Teachers' reflections upon evaluation of their work

Abstract

Teacher evaluation is seen as an important strategic solution for enhancing the quality of education in educational policies of many countries. Yet, the way teachers understand the evaluation of their own work and their stance related to evaluation as it is used in practice have not been explored much. The aim of the research was to get an insight into the teachers' experiences with the evaluation of their work and their views of a possibly different organization of evaluation. The research included 24 teachers who participated in the discussion within five focus groups. The obtained results were processed by using the method of qualitative content analysis. The findings show that the teachers recognize various benefits of evaluation but see also numerous difficulties for organization of evaluation in practice. They have no ideas for changing evaluation practice in order to overcome these difficulties. The prevailing views are that external evaluation is the most desirable because it is objective, and that the students' achievements are the best indicator of the teacher's work. Their ideas about evaluation as a comprehensive consideration of all aspects of their work appears only as incomplete outlines. The findings indicate that it is necessary to strenghten the evaluation culture in schools and that it is very important to meticulously devise the evaluation system in schools.

Keywords

• teacher evaluation
• quality of the teacher's work
• teacher profession
• teachers' views of evaluation