Do principals really know what their teachers believe about evaluation? Exploring principals' reactions to teachers’ beliefs in the United States

This study explored principals’ reactions to findings from a survey regarding their teachers’ evaluation beliefs. As participants in a longitudinal study, these principals were invited to focus group meetings to discuss the teacher survey data, which were sent to them for review prior to the meetings. They were asked to consider data that were puzzling, surprising, inconsistent, or consistent with their perceptions of conducting teacher evaluation. The focus group data were analyzed using the Johari Window, consisting of four domains of awareness. Based on the Johari Window analysis, principals shared teachers’ awareness of a checklist approach to observations but maintained different beliefs about a checklist's intentions and efficiencies. Principals were unaware of or disagreed with the following teacher beliefs: (a) principal feedback is marginally effective for teachers’ instructional improvement, (b) the evaluation ratings are applied unfairly, and (c) too much of principals’ time is allotted to the evaluation process. This study illustrates that principals and teachers have contradictory beliefs regarding the practice and value of teacher evaluation. The researchers suggest that principals should consider applying the Johari Window construct to reveal and explore teacher perceptions that could hinder an effective supervision and evaluation process.

Exploratory Analysis of Teacher Artifacts as Evidence of Educator Effectiveness Implementation Fidelity

We collected artifacts from 42 teachers participating in a statewide educator effectiveness system to examine the fidelity with which the formative components of the system were implemented. Specifical- ly, we collected written feedback from principals to teachers and teacher professional growth goals. We developed indicators of quality for each and examined whether there were relationships between these two indicators as well as with observations. Overall, principal feedback was often aligned with observation scores and the quality was directly related to the number of observation elements scored. Feedback is readily partitioned into two constructs: clarity of communication and instructional practices. Feedback consistently demonstrated clarity of communication but was less likely to address instructional practices. Importantly, novice teachers received poorer quality feedback than experienced teachers. Teacher Professional Growth Goals tended to be superficial and rarely included details such as specific action steps or measurable outcomes. Although exploratory, evidence that both feedback and growth goals varied to some extent by school imply that both feedback and growth goals can be impacted by better guidance.