Teacher participation and its relation to the effectiveness of the appraisal system

Abstract

The ultimate goal of schooling is to provide quality education. In order to

enhance the quality of the teaching profession, the Education Bureau mandated all

aided schools to establish the school-based teacher appraisal system. To date, the

policy has been implemented for a few years. This study attempts to investigate how

teachers participate in the school-based appraisal system and analyze its relation to

the effectiveness of the system. Moreover, the researcher tries to examine the factors

affecting teacher participation in the appraisal and investigate the reasons behind

their actions.

The research method involves case studies of school-based teacher appraisal

in two aided primary schools in Hong Kong. Teacher participation is high in one

case while it is low in another case. The methods adopted include documentary

analysis, interviews and observations. The evaluation model of Stake (1967), which

compares the intention and reality of the policy, is also employed to analyze the

actual operation.

Findings reveal that teacher participation is a crucial factor to the

effectiveness of the school-based appraisal systems. Teacher participation in the

policy formulation and implementation stages directly affects the effectiveness of the

policy. Extensive teacher participation in establishing the appraisal policy is found to

have the following benefits, i.e. increasing the intelligence for decision-making,

leading to better and effective implementation of the policy, increasing the

acceptance of and ownership of the policy. In the policy implementation stage, the

participation level of the appraisers and appraisees is found to be correlated and

interdependent. The participation of both sides will affect whether the policy is

implemented as scheduled and ultimately to what extent the policy will achieve the

intended outcomes.

Factors affecting teacher participation in the appraisal can be categorized into four

levels, namely, the individual level, the policy level, the organizational level and the

societal level. These factors are interrelated and have an effect on one another. The

variation in the influence of these factors affecting participation may depend on different

people and different situations.

Apart from the fact that individual attitude would affect one’s degree of

participation in the appraisal, the elements or components of the policy, the school

culture and the Chinese culture would also affect the way in which teachers

participate in the appraisal activities.

Findings of the two case schools demonstrate that the developmental purpose

and the administrative purpose seem to be incompatible within one appraisal system

in the Hong Kong context, so the two purposes should be kept separate.

The study also confirms that the school culture characterized by trust,

collaboration, and valuing teacher growth can encourage the stakeholders to

participate in appraisal more actively. On the other hand, the Chinese cultural values,

i.e. face (mainzi), relation (guanxi) and favor (renqing), seem to be incompatible

with the principles of the school-based appraisal systems as requested by the

government, i.e. open, fair and transparent, and thus obstruct teacher participation in

appraisal.