How Do Teachers Perceive Feedback and Evaluation Systems?

Teacher evaluation and feedback systems have evolved quickly in the past decade as states and school districts seek the best ways to measure and inform teachers about their classroom performance, with the goal of strengthening instruction. To date, there is no single "best" system. Teacher evaluation systems may consist of frequent or infrequent formal and/or informal observations and feedback, as well as measures of student achievement growth and input from students and parents. Most systems are developed from related research, best practices, and needs specific to individual states, districts, and schools. But how teachers perceive the systems that ultimately evaluate their work is not always examined in a systematic way. This point of view is important. Teachers are more likely to value and respond constructively to feedback from an evaluation system that they feel is fair and insightful and holds expectations that can be supported by school resources.

To help fill this gap, RAND Corporation researchers analyzed survey responses from 1,825 teachers who were asked about the kind and frequency of classroom observations and feedback they received in the 2015–2016 school year. The survey was fielded as part of the American Teacher Panel (ATP), a randomly selected, nationally representative panel of public school teachers from across the United States who periodically receive surveys on education issues of national import. This analysis can help state, district, and school leaders develop and adopt evaluation and feedback systems that teachers find helpful, fair, and useful in seeking to improve teaching practice.

The findings from this study are divided into two categories. The first focuses on teachers' perceptions of informal and formal instructional feedback. The second category focuses on formal evaluation systems of which feedback may be a part.