Teacher attitudes toward supervision and evaluation in the developmental research schools of the state of Florida

The developmental research schools, or laboratory schools, of the state of Florida became single-school public school districts in 1991. This allowed the four Florida laboratory schools to receive full-time equivalency funding from the state, but also required the schools to have state-mandated programs in place. Laboratory school teachers have varying roles that include teacher, researcher, writer, and presenter. These roles have caused discussion about appropriate performance appraisal methods for laboratory school teachers. In Florida, public school districts must have a human resources and management development plan that addresses evaluation and supervision of teaching personnel. With the passage of the Florida Clinical Education requirements for teachers who supervise developing teachers, it became necessary for the developmental research schools to demonstrate a commitment to an established system of measuring teacher growth. Teacher involvement is an integral part of building a sound supervision and evaluation system, so this study looked at the attitudes of the laboratory school teachers toward administrative practices in supervision and evaluation. The sample included one hundred fourteen instructors from the four Florida developmental research schools. The teachers taught grades kindergarten through eight. Seventy-six percent of those in the sample had advanced degrees, and seventy-five percent had over five years of teaching experience. A survey questionnaire was used to collect data from the teachers. The survey included questions on individual teacher demographics as well as assessment of the teachers' attitudes and perceptions of formal and informal evaluation practices. Descriptive statistics and t-tests results compared the average perception of formal evaluation as an accurate measure of teaching effectiveness for the different teacher groupings. Results indicated that eight of the nine null hypotheses were rejected. Null hypothesis 3, predicting no difference in teachers' perceptions of formal evaluation as an accurate indicator of teaching effectiveness between teachers who had developed a personal professional development plan and teachers who had not, was not rejected. Being able to create individual professional development plans increased teacher confidence and enthusiasm. Teachers viewed self-evaluation forms such as portfolios and checklists as accurate means of assessing teacher effectiveness. Recommendations for further study include: enlarging the sample size to include laboratory school teachers in other states and countries, adding non-laboratory school teachers to the study; and encouraging teachers to become involved trying to include alternative assessment methods such as portfolios and professional development plans as part of the district teacher supervision and evaluation plan.