A Study of Primary School Teachers’ Attitudes toward Teacher Evaluation for Professional Development and Teaching Effectiveness in the Remote Districts

• Published in: Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education Science and Technology Education, 2017-08, Vol.13 (8), p.5949
• Main Authors: Huang, Hsiu-Ping, Shih, Ya-Hui
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Attitudes; Professional development; Questionnaires; School districts; Teacher evaluations; Teachers; Teaching
• ISSN: 1305-8223; 1305-8215; 1305-8223
• DOI: 10.12973/eurasia.2017.01052a

The purpose of this study was to explore the primary school teachers’ attitudes toward teacher evaluation for professional development (TEPD) and teaching effectiveness in remote districts. The questionnaire survey method was adopted in this study, formal questionnaires were distributed to 500 elementary school teachers in Kaohsiung and Pingtung areas by stratified random sampling, 446 questionnaires were returned, 393 were answered completely, the valid return rate was 88.12%. The findings were as follows: (1) The attitudes toward teacher evaluation for professional development among primary school teachers in remote districts was above average, with the most positive attitudes toward “evaluation outcome application”. (2) Teachers in remote districts in Kaohsiung and Pingtung had a favorable perception in teaching effectiveness, with the most favorable perception in “teaching assessment and classroom management”. (3) There are differences among primary school teachers’ attitudes toward teacher evaluation for professional development in seniority, experience of participating in TEPD and school districts. (4) The primary school teachers’ attitudes on teaching effectiveness have middle to high performance. However, no difference was observed on teachers’ various backgrounds of gender, age, highest academic degree, post, seniority, experience of participating in TEPD, and school location in remote districts. (5) The primary school teachers’ attitudes toward teacher evaluation for professional development show low positive correlation with their teaching effectiveness at various dimensions.