ABSTRACT

In 2009, the United States Department of Education (USDOE) incentivised states to create more rigorous teacher evaluation systems that better differentiated teacher performance as well as provided more information on what makes a high-quality teacher. One result of these revised teacher evaluation systems was principals, in most cases the primary evaluator of teacher performance, were tasked with collecting new and/or different data on teacher performance. However, little research investigates teachers’ perceptions of how their evaluator carries out this important work. To investigate this phenomenon I asked: (1) What are teachers’ perceptions of how their school principal uses a new teacher evaluation system?; and (2) In what way(s) do these perceptions influence teacher engagement in the evaluation process? Data come from K-8 grade public school teachers in the U.S. state of Michigan and includes interviews with teachers and observations of teachers during their official teacher evaluation process. Findings show teachers generally believe their principals are using new evaluation systems in ways that are beneficial to their growth as educators, which leads to teacher engagement in the evaluation process.

摘要

2009年，美国教育部（USDOE）激励各州建立更加严格的教师评估体系，以更好地区分教师的表现，并提供有关高素质教师构成的更多信息。这些经过修订的教师评估系统的结果是校长，大多数情况下是教师绩效的主要评估者，其任务是收集有关教师绩效的新的和/或不同的数据。但是，很少有研究调查教师对他们的评估者如何开展这项重要工作的看法。为了调查这种现象，我问：（1）教师对校长如何使用新的教师评估系统有什么看法？（2）这些看法会以什么方式影响教师在评估过程中的参与度？数据来自美国密歇根州的K-8年级公立学校教师，包括在正式教师评估过程中对教师的访谈和对教师的观察。调查结果表明，教师普遍认为他们的校长正在使用新的评估系统，这有利于他们作为教育工作者的成长，从而导致教师参与评估过程。