Appraisal: a process for control or development?: a study of teacher accountability, power and decision-making with emphasis on the New Zealand context

<p>This sociological-historical study aims to contribute to the understanding and analysis of the changing pattern of power and decision-making in education apparent in the development of teacher appraisal policy. The study provides an account of the factors influencing the New Zealand teacher appraisal policy draft which at the time of writing is still to be released. A range of considerations to be taken into account is exposed and the signposts for the development of teacher appraisal policy are made explicit. This is achieved by making the process transparent as well as recognising and evaluating the contribution made by participants. A key feature of this study is the examination of the 'policy importation' process as the emerging demand for greater teacher accountability in both the United Kingdom and New Zealand has resulted in the formalisation of the assessment of teachers' professional performance through appraisal policies. This study argues that three perspectives have shaped the debate on teacher appraisal: neo-liberal market; managerial; and professional. It posits that a noticeable shift has been made towards the requirements of managerial accountability and examines the reasons for this.</p>

Appraisal: a process for control or development?: a study of teacher accountability, power and decision-making with emphasis on the New Zealand context

<p>This sociological-historical study aims to contribute to the understanding and analysis of the changing pattern of power and decision-making in education apparent in the development of teacher appraisal policy. The study provides an account of the factors influencing the New Zealand teacher appraisal policy draft which at the time of writing is still to be released. A range of considerations to be taken into account is exposed and the signposts for the development of teacher appraisal policy are made explicit. This is achieved by making the process transparent as well as recognising and evaluating the contribution made by participants. A key feature of this study is the examination of the 'policy importation' process as the emerging demand for greater teacher accountability in both the United Kingdom and New Zealand has resulted in the formalisation of the assessment of teachers' professional performance through appraisal policies. This study argues that three perspectives have shaped the debate on teacher appraisal: neo-liberal market; managerial; and professional. It posits that a noticeable shift has been made towards the requirements of managerial accountability and examines the reasons for this.</p>

Teacher Accountability for Teacher Occupational Professionalism: The Effect of Accountability on Occupational Awareness with the Mediating Roles of Contribution to Organization, Emotional Labor and Personal Development

Accountability enables teachers to exhibit professional behaviors in school processes. However, the contribution of accountability to teacher occupational professionalism depends on the effective structuring of accountability mechanisms. It is necessary to examine how the connection between teacher occupational professionalism and accountability can be effectively established in line with different conceptual models. Therefore, this study investigated the relationship between teacher accountability and occupational professionalism by analyzing a proposed conceptual model of accountability and occupational professionalism dimensions. The first step for effective accountability mechanisms is to raise occupational awareness. Therefore, the effect of teacher accountability on teacher occupational awareness, which is one of the components of occupational professionalism, was examined with the mediating roles of contribution to organization, emotional labor and personal development dimensions of occupational professionalism. Employing correlational research design, the study sample included 576 middle school teachers from Gaziantep province in the southeast of Turkey. The study revealed that contribution to organization and emotional labor play a partially mediating role in the relationship between accountability and occupational awareness. However, teacher personal development has no mediating role. The results present a framework to develop teacher personal accountability supporting teacher occupational professionalism.

Designing and validating an evaluation inventory for assessing teachers’ professional accountability

Research has already established the boundless potential of teachers in assisting effective learning processes, and there is still a need to expand research to illustrate interrelation and connection between the construct of teachers’ professional accountability which moderates and directs student learning. To this end, a comprehensive review of the literature was conducted by the researchers to explore and extract relevant theoretical constructs to teacher accountability. A literature review was followed by structured interviews with 20 administrators, teachers, students, and parents to record perceived concepts related to teacher accountability. Content analysis of recorded interviews and thematic network analysis of literature resulted in a 30-item Likert scale. The researcher-made questionnaire was subject to reliability and validity issues. Thus, in the second phase, the questionnaire was piloted with 142 male and female EFL in-service teachers selected on the basis of the convenient sampling method. Factor analysis on data collected through this reduced the items to 29 and indicated that data on teacher accountability loaded on five components including accountability towards students (N: 7 items), parents (N: 5 items), school leadership (N: 5 items), society (N: 7 items), and the profession (N: 5 items). The results also indicated that the questionnaire enjoys sound psychometric properties of reliability (α: 0.88 ˂0.5). The upshots of this study could provide a better understanding of the concept and lead teachers to be more coherent and accountable.

Under a growth-centered accountability system: A job demand and resource perspective for physical educators

The purpose of this study was to reveal the work life of physical educators who were experiencing a teacher accountability system in the US. A combination of stratified and purposeful sampling procedures was adopted to select a sample of schools that served communities with various socioeconomic backgrounds. The schools were recently incorporated in a state teacher accountability system that used student learning growth for teacher evaluation. A group of 51 certified physical educators was selected from the sampled schools. Data were collected from three sources: an online survey, in-school observations, and semi-structured interviews. The survey and observations cross-validated data related to job description, workload, general working environment, and demographic information. The interviews detailed the teachers’ accounts about their work life, perceptions of the job demands, and resources under the teacher accountability system. Inductive analysis revealed that the lack of critical job resources, especially curricular supports, equipment, and professional development, limited the teachers from promoting student learning that the teacher accountability system required. Teachers were subjected to immense job demands, specifically a large body of content knowledge to teach with shrinking instruction time and ambiguous role. They also felt pressured to incorporate reading, writing, and mathematics in physical education lessons with little or no curricular support. For teachers to teach physical education successfully in this accountability context, systemic changes are needed to provide teachers with adequate professional development and curricular resources to promote learning in physical education.