Emotions and Teacher Responses to Enhanced Teacher Evaluation

• In Event: Roundtable Session 7
  In Roundtable Session: Data Use in Education Policy and Practice

Abstract

Since 2009, 46 states have implemented enhanced teacher evaluation systems that use multiple measures to rate teachers’ effectiveness. The systems are intended to lower teacher ratings overall and increase the dismissal of under-performing teachers. Enhanced evaluation is thus likely to evoke strong emotions among teachers that shape their responses to it. Scant research examines the role that emotions play in these responses. Drawing on interviews with 72 teachers from New Haven, Connecticut, we use Scherer’s affect categories to identify the emotions enhanced evaluation evokes among teachers. Findings show that teachers experience a range of positive and negative emotions in response to enhanced evaluation. These emotions vary by teachers’ ratings and school level shaping how teachers make sense of the system.

Authors

• Morgaen L. Donaldson, University of Connecticut

• Dorothea M. Anagnostopoulos, The University of Connecticut