A Reexamination of The Consequences of Teacher Evaluation on Teacher Professional Development in Oman

Abstract

A well-established teacher evaluation policy has proven its efficiency and effectiveness in promoting a lifelong professional growth strategy for teachers. Many researchers and practitioners attempted over the years to study the impact of teachers’ evaluations on teachers’ professional development, which led to altering the purpose of conducting the evaluations from merely addressing the educational institutions' needs. A decade ago, there were a few attempts to study the impact of teacher evaluation on teacher professional development within the context of Oman's educational system. This study seeks to investigate the perspectives of teachers and evaluators regarding the role of teacher evaluation in fostering teacher professional development. Moreover, it pursues the consequences of teacher evaluation policy on teacher professional development in Oman. A qualitative approach was utilized by means of interviews, observation, and document analysis. The study revealed that the level of satisfaction and motivation regarding the teacher evaluation system is low among many teachers and evaluators. Their dissatisfaction is grounded in several reasons, such as a lack of incentives, a lack of commitment, and a shortage of participation in the decision-making process pertaining to teacher evaluation. Most of them believe that the existence of poor-performing teachers in schools is due in large part to the lack of efficient implementation of the evaluation policy.