In the world of teacher evaluations, there exist a relationship between how teachers feel about their practice (i.e. self-efficacy) and their perception of the quality of feedback they receive from their administrators. This relationship consists of two significant elements: specificity and value. Both specific feedback and valued feedback influence how teachers perceive their own practice, and ultimately how they move forward in their growth.
You see, teaching is a practice. Just as lawyers and physicians continually practice their craft, so do teachers. To enhance a teacher’s consistent, positive growth, they need to have a strong self-efficacy of instruction and be encouraged by those who support them. Improving teaching self-efficacy can yield not only greater confidence in teaching practices, but also enhance their ability to self-improve. In this ever changing educational landscape, we need teachers to have growth mindsets and a high capacity to self-improve. Ensuring that specificity and value are focal areas of the feedback process is critical to building teacher capacity in these areas.
So what does this look like? Specific feedback (as opposed to general feedback) has been defined as feedback related to observations provided by an administrator to a teacher that addresses certain instructional related events or incidents that were observed in practice. Specific feedback in the teacher evaluation process focuses on strengths and weaknesses of practice and is related to either pedagogy or content. Specific feedback includes a variety of statements or explicit dialogue in relation to certain instructional strategies (pedagogy) employed during observed lessons, content related issues, or suggestions for improvement related to either. By receiving specific feedback, the teacher is able focus on particular aspects of their practice that have been identified as being notable either for their strength or weakness.
Administrators who provide specific feedback are more likely to build trust with teachers. Increased trust fosters teachers’ willingness to utilize evaluation feedback for self-improvement. Once trust has been established between the teacher and the administrator providing the feedback, the teacher is more likely to perceive evaluation feedback as valuable during the observation process. Teachers are more inclined to be receptive and responsive to feedback which can lead to establishing a learning cycle that begins with active performance reflection, acceptance of the feedback, pursuit of targeted professional development, and a growth-mindset.
Linking specificity and value: Feedback specificity can improve teacher perceptions of the value of evaluation feedback, enrich their reflection on practice, and enhance targeted professional growth opportunities. Consistently incorporating specific feedback in evaluation practices can lead to higher levels of teacher self-efficacy and increase the value teachers place on the evaluation process. The high value that teachers place on useful and impactful feedback can propel their instructional practice improvement efforts to greater achievements with classroom instruction. A teacher who has a high level of instructional practice self-efficacy has greater potential to positively impact the students they teach. A successful evaluation process should include a focus on the specificity of feedback and the processes through which teachers come to value feedback from their administrator.
Reference: Teacher Evaluation Feedback and Instructional Practice Self-Efficacy in Secondary School Teachers (Smith et al., 2020)