Teacher assessment: a review of the performance appraisal literature with special reference to the implications for teacher appraisal

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Abstract
Hardly anyone who has read about the teachers’ pay dispute of 1985‐6 can be unaware of the centrality of the issue of teacher appraisal. Government proposals for teacher assessment met with both positive and negative reactions. The general public, including employees in private industry and certain parts of the public sector where staff appraisal is already commonplace, cannot see why teachers whose job, after all, involves assessing and appraising pupils should not be subject to some kind of evaluation of their own competence. In education, on the other hand, there is considerable suspicion about the real intentions of the government in suggesting appraisal at the present juncture, and many believe valid, reliable appraisals of teacher competence will be difficult if not impossible to achieve because of the complexity and variety of demands made on teachers in their professional role. Performance appraisal has been widely practised in both the private and public sectors in Britain and in the USA for 20 to 30 years, and almost as extensively researched. Despite this long experience, there is considerable dissatisfaction with appraisal systems, reflected in a growing literature on new and ‘improved’ approaches. If appraisal is likely to become widespread in schools, the evaluation of appraisal provided in the management literature is clearly relevant to teachers, responsible LEA officers, advisers and policy‐makers.