Teachers' perceived effectiveness of their *evaluation process at selected school districts

The primary strategy used for the teacher evaluation process is the traditional method that consists of a classroom observation, a checklist, a pre-observation and/or post observation conference. Teachers do not necessarily consider this evaluation method effective because they feel the main objective is to fulfill an administrative requirement, whereas they feel the evaluation process should be used to improve their teaching ability.;The Teacher Evaluation Survey was a researcher-designed instrument used to measure the accountability and motivational aspects of the evaluation process. Consisting of four sections, the first section was designed to identify and determine the relationship between the evaluation strategy or strategies that principals most frequently used to evaluate teachers in their school districts and the evaluation strategies that teachers would prefer to have used. The second section was created to investigate how teachers perceive the effectiveness of their evaluation process based on the utility, propriety, feasibility and accuracy and feasibility principles. The third section questioned teachers' perception as the main objective of the evaluation process and the last section solicited the demographic and background information.;This study was conducted in Lincoln County, Montana that is located in the Northwest corner of the state. The results indicated that the traditional teacher evaluation method is the most utilized and preferred evaluation strategy. This summative evaluation strategy is unilaterally imposed on the teacher from the evaluator and is designed to measure a teacher's competency. If that is the goal for the Lincoln County School Districts, the strategy is effective, its one weakness being the lack of time evaluators spend in the classroom. If, however, the goal is to improve teachers' abilities, this strategy is ineffective because the teachers did not feel the evaluation process had a strong influence on future teaching methods, nor did it address goals for the next teaching year. The research also indicated that teachers do want evaluations and they want an evaluation method or process that is effective and addresses both accountability and motivation.