Author: Michael Andrew Lower

Publisher:

Published: 1987

Total Pages: 606

ISBN-13:

Abstract: There were two major objectives achieved in conducting this study. The first major objective was to provide an updated description of the teacher evaluation process in public school systems in the State of Ohio by determining the current perceptions and attitudes of principals and teachers toward the evaluation of teachers. Specifically, the following aspects of the teacher evaluation process were described and compared for principals and teachers--- the structure of the evaluation process, the criteria of the evaluation, the uses of evaluative information, principals' and teachers' attitudes toward the evaluation process, and the strengths and weaknesses of the evaluation process. This study also provided and compared principals' and teachers' actual and ideal perceptions about criteria of the evaluation and uses of evaluative information. In addition, the evaluative criteria and uses of evaluative information that principals and teachers perceived need to be utilized more in the teacher evaluation process were identified. The perceptions of principals and teachers were found to be different for a majority of areas surveyed. The second major objective in conducting this study was to provide an exploratory, empirical testing of the relationship of five important elements of the teacher evaluation process (the utilization of evaluation conferences, the manner in which evaluative goals are established, the use of teacher self-evaluation, the extent of evaluator training, and the use of multiple evaluators and/ or multiple sources of evaluative information) to five areas of professional concern about the teacher evaluation process or perceived areas of weakness of the teacher evaluation process (the adequacy of teacher input provided by the evaluation process, the technical quality of the evaluation, the fairness of the evaluation process, confidence in the evaluation process, and the usefulness of the evaluation process in improving teacher performance). Specifically here, the perceptions of respondents in the categories utilized were examined separately for principals and teachers to ascertain the perceived relationship of these five elements of the teacher evaluation process to the areas of concern about the teacher evaluation process or perceived areas of weakness of the teacher evaluation process. Teachers were found to be very much in agreement with theoretical relationships investigated, while principals were in agreement to a more limited extent. The information gleaned from achieving these two major objectives of the study should prove useful to a variety of educational audiences.