Teacher Appraisal Research Articles

Differential Teacher Effectiveness: Towards a model for research and teacher appraisal

The article reviews the research on teacher effectiveness and develops the case for a model of teacher effectiveness in which differential effectiveness is incorporated. Five problems with current concepts of teacher effectiveness are identified: undue influence of available techniques upon the concept; emphasis on school, to the detriment of teacher, effectiveness; tenuous relationship to teacher improvement; narrowness of operational definitions in research; and the development of generic, rather than differentiated, models. In addition the failure of existing models to explain variance in pupil outcome at the classroom level, the neglect of teacher self-evaluation, and the restricted measures of pupil outcomes are noted. A differential model is proposed incorporating five dimensions of difference. These refer to teacher activity, outside as well as inside the classroom; curriculum subject; pupil background factors; pupil personal characteristics; cultural and organisational contexts of teaching. The developmental functions of such a model for research and for teacher appraisal are explored. Four problems for implementing a differentiated model are raised: complexity, stakeholder expectations, values, and policy acceptability. These are considered in the light of the controversial Hay McBer model in England and of models developed in Europe and the USA in the early decades of the last century.

イギリスにおける学校視察と教師の自己評価

The purpose of this paper is to examine how teachers in England evaluate their teaching practice using the criteria based on OFSTED (The Office for Standards in Education) inspections. Also considered are the links and related problems between teaching practice and these evaluation criteria.This subject is of particular interest in the context of the new teacher appraisal system in Tokyo, which requires teachers to report on their own educational activities. The system of selfreporting there consists of ‘learning support’, ‘student guidance/career guidance’, ‘school management’ and ‘special activities/others’. Teachers in Tokyo have to set their own targets for assessing their activities in each category. Final appraisals are to be conducted by the school principal on the basis of the report submitted by each teacher.

Teacher Appraisal 1988-1998: A case study

In the drive to establish performance management systems in schools the experiences of teacher appraisal in the 1990s remain in people's biographies but have been officially silenced in recent policy texts. This article traces the development of teacher appraisal from the late 1980s through to the Green Paper teachers: meeting the challenge of change (DfEE 1998) and reports on a research project in one urban LEA in the north of England. Evidence shows how the LEA sought to establish and sustain a developmental model of teacher appraisal in an increasingly hostile climate, and while experiences showed the need for improvements many gains had been made. Developmental appraisal largely failed because it was starved of resources and was increasingly out of tune with the performance management strategy that came to dominate education policy by the turn of the century. It is argued that by telling the story through contemporary histories of teacher's work on appraisal then the experiences of developmental approaches, and the public sector values underpinning it, will not be lost. Furthermore, making this work visible is an important resource in supporting the production of alternative models to those being imposed from the centre.

Teachers' Perceptions of Appraiser-Appraisee Relationships.

Teacher appraisal procedures may lead to formative (teacher development and improvement of teaching) and summative (managerial decision) outcomes. Elementary school teachers in Hong Kong (N=527) responded to survey items on formative outcomes, summative outcomes, perceived purposes of appraisal, overall effectiveness of appraisal, and summative purposes such as promotion and dismissal of staff. Principal components analysis and confirmatory factor analysis yielded the two a priori outcome factors, each of which was significantly correlated with perceived overall effectiveness of appraisal. Analysis of variance found that senior teachers appraised by the school principal (SP) perceived that appraisal had formative purposes and this perception was stronger than for those teachers appraised by senior staff (TS). Teachers in the TS group did not perceive the importance of the promotion purpose as did the other groups. Teachers appraised by the principal (TP) perceived that appraisal had dismissal purposes whereas teachers in the TS group did not. Although the three groups did not differ in their perceptions of formative outcomes, summative outcomes, or overall effectiveness of teacher appraisal, the appraiser-appraisee combination did make a significant difference in teacher perceptions of the purposes and appropriateness of the appraisal.

Teacher Appraisal Research Networks 1980–2000

The study and practice of teacher appraisal has been the focus of complex research networks in England from the 1980s onwards. This work has taken place within a national policy context that has increasingly sought to implement performance management, with a link between pay and targets. This has privileged instrumental appraisal and has sought to marginalise the humanistic and critical traditions. This article is a contribution to both recognising and charting the work undertaken by networks of school teachers, HEI researchers, independent consultants and LEA advisors and how they have created varied ways of working in classrooms that have impacted on professional lives. While particular networks may have been marginalised as a result of educational reform, the issues live on, and the capacity of educationists and the affordance of policy interpretation at local level means that the endurance of the practice of networking remains.

What does performance management mean?

Performance management was introduced as part of the government's recent green paper reforms. It was intended to replace existing teacher appraisal arrangements from September 1 2000 but therehave been delays in the introduction and many deadlines have been extended.

The appraisal of mathematics teachers in Ghana

Many mathematics teachers in Ghanaian secondary schools have little or no training in the teaching of mathematics, yet they teach the subject because of the shortage of mathematics teachers in Ghana. Such teachers and their trained counterparts, need professional help to enable them guide pupils learn the subject effectively and efficiently especially since the duration for pre-university education in Ghana has been cut by about five. This study aimed to; 1. Examine the nature of teacher appraisal in Ghana . 2. Examine the validity of existing methods of teacher appraisal in Ghana. 3. Determine which variables influence Ghanaian mathematics teachers' views about teacher appraisal and its ability to help them improve their competence of teaching mathematics. Of the 441 secondary mathematics teachers who participated in the study, 193 taught the subject at the junior secondary level and 248 taught it at the senior secondary level. In addition, 44 Ghana Education Service Officials and six heads of secondary schools who appraise mathematics teachers were sampled. Methods used included questionnaires, interviews and observation of appraisers at work. Highly significant relationships were found between mathematics teachers' perceived professional support and appraisal experience, mathematics teaching experience and professional status at the senior secondary level, and between received support and appraisal experience at the junior secondary level. The results indicated a dramatic difference between junior secondary and senior secondary mathematics teachers in their perception of the potential of the teacher appraisal system in Ghana to help them to improve their teaching of mathematics. Senior secondary mathematics teachers were generally more pessimistic about the potential of the appraisal system than their junior secondary counterparts. The study also showed that many education officials who appraise mathematics teachers have little or no training in secondary school mathematics teaching or its appraisal, yet the appraisal system for both formative and summative purposes require these officers to both "help " mathematics teachers improve their work and make judgements about their performance. These findings led to the conclusion that the teacher appraisal system in the Ghana Education Service is not valid. The implications of the findings are discussed.

Marketised Positioning of Early Childhood: New Contexts for Curriculum and Professional Development in Queensland, Australia

The field of early childhood education is experiencing similar conditions to the rest of the Australian public sector, characterised by a climate of accountability for quality outcomes, emphasis on management at the local level and strong centralisation of control over curriculum and teacher appraisal within a context of significant reduction in public sector government spending. The ideology of the market underpins many of these reform directions, with particular consequences and effects in the early childhood area. This article uses as a focal case study the newly mandated Preschool Curriculum Guidelines for the state of Queensland, Australia, and their accompanying professional development of early childhood teachers and school principals. The outcomes for the professional development have been highly controlled and pre-specified through government departmental scrutiny by a competitive tendering process among potential private providers — all of whom include publicly funded universities as they themselves compete for additional money to justify their new role as entrepreneurs in an increasingly marketised system of higher education. The study focuses on the processes of control for the professional development associated with the new curriculum, with an emphasis on exploring the rhetoric and practices of ‘partnership’ underlying the approved models. The findings of the early phases of the study indicate a limited range of positioning available for early childhood teachers, school principals, and those involved in the delivery of the professional development. The guidelines and professional development activities appear to have expanded the relationships within the care and education sector while constraining the range of positions and relative autonomy of early childhood teachers. This is a significant finding in that this is the first time there have been statewide mandated Curriculum Guidelines and statewide professional development required of early childhood teachers.

The Development of Teacher Appraisal: A Recent History

The Conservative government made appraisal compulsory to monitor teaching more effectively. Unable to elicit the type of data required, the process became marginalised. Labour is now turning to appraisal to raise standards. Though appearing more conciliatory, it is argued that the end result will be to achieve the Conservatives’ original aim of controlling teachers

Do intentions and perceptions always meet? A case study regarding the use of a teacher appraisal scheme in an English language teaching environment

This article reports research examining a group of English language teachers’ perceptions of the teacher appraisal scheme with a developmental purpose. Specifically, the researchers tried to find out if there is a discrepancy between what the institution intended to achieve and how teachers perceived the scheme before and after their participation in it. The findings of the study, which were obtained by analysing the data collected from the teachers and appraisers in the form of two structured interviews revealed some significant clues for the institutions which are involved in or interested in running teacher appraisal schemes in their workplace.

One Size Fits All? Teacher Appraisal in a Chinese Culture

In this article we suggest that the penetration of Western policies and practices—in particular, teacher appraisal—into Asian cultural contexts needs to be questioned. We begin by making a general case for considering the influence of societal culture on educational policies and practices, and a more specific argument for assessing its role in the implementation of teacher appraisal in different cultures. We argue that it may be unwise simply to clone appraisal practices in contexts and cultures quite different from those in which they are chartered. The study briefly reviews the status of teacher appraisal in Hong Kong, given that in the next few years all Hong Kong schools must implement appraisal schemes, a fact causing considerable consternation. We then suggest that the most common forms of appraisal being promoted and implemented in Hong Kong are based on traditional Anglo-American understandings and practices. This leads to a discussion of the possible influence exerted by culture on teacher appraisal in the Chinese society of Hong Kong. Noteworthy features of Hong Kong's culture are collectivism and high power distance, both of which are sufficiently different from Anglo-American cultures to suggest that the forms taken by teacher appraisal in those countries may be inappropriate for Hong Kong. In the final section, we briefly discuss a number of issues that, it is suggested, deserve consideration when Hong Kong schools design and implement teacher appraisal schemes. As we stress throughout the study, our discussion is not intended to be definitive. Rather, we hope it will stimulate discussion and research into discovering more culturally sensitive ways of appraising teachers in different parts of the world.

One drop of blood: teacher appraisal mark 2

Teacher appraisal, even though for many teachers it may represent currently an insignificant element of their professional lives, is at a political crossroads. Performance-related pay is likely to be linked with the process in the very near future. The shift from a scheme which has been fundamentally developmental and supportive in emphasis for most teachers to one which focuses on the management of individual performance by others is likely to be flawed in conception. This article highlights the contrasting findings of recent national surveys and the Office for Standards in Education/Teacher Training Agency Review, whilst considering additional evidence from a research project carried out by the author and olleagues (the TALK Project) and an analysis of one northern local education authority's monitoring data about teacher, coordinator and headteacher perceptions of the effectiveness or otherwise of current appraisal practice. It argues that it might make more sense to build on existing good practice in the current system than to replace it with a philosophy and system which has been found wanting over many decades in a range of professional contexts.

One drop of blood: teacher appraisal mark 2

One drop of blood: teacher appraisal mark 2

Adding Values

This article reports on research into the work of LEA appraisal co-ordinators in the implementation of teacher appraisal based on the 1991 Regulations. Appraisal co-ordinators in 10 LEAs in the north of England were interviewed with a specific focus on how and why the 1991 Regulations were interpreted and translated into locally based schemes. It is argued that the agency ofthe appraisal coordinators in the form of their professional educational values and their location within a complex network of stakeholder interests enabled the creation of appraisal schemeswhich have an overtly developmental purpose. Appraisal could very easily have been technicist and minimalist, and teacher experience of developmental systems is directly related to the values added by those discharged with the responsibility of implementation. This values-added process is difficult to measure, and this article seeks to enable glimpses of it through an analysis of the words of LEA appraisal co-ordinators.Holding on to professional educational values is proving difficult as the drive towards the efficiently managed state closes down the opportunities for dialogue and the articulation of professionally committed beliefs.

The Democratization of Schools and the Politics of Teachers’ Work in South Africa

As the South African state begins to democratize, so questions are raised about how this process might be mediated by schools and teachers or how schools’ and teachers’ practices might inform the wider process of social change. This paper explores these issues through an examination of how teachers sought to alter relations of authority and the nature of their work within schools, and how these have interacted with new managerial and state initiatives. It examines the conditions of teachers’ work under apartheid, the challenge to these by the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union and the struggles in schools over changing relations of authority and teachers’ work in the crucial transition years of 1990‐1997. It argues that alternative conceptions and practices were developed and institutionalized. This paper uses the results of both a 3 year longitudinal study and research conducted on teacher appraisal with the teachers’ union.

Moving from teacher accountability to teacher development: Lessons from teacher appraisal.

The search for quality performance of teachers has of late become an issue for management in educational institutions. Teacher performance appraisal has been identified as an effective instrument for promoting teacher performance quality)'. This article looks at the teacher appraisal scheme of Britain and argues for its introduction in the Ghanaian school system. It argues that the strategy for assessing and supervising teacher performance in Ghana is inadequate. /r does not promote professional development among researchers. It rather instills unnecessary fear in them and eventual/y suppresses the spirit of iniriariveness needed for the advancement! Of their; Professional practice.

Teacher perceptions of the purposes of staff appraisal: a response to Kyriacou

This article explores the views and experiences of 38 staff from three comprehensive schools concerning teacher appraisal. The introduction of appraisal varied from school to school, as did its effects upon the teachers involved. Kyriacou (1997) examined appraisal from the perspective of the appraisers and was generally positive in his findings. It is argued here that a different picture emerges when the views of all staff involved in the appraisal process are considered. A fuller evaluation of appraisal emerges when it is analysed from the respective positions of the senior managers and the appraisees as well as the appraisers. This highlights the very different and at times conflicting perceptions of teacher appraisal.

Primary school headteachers' attempts to maintain a person-centred managerial style: the evidence from their appraisals

Teacher appraisal in England and Wales has sometimes been represented as a further step for primary heads in the inexorable shift from educational leadership to a managerial bureaucratic role. This study reports the findings of a recent survey of the views of 26 primary headteachers on their experience of headteacher appraisal. In our research, headteachers show that they remain convinced of the continuing importance of their educational leadership roles in their schools, and they identify strongly with their schools as communities of educators; where the best chance of achieving excellence lies in their development of the teaching and support staff. They believe they have found an unexpectedly effective route to better headship in the process of their own appraisal and that of fellow heads. In conclusion, the study looks forward to the rather different perspectives of new plans for headteacher training and appraisal contained in proposals by the Teacher Training Agency and the Labour Government. In contrast to the views of the heads we interviewed, these proposals suggest a continuing official emphasis on the managerial expertise and accountability of headteachers as part of the school improvement programme.

The Perceptions of Principals on their Leadership Role in Pre-primary

The incorporation of pre-primary centres into Western Australian government primary schools has shifted the responsibility for leadership from the kindergarten director to the primary school principal. Concerns have been raised that principals who are responsible for appraisal of pre-primary teachers are providing inadequate educational leadership to these teachers because of their lack of theoretical and practical background in early childhood. They have not been provided with professional development to adequately support them in this role. However, to date, it seems that principals have not been asked for their views about their capacities concerning the pre-primary sector. For these reasons this study investigated the question: How do primary school principals perceive they fulfil their administrative, managerial and educational roles in respect to pre-primary centres? The majority of principals in the district surveyed indicated that they considered administration/management to be their most important role in relation to pre-primary education. A greater number of principals indicated inadequate performance in dealing with educational issues. The majority of principals said the system should require pre-primary training for principals, provide each school with materials that outline developmentally appropriate practices; and provide early childhood professional development courses for principals.

O'Neill, J. (FA) (1997), Teacher Appraisal in New Zealand Beyond the Impossible Triangle, Palmerston North, NZ, ERDC Press Massey University, 146 pp.

O'Neill, J. (FA) (1997), Teacher Appraisal in New Zealand Beyond the Impossible Triangle, Palmerston North, NZ, ERDC Press Massey University, 146 pp.