The ultimate goal of schooling is to provide quality education. In order to
enhance the quality of the teaching profession, the Education Bureau mandated all
aided schools to establish the school-based teacher appraisal system. To date, the
policy has been implemented for a few years. This study attempts to investigate how
teachers participate in the school-based appraisal system and analyze its relation to
the effectiveness of the system. Moreover, the researcher tries to examine the factors
affecting teacher participation in the appraisal and investigate the reasons behind
their actions.
The research method involves case studies of school-based teacher appraisal
in two aided primary schools in Hong Kong. Teacher participation is high in one
case while it is low in another case. The methods adopted include documentary
analysis, interviews and observations. The evaluation model of Stake (1967), which
compares the intention and reality of the policy, is also employed to analyze the
actual operation.
Findings reveal that teacher participation is a crucial factor to the
effectiveness of the school-based appraisal systems. Teacher participation in the
policy formulation and implementation stages directly affects the effectiveness of the
policy. Extensive teacher participation in establishing the appraisal policy is found to
have the following benefits, i.e. increasing the intelligence for decision-making,
leading to better and effective implementation of the policy, increasing the
acceptance of and ownership of the policy. In the policy implementation stage, the
participation level of the appraisers and appraisees is found to be correlated and
interdependent. The participation of both sides will affect whether the policy is
implemented as scheduled and ultimately to what extent the policy will achieve the
intended outcomes.
Factors affecting teacher participation in the appraisal can be categorized into four
levels, namely, the individual level, the policy level, the organizational level and the
societal level. These factors are interrelated and have an effect on one another. The
variation in the influence of these factors affecting participation may depend on different
people and different situations.
Apart from the fact that individual attitude would affect one’s degree of
participation in the appraisal, the elements or components of the policy, the school
culture and the Chinese culture would also affect the way in which teachers
participate in the appraisal activities.
Findings of the two case schools demonstrate that the developmental purpose
and the administrative purpose seem to be incompatible within one appraisal system
in the Hong Kong context, so the two purposes should be kept separate.
The study also confirms that the school culture characterized by trust,
collaboration, and valuing teacher growth can encourage the stakeholders to
participate in appraisal more actively. On the other hand, the Chinese cultural values,
i.e. face (mainzi), relation (guanxi) and favor (renqing), seem to be incompatible
with the principles of the school-based appraisal systems as requested by the
government, i.e. open, fair and transparent, and thus obstruct teacher participation in
appraisal. / published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Education
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:HKU/oai:hub.hku.hk:10722/167181 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Chan, Lai-chu., 陳麗珠. |
| Publisher | The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) |
| Source Sets | Hong Kong University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | PG_Thesis |
| Source | http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B47967535 |
| Rights | The author retains all proprietary rights, (such as patent rights) and the right to use in future works., Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License |
| Relation | HKU Theses Online (HKUTO) |
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