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Article
Publication date: 14 January 2022

Yael Cohen-Azaria

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.

Details

Quality Assurance in Education, vol. 30 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0968-4883

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 8 October 2018

Yael Cohen-Azaria and Sara Zamir

The purpose of this paper is to examine the perceptions of school principals of the evaluator’s role and to learn about their requirements of school evaluators.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the perceptions of school principals of the evaluator’s role and to learn about their requirements of school evaluators.

Design/methodology/approach

The current study is based on the qualitative paradigm of data collection and analysis. This paradigm provides a profound a description of the phenomenon in the context in which it takes place, based on the respondents’ perceptions and how they interpret their experiences. In the course of the study, the authors used semi-structured in-depth interviews.

Findings

Findings indicated that principals had regarded the role of the school evaluator mainly as that of an expert, a managerial partner and an implementer of school evaluation culture.

Research limitations/implications

The interviewers were the teachers who had been trained for the school evaluator’s position.

Practical implications

The “school evaluator” and the principals bear the complex task of evaluation on their shoulders, and their success in fulfilling it depends on their insights about how to delineate and implement the evaluator’s role. The paper outlines some crucial benchmarks for resolving the issue of role definitions between them.

Social implications

As a relatively new profession, derived from other professions and research areas, evaluation has no solid, historical occupational legacy in schools. This paper broadens the merit of school evaluator as the facilitator of quality assurance.

Originality/value

The increased responsibility placed on schools, the demand of accountability as well as transparency, have obliged the schools to broaden and deepen the internal evaluation activities. This paper reveals the essence of school evaluator’s role and suggests some key points for his/her valuable work.

Details

Quality Assurance in Education, vol. 26 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0968-4883

Keywords

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