Does It Matter Who Evaluates Teachers? Principal Versus Teacher-Led Evaluation and Teacher Motivation

Increasing job demands and continuing struggles to improve teacher evaluation practice raise the question of how peers might assist principals with teacher evaluation. Using a robust international sample (TALIS2013) of 36,411 teachers from 2,759 schools in 11 countries, we tested the hypothesis that teacher-led evaluation practices are associated with more teacher-reported positive changes in classroom practice, confidence, and motivation than principal-led evaluation practices in three areas evaluation: (1) classroom observations, (2) assessments of teacher content knowledge, and (3) analysis of student test score data. We found that teacher-led evaluation is associated with more positive feelings of motivation and change in practice for all three evaluation areas, but particularly for assessments of teacher content knowledge and test score data analysis. Further, principals’ reported use of extrinsic motivational tools to reward or punish teachers based upon their evaluation was also negatively associated with teachers’ motivation and reports of positive change in practice.