The Opinions of Teachers, Administrators and Supervisors Regarding Performance Assesment
Abstract
In the 8th Five Year Development Plan, public organizations have been urged to implement performance assessment. Similar to various public organizations, Ministry of National Education has also begun to establish the transition to performance assessment and has conducted pilot studies to evaluate its implementation. There is a need to conduct empirical research before expending it to wider audience. The aim of this research is to understand the restructuring process and how it is perceived by teachers, supervisors, and school administrators. Data were collected through survey. 39 school administrators, 53 teachers, and 24 supervisors participated in the survey. The data were analyzed by using descriptive analysis. In conclusion, all stakeholders report that current system has not been provided enough guidance to teachers and restructuring is needed. Summary In the 8th Five Year Development Plan, public organizations were advised to use performance based assessment. Within this context, like many other public organizations, Ministry of National Education initiated the work to implement performance assessment and conducted several pilot studies. Research about the supervision process in Turkey dates back to early 1970's. The first study was conducted by Öz (1971) and he reported that the supervisory system did not realize its duties as expected. The following study was conducted by Karagöz (1977) titled “Supervision application in primary education”. In his research, Karagöz (1977) found that a) Although supervisors perceive themselves as competent for supervision, principals, National Education City Director, and teachers did not agree with them; b) during the supervision, supervisors prioritized for grading teachers rather than guiding them; c) The participants of this study except supervisors be-lieve that supervision did not affect teachers' success regarding instructional activities. Öz (1977) conducted another research titled “Roles of supervisors in Turkish Educational System” and he found that there was a big gap between what had to be done and what had been done in terms of regulations and modern supervision approaches. Almost after a decade, Kapusuzoğlu (1988) found similar results that teachers were complaining about supervisors' supervisory activities in many areas. Bilir (1991) analyzed the structure and function of the subsystems of supervision. He found similar results with Öz (1971) that the current supervision system and its quality had not been realized as anticipated. In the following years, many other research studies about supervision of instruction and the roles and competencies of primary education supervisors were conducted by different researchers (e.g., Arabacı, 1995; Atay, 1995; Yavuz, 1995; Memişoğlu, 2001; Sağıroğlu, 2005). Arabacı (1995) reported that supervision was not carried on indepth and it did not help to improve instruction. Atay (1995) conducted a similar study and he found that teachers perceived supervision as an evaluations process. During the same year, Yavuz (1995) conducted another study and he found that the supervisory activities did not match with what contemporary supervision principals believed to perform. Turkish Educational System has undergone a major change in the last decade, among which is the Primary Education Supervisory System (PESS). Research results show that PESS do not satisfy the expected performance in terms of guiding teachers to improve the educational system. A research study, which was conducted by Memişoğlu (2001), indicates that supervisors do not help teachers in terms of improving educational and instructional activities. Another study by Sağıroğlu (2005) investigated how supervisors help teachers on job training. Sağıroğlu (2005) found that supervisors' guidance is not at the expected level. Recent research findings within this context can be summarized as: a) The supervisory system did not realize its duties as expected level; b) the supervisory activities are not effective in terms of guiding teachers; c) supervisors carry out their duties as being busy with bureaucratic activities and paper work. Consequently, it is clear that there is a need for restructuring the supervisory system. Meanwhile, Turkish Ministry of National Education decided to restructure the supervisory system by using performance assessment to evaluate teachers' performance rather than inspection. Therefore, the aim of this research is to understand restructuring process, to understand how this process is perceived by teachers, supervisors, and school administrators. Method In order to understand the supervisors', teachers', and administrators' opinions about the change process, an open ended survey was applied. Thirtynine administrators (twenty principals and nineteen assistant principals) and fifty three teachers in twenty schools from two cities voluntarily partici-pated to this study. The participants were asked to fill out the survey and to send them back to the researchers. The data analyzed by using descriptive analysis. Findings The immediate findings indicate that administrators, supervisors, and teachers think that current supervision system does not meet the needs of the contemporary education and developments in education in this research context. All participants state that supervisors do not guide teachers and the supervision is not objective. Teachers and administrators are also of the opinion that one-hour period supervision is not enough to assess the teachers' whole year performance. Administrators and teachers believe that if all criteria are objective and applied objectively, the new system will be successful. As come to the supervisors, neither supervisors had enough information about the new performance based assessment nor do they had objection to new system. It can be said that supervisees have more information about the Performance Based Assessments and they have positive attitudes towards this new system than supervisors. Teachers', administrators', and supervisors' reported advantages of using performance based assessment are (a) participation of stakeholders to supervision process, (b) being more transparent in supervision, and (c) allocating more time for guidance to teachers. The perceived disadvantages are voiced as (a) parents' and students' grading of teachers. Teachers and administrators believe that students' and parents' assessment of teachers and administrators will cause many problems at schools, such as, creating an unhealthy school climate, leading a conflict between parents and teachers, and between teachers and students. Most teachers complain that parents do not come and visit the school during the year. Teachers also complain that some of the parents and the students are not mature enough to evaluate teachers. In conclusion, almost all participants believe that current supervisory system is not guiding teachers as expected level. Even only this condition causes restructuring PESS. It was also found that senior supervisors are more resistant to change than younger and more educated supervisors. It seems that there is a need to have more attitude change program and more information for supervisors. In addition, more qualitative studies are needed to understand the change process.
Keywords
Performans Değerlendirmesine İlişkin Öğretmen, Yönetici ve Müfettiş Görüşleri
Öz
Sekizinci Beş Yıllık Kalkınma Planı'nda kamu örgütlerinde performans değerlendirmesine geçilmesi öngörülmüştür. Bu bağlamda diğer kamu örgütlerinde olduğu gibi, Milli Eğitim Bakanlığında da performans değerlendirilme sistemine geçmek için gerekli çalışmalar ve pilot uygulamalar yapılmıştır. Bu çalışmanın amacı da, performans değerlendirilmesine ilişkin olarak öğretmen, yönetici ve ilköğretim müfettişi görüşlerini ortaya koymaktır. Bu amacı gerçekleştirmek için veriler açık uçlu anket ile elde edilmiştir. Toplanan veriler betimsel analiz yöntemine göre analiz edilmiştir. Veriler sunulurken çoğunlukla frekansları belirtilerek paydaşların görüşleri detaylı olarak verilmiştir. Sonuç olarak, bütün paydaşlar mevcut denetim sisteminin öğretmenlere yeterince rehberlik sağlayamadığına inandıklarını ifade etmişler ve denetimin yeniden yapılandırmasının gerekliliğini vurgulamışlardır.
Anahtar Kelimeler
