Attitudes of teachers at the Institute of Public Administration in Saudi Arabia toward teacher evaluation

The evaluating of teachers has long been a part of the educational system. In recent decades, public demand for accountability in education has brought increased emphasis on teacher evaluation. Yet many studies indicate that the teacher-evaluation process, as currently practiced, is useless because teachers are not a central part of the process.; The purpose of this study was to measure attitudes of teachers at the Institute of Public Administration (IPA) in Saudi Arabia toward their teacher-evaluation system. The researcher measured teacher attitudes toward both student and administrative evaluations of teachers regarding fairness, accuracy, and usefulness of the evaluations. The researcher sought to determine whether respondent teachers believed they understood the criteria and purposes of the evaluations, whether they had participated in development of the instruments used for the evaluations, and whether they would like to be more involved in development of the instruments.; Data was collected by means of a questionnaire developed by the researcher. Data was collected from 221 teachers at the four branches of the IPA during the first two months of 1999. Respondent teachers indicated their level of agreement or disagreement with specific statements based on a four-point Likert scale. The collected data was analyzed using the Statistical Packages for the Social Sciences, version 8.0.; Most of the respondent teachers agreed that teacher evaluations resulting from the current teacher-evaluation system at the IPA are not fair and accurate. A majority of respondent teachers also agreed that they would like to participate more actively in developing the instruments used for teacher evaluations. This study includes implications and suggestions for ways the IPA might begin to make positive changes in its teacher-evaluation system.