrate that first, principals received a variety of messages about how to conduct teacher evaluations, and second, that connections to specific individuals influenced their associations to specific messages they received about instructional leadership and how they enacted teacher evaluation practices on their campuses.
Research limitations/implications
This is an in-depth qualitative analysis, and therefore is not generalizable to all first-year principals, school districts, or principal preparation programs. However, it adds to the field’s understanding of the meso level of policy implementation, highlighting the process of individuals’ sensemaking and the importance of their informal connections in the associations they make to messages about instructional leadership.
Practical implications
This research adds to the field of principal preparation and induction as it highlights what is important for first-year principals as they build their professional identities. Further, it highlights the variability in principals’ understanding and enactment of teacher evaluation policies, an important feature as this practice is coming to the fore both in current practice and research.
Originality/value
This study adds to an understanding of institutional theory by looking at the interaction between the organizational levels, and further explicates individual actors’ agency within a socio-organizational context. The findings also add to a dearth of empirical studies on the routine of teacher evaluation from the principal perspective.
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This study focused on the impact of principals' leadership content knowledge, evaluation practices and teachers' professional learning activities on classroom instruction.
Abstract
Purpose
This study focused on the impact of principals' leadership content knowledge, evaluation practices and teachers' professional learning activities on classroom instruction.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected from 425 teachers who worked in 46 elementary and lower secondary public schools within two provinces in Turkey. Teachers were asked to fill out a questionnaire on principals’ leadership content knowledge, evaluation feedback, professional learning activities and changed instructional practices. This study employed multilevel structural equation modeling (MSEM) by using the Bayesian estimation method to analyze the research hypotheses.
Findings
Findings indicate that if teachers perceive the evaluation progress as more useful, then they will participate in more professional learning activities, and they will be more effective in their classroom practices. This study also indicates that teachers' professional learning activities stimulate their instructional practices.
Research limitations/implications
Although the number of schools and teachers allows using multilevel analysis, it limits the findings generalized beyond the sample. To compensate for this limitation, the author confirmed that the sample was representative of the larger population by examining the size of students and teachers, SES and teachers' job experience. The author also conducted a Bayesian estimator to strengthen the test of significance of effects.
Practical implications
This study underlines the critical role of leadership content knowledge in evaluating practices and providing useful feedback perceived by teachers in elementary and secondary schools. Principals should lead to instruction by knowing how to address a lack of teachers' pedagogical content knowledge and classroom practices. The Ministry of Education should support principals in becoming effective instructional leaders to observe teachers and provide them meaningful feedback on teaching.
Originality/value
Despite increased interest in this construct, research on principals' and teachers' responses to adapt the recent form of teachers’ performance evaluation systems is scant, especially in developing countries’ context. Moreover, little is known about the paths through which principals can enhance classroom practices by providing useful feedback. Given these trends in policy and practice context, this study provides empirical evidence that principals can enact the teachers' performance evaluation that affects classroom instruction.
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Sarah Winchell Lenhoff, Ben Pogodzinski, David Mayrowetz, Benjamin Michael Superfine and Regina R. Umpstead
Federal and state policymakers in the USA have sought to better differentiate the performance of K-12 teachers by enacting more rigorous evaluation policies. The purpose of this…
Abstract
Purpose
Federal and state policymakers in the USA have sought to better differentiate the performance of K-12 teachers by enacting more rigorous evaluation policies. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether these policies are working as intended and explore whether district stressors such as funding, enrollment, and governance are associated with outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors examined teacher evaluation ratings from 687 districts in Michigan to identify the relationship between district stressors and two outcomes of interest to policymakers: frequency of high ratings and variation of ratings within districts. A qualitative index of variation was used to measure variation of the categorical rating variable.
Findings
About 97 percent of teachers in Michigan are rated effective or highly effective, and variation measures indicate overwhelming use of only two ratings. Charter school districts have fewer teachers rated highly than traditional districts, and districts with higher fund balances have more teachers rated highly. Districts with increasing fund balances have higher variation.
Practical implications
The findings suggest that district stressors presumably unrelated to teacher performance may influence teacher evaluation ratings. State teacher evaluation reforms that give districts considerable discretion in designing their teacher evaluation models may not be sufficient for differentiating the performance of teachers.
Originality/value
This research is important as policymakers refine state systems of support for teacher evaluation and provides new evidence that current enactment of teacher evaluation reform may be limiting the value of evaluation ratings for use in personnel decisions.
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This essay uses the author’s experience with teacher evaluation as a point of departure to consider how narrative methods might be used to complicate contemporary trends in teacher…
Abstract
Purpose
This essay uses the author’s experience with teacher evaluation as a point of departure to consider how narrative methods might be used to complicate contemporary trends in teacher evaluation. Ultimately, this piece hopes to contribute to a discussion about how storytelling might be implemented as a model of teacher evaluation that could speak back to instrumentalist or technical practices in schools that undermine the complexity of the teaching profession.
Design/methodology/approach
This piece uses narrative inquiry to consider teacher evaluation.
Findings
This piece uses narrative inquiry to consider more complex implementations of teacher evaluation.
Originality/value
This piece is an original consideration of the potential forms of teacher evaluation.
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Raymond L. Calabrese, Kristen Sherwood, John Fast and Cynthia Womack
A research team consisting of doctoral students and their faculty advisor investigated the differences in perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes between school principals and teachers…
Abstract
A research team consisting of doctoral students and their faculty advisor investigated the differences in perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes between school principals and teachers in a United States suburban Midwest school district using a qualitative embedded case study research design. Researchers interviewed all building principals; they invited 80 teachers who received summative evaluations within the previous 18 months to participate in the left‐ and right‐hand column case method, 40 teachers participated; the team also examined district documents related to summative evaluations. Findings indicated that principals and teachers operate in Model I theory‐in‐use.
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Tajularipin Sulaiman, Amalina Ibrahim, Saeid Motevalli, Kai Yan Wong and Muhammad Nazrul Hakim
This paper aims to examine the effect of e-evaluation on work motivation among teachers during the Movement Control Order (MCO) in COVID-19 and determining the mediating role of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the effect of e-evaluation on work motivation among teachers during the Movement Control Order (MCO) in COVID-19 and determining the mediating role of stress.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is designed using a causal research design to examine the cause-effect relationship between the study variables. The study sample consists of 595 school teachers selected via convenient sampling. Quantitative data are collected from an online survey through the questionnaires with demographic, stress, e-evaluation and work motivation developed by the researchers were distributed during the MCO period. To test the model, structural equation modelling (SEM) was applied by using AMOS 21.
Findings
The results indicated that the e-evaluation, stress and work motivation of teachers during the MCO were conducted at a moderate level. The stress relationship with work motivation of teachers was also weak and showed a negative relationship, while e-evaluation and work motivation showed a strong relationship. The results of the SEM analysis revealed that the model fit was achieved with RMSEA = 0.07, GFI = 0.96, CFI = 0.98, TLI = 0.97, ChiSq/df = 4.30 and p = 0.00. In addition, there was no role of stress as a mediator in the relationship between e-evaluation and work motivation and e-evaluation contributed 54% to work motivation.
Research limitations/implications
This study underlines our contention that teachers’ work motivation correlated positively with their e-evaluation. The findings suggest that teachers’ stress cannot mediate the relationship between e-evaluation and work motivation. The limitations of the study include the convenience sampling, non-probability sampling technique, not chosen at random and undermines the generalizations from sample to the population.
Practical implications
The results provide a useful framework to teachers for the successful implementation of e-evaluations in their instruction to enhance their work-motivation.
Originality/value
There is a lack of e-evaluation studies in teacher education and teaching strategies, and the correlation between e-evaluation and work motivation during COVID-19 pandemic is often absent.
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Seth B. Hunter and Luis A. Rodriguez
Recent teacher evaluation reforms around the globe substantially increased the number of teacher observations, consequently raising observers' (typically school administrators'…
Abstract
Purpose
Recent teacher evaluation reforms around the globe substantially increased the number of teacher observations, consequently raising observers' (typically school administrators') observational loads. The purpose of this study is to examine associations between observational loads and school administrator turnover, reported time use and strain.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses education administrative data from the state of Tennessee to examine the link between observational loads and school administrator outcomes of interest. The results present credible regression estimates that isolate variation in observational loads within schools over time and within observers over time.
Findings
The evidence suggests individual school administrators allocate a set amount of time to observations that is insensitive to observational load and seemingly assign observations to colleagues strategically. School administrator reports do not suggest observational loads are associated with negative unintended consequences on administrator strain or observer turnover.
Originality/value
The study contributes to the literature on teacher evaluation by shedding light on how the constraints posed by an evaluation system may affect the work of school administrators. It also extends the job demands-resources theory that describes worker responses to new job demands.
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In 2012, the Israeli Ministry of Education and its Testing and Evaluation Department introduced a new tool to evaluate the quality of kindergarten teachers’ work. This paper aims…
Abstract
Purpose
In 2012, the Israeli Ministry of Education and its Testing and Evaluation Department introduced a new tool to evaluate the quality of kindergarten teachers’ work. This paper aims to identify how kindergarten teachers perceive the new multiple domains performance tool.
Design/methodology/approach
The study applied a qualitative paradigm of data collection and analysis. Data collection consisted of semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted with 36 kindergarten teachers.
Findings
Findings indicated that most kindergarten teachers perceive their work plan and the kindergarten climate as the most important evaluation domains, while perceiving involving parents as the least important and even an unnecessary domain. One-third of them indicated that an innovation domain should be added. Also, the kindergarten teachers perceived the use of the KT-MDPT as both positive and negative.
Originality/value
There is a clear dearth in scholarly literature dealing with the evaluation of the quality of kindergarten teachers’ work. This study is the first to reveal Israeli kindergarten teachers' attitudes regarding this new tool for work quality evaluation.
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Stefan Brauckmann and Petros Pashiardis
The main purpose of this paper is to examine more closely the tension between, on the one hand, forms of internal school improvement based on internal evaluation measures and, on…
Abstract
Purpose
The main purpose of this paper is to examine more closely the tension between, on the one hand, forms of internal school improvement based on internal evaluation measures and, on the other hand, control and legitimisation needs grounded on external evaluation measures.
Design/methodology/approach
The clash of these forms of evaluation is at the core of the paper, dealing in particular with the changing evaluation systems in the Cypriot education system. Therefore, the case study approach is utilised here. More specifically, the case of Cyprus is used as a system under transition in order to move from a primarily teacher inspection system, which is externally driven, to a combination of a teacher/school inspection system, which is based on both external and internal processes and is directed at both formative and summative evaluation processes.
Findings
It is asserted that the new proposed appraisal system for Cyprus addresses the deficiencies of the current evaluation system and generally aims at achieving a balance between external and internal processes. Finally, the conditions for the acceptance and successful implementation of new evaluation systems are described.
Originality/value
The results of the study constitute a rich setting of future developments for Cyprus schools with regard to important issues such as school accountability, school improvement, teacher evaluation, internal school evaluation and external inspection, through the proposed appraisal system. Therefore, the paper provides an important source of information for those who have the responsibility of creating educational policy and planning for the years to come in the area of teacher appraisal.
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Abbas Zare-ee, Zuraidah Mohd Don and Iman Tohidian
University students' ratings of teaching and teachers' performance are used in many parts of the world for the evaluation of faculty members at colleges and universities. Even…
Abstract
University students' ratings of teaching and teachers' performance are used in many parts of the world for the evaluation of faculty members at colleges and universities. Even though these ratings receive mixed reviews, there is little conclusive evidence on the role of the intervening variable of teacher and student gender in these ratings. Possible influences resulting from gender-related differences in different socio-cultural contexts, especially where gender combination in student and faculty population is not proportionate, have not been adequately investigated in previous research. This study aimed to examine Iranian university students' ratings of the professional performance of male and female university teachers and to explore the differences in male and female university students' evaluation of teachers of the same or opposite gender. The study was a questionnaire-based cross-sectional survey with a total of 800 randomly selected students in their different years of undergraduate study (307 male and 493 female students, reflecting the proportion of male and female students in the university) from different faculties at the University of Kashan, Iran. The participants rated male and female teachers’ performance in observing university regulations, relationship with colleagues, and relationships with students. The researchers used descriptive statistics, means comparison inferential statistics and focus-group interview data to analyze and compare the students’ ratings. The results of one-sample t-test, independent samples t-test, and Chi-square analyses showed that a) overall, male university teachers received significantly higher overall ratings in all areas than female teachers; b) male students rated male teachers significantly higher than female students did; and c) female students assigned a higher overall mean rating to male teachers than to female teachers but this mean difference was not significant. These results are studied in relation to the findings in the related literature and indicate that gender can be an important intervening variable in university students' evaluation of faculty members.