The Opinions of Teachers and School Leaders on the Improvement of the Evaluation Process and the Influencing Factors in the Teacher Evaluation Process!

Introduction

Evaluation is only one component of a teacher's comprehensive growth and development system and, as a process, involves many interest groups whose roles and responsibilities are intended to support and improve student learning. As it is such a complex process, for the design and implementation of useful evaluation programs, it is necessary to recognize two basic points: preparation and employment, that is, the professional side, subject knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and professional teaching skills that are indicators of teacher efficiency.

Teacher evaluation, as a process that affects the professional development of teachers and the decisions they make regarding their careers, aims to improve professional practices. Two types of evaluation are useful for improving individual practices and making decisions about how to teach: formative and summative. By means of these evaluations, teachers who experience problems with the fulfillment of their tasks are assisted through training and counseling services in the organization, design, planning, and presentation of lessons. In this way, teachers can have a positive perception of evaluations and improve their professional skills, thereby increasing the quality of teaching.

The current discourse on teacher evaluation policies, not only in Albania, is immersed in a rewarding and corrective framework that very often aims to:

1. Measure the efficiency of each teacher 2. Categorize and rank teachers 3. Reward the best 4. Remove those who perform poorly

Such a simplistic approach not only ignores the complexity of teaching, but also dilutes the true purpose of teacher evaluation, because the primary purpose of teacher evaluation should be to strengthen the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and classroom practices of professional teachers, serving both as a stimulus for student learning and as an inspiration to the teachers themselves.

The purpose of this paper is to discover and analyze the perceptions of teachers and school leaders regarding the teacher evaluation process, as well as to determine how this process can be improved to better serve the purpose for which it is used, that is, the professional development of teachers.

To achieve the goal of this article, research objectives and questions have been defined.

• To reflect the way teachers and school leaders perceive the evaluation policy applied to them. • To analyze the factors influencing the teacher evaluation process

Exploring in broad terms several aspects directly related to the policy, testing, and evaluation of professional skills and teacher performance, this study aims to analyze the perceptions of teachers and principals regarding teacher evaluation.

Literature Review

Methodology

This study refers to the use of primary data that is collected through questionnaires conducted with teachers and school leaders and secondary data from the review and detailed analysis of a literature on evaluation of teachers based on similar studies of other countries.

The questionnaire of teachers and school leaders was conducted in the main cities of Albania, such as Tirana, Durres, Korca, Vlora, Elbasan and Fier, which make up the study population.

The sample of the study is 1,100 teachers and the information gathered through the questionnaire was analyzed through the computer program SPSS 25 in order to obtain a more complete and professional analysis.

Findings

From the results obtained from the surveys, it appears that approximately half of the teachers are aware of the important role of evaluations in the development of teachers as a whole, but they emphasize the fact that the improvement of the teacher evaluation system should focus on a real evaluation of them. They also emphasize the need for training and meetings to exchange experiences. The development of open hours is seen as a component of evaluation, which should be more frequent and carried out by professionals, where not only their experience is evaluated, but they are also developed professionally with the best models.

They also seek and evaluate the communication of evaluations, demanding that they be clear and more concrete. Very significant and necessary, and not at all outdated as an idea, are their opinions regarding the holding of presentations by experienced teachers to give concrete models or requests for more information, as well as the unification of teaching texts, etc.

Teachers have also not overlooked the improvement of educational policies, the impact of which can be both in short-term periods, but also in long-term periods. Online evaluations or even the recording of this entire process are two other elements that are required as a necessity by a significant part of them as this serves as an overview of their work in all the movements that the teacher makes.

Open and transparent evaluation is required by 1.1% of them, even more observations in the classroom during lessons, as well as direct communication with the evaluator, would be other elements that would serve to increase and improve this process step by step . Also, two really concrete opinions from the teachers' side are related to: the stimulation of teachers with good performance, their salary, as well as the creation of the status of the teacher as for the entire public administration.

While the leaders also expressed proposals that should be made in the future, regarding the evaluation process, 17.6% of the leaders think that it should be clear and carried out by professionals in the field and also qualified. 6.3% think that the evaluation should be carried out with productive methods, while another 8.8% think that it should be put into the electronic system, thus serving as an important data base for the activity of teachers. There are also those leaders who think that in the future there should be not only evaluations from the school or Local Education Office, but also at the national level as well. It is required, by almost everyone, that these evaluations are unified and effective, thus making the process valid and reliable at the same time.

In Article 58 of the National Law, the Director organizes a) the dissemination of teachers' experiences in training 3 days a year to other teachers; b) professional help of more experienced teachers to younger teachers. The leaders of the educational institution: a) observe lessons, tutoring hours, meetings of subject teams, meetings of tutor teachers with parents, extra-curricular activities; b) organize the development of questionnaires with pupils and parents. School leaders conduct mini-tests as a basis for professional conversation with teachers and the organization of help for them.

From the observations made in the schools where the study was carried out, it was seen that the school directorates have drawn up work plans for the observation of lessons, those of thematic control for the daily plans of teachers, discipline at work as an integral part of their work, in accordance with article 58 of the Normative Provisions, 2013. In general, in these plans, the theme of the observed hours is related to the objectives of the annual school plans.

School leaders use a format for observing lessons, which is based in part on the indicators and instruments of the "School Internal Inspection and Evaluation" guide.

They do not practice repeated checks for the tasks left and do not take measures to improve the identified situation. The school leaders use the data of the findings during the observations, mainly, for the evaluation of the annual achievements of the teachers, but they do not discuss these findings with the relevant subject team to motivate/encourage the teachers, in order to improve the achievements of the students. They do not document and disseminate successful experiences to teaching staff. These data are also confirmed by the results obtained from surveys conducted in schools.

Influencing Factors in the Teacher Evaluation Process

The discussion of the above data provides answers to the research question of this study, but since the selected sample did not have the same characteristics (age, seniority, qualifications, area where the school is located), the data analysis continues further showing us the connections that exist between these external variables with the evaluation process and the way it is perceived.

The fact that a teacher works in a rural or urban area affects the way the evaluation process is perceived, referring to the Chi Square test of independence as well as the Pearson Chi Square coefficient.

In the case of our variables, the data show that the value of Asymp.Sig. (2-sided) is 0.00, which shows that it makes sense to talk about the dependence of these variables, that is, the evaluation process as a whole depends on the location of the school, as shown in the following table:

Table 1. Chi Square Test related to the evaluation and the region where the school is located

N of Valid Cases 1100 In the same way, the seniority at work significantly affects the way of perception of the evaluation process, so here again we talk about the dependence between these variables, reaching the conclusion that the standards of teacher evaluation in the sense of their clarity, recognition and their acceptance form the teachers depends on the teachers seniority.

Table 2. Chi Square between evaluation standards and seniority

1 year .1 1.1 7.5 18.2 10.1 37.0 2-5 year .2 3.8 25.9 63.1 34.9 128.0 6-10 year .4 5.9 39.5 96.1 53.2 195.0

11-15 year .3 5.1 34.3 83.3 46.1 169.0 More than 16 year

1.0 17.1 115.8 281.3 155.7 571.0

Total 2.0 33.0 223.0 542.0 300.0 1100.0 Chi-Square Tests

Asymp. Sig. (2-sided) Pearson Chi-Square

74.743^a 16 .000

Likelihood Ratio 76.144 16 .000 Linear-by-Linear Association

24.029 1 .000

N of Valid Cases 1100 Regarding the results of the survey, it appears that there are differences between the evaluations in city and village schools.

Table 3. The evaluation tests depending on the area where the school is located

Upp er Equal variance s assumed

6.49 7 .01 1 3.28 8 1098 .001 .180 .055 .073 .288

Equal variance s not assumed

3.17 2 386.3 91 .002 .180 .057 .069 .292

Referring to the data in the table above, we see that the value of Sig.=0.011<0.05, which shows that the variances of these two groups of teachers are different. This fact is also confirmed by the values of DS (standard deviations as follows where DSvillage = 0.802 and DScities=0.751. Based on which conclusion we now refer to the second part of the analysis of the comparison of averages, from which it can be seen that for t=3.172 and df (386,391), we have Sig. (2-tailed) = 0.002<0.05, which shows that there are statistically significant differences between these teachers regarding the opinion they have with the evaluation process.

The table below shows exactly this difference, from which it can be seen that Mvillage = 3.54 and Mcity = 3.72, so the evaluation of teachers in city schools is higher, compared to teachers who teach in village schools.

Table 4. Homogenity test

Teachers have also not overlooked the improvement of educational policies, the impact of which can be both in short-term periods but also in long-term periods. Online evaluations or even the recording of the whole process are two other elements that are required as a necessity by a significant part of them since this serves as an overview of their work in all their professional stages. It is important that the evaluation program be an ongoing component of professional development (Guskey & Sparks, 1996), just as students are assessed in the classroom, it is also important to measure effective teaching and professional program evaluations to ensure programs improvement (Loucks-Horsley, 1996; Guskey, 2000).

Authentic teachers' voices support research in the literature (Sparks, 2002; Darling-Hammond, 1990; Dufour, 1991; and Guskey, 1994; ), in the fact that effective professional development must include the following components: need for evaluation/empowerment; the head of the school as the instructional leader; support; engagement, active learning and high quality professional development; opportunities to learn new things and instructional strategies; collaboration and reflection among teachers; professional development differentiated by content, learning styles, also for adult learning; evaluation of professional development.

Conclusions and Recommendations

According to the literature, few studies have explored teacher perceptions of their evaluation system. The purpose of this quantitative case study was to research teacher perceptions, and then present the summary, with conclusions and recommendations based on the findings from that research.

This study contributes to building an understanding between education leaders and teachers. This study contributes to the body of knowledge necessary to address the ongoing need of balancing teacher accountability and honouring the education profession.

A crucial determiner of whether a teacher will utilize the evaluation results or accept input for further growth is the teacher’s perception of the evaluative process. There is minimal awareness and understanding concerning teachers’ perceptions of their evaluation system and how those perceptions can positively inform evaluation processes in the future. Research about teacher evaluation has focused on the need for accountability and justification for or against state and district mandates that are connected to funding (Darling-Hammond, 2015). To address this limited research information about teacher perceptions, the researcher collected data and related the findings to the known literature on evaluations. The participants in this study shared both positive and negative perceptions and offered cautions and suggestions to educational leaders regarding future decisions with teacher evaluation.

Some recommendations for policy-making institutions Teacher evaluation should be real and for the benefit of the teaching process; Therefore, evaluation should not simply be seen as something that should be done routinely or as a vain burden, but should be given the right importance and taken seriously to highlight the needs of teachers in the best interests of their professional development and the improvement of the education system in our country.

School leaders should try to cultivate a culture based on performance by observing teachers frequently. They should also hold regular talks with their teachers to discuss overall class performance and pupil progress, professional goals and development needs.

Teacher evaluation should be a part of strategies for improving school.

Bibliography