Trusting the Teacher: Evaluating Educational Innovation

Abstract

The efficacy of and ethical justification for applying positivist research principles to the evaluation of social processes such as education are being increasingly challenged. Recent work in educational evaluation has tried to meet this challenge by moving the focus towards understanding the impact of projects and innovations on their recipients and by encouraging self-evaluation. However the dominant form of educational evaluation still involves judgements made through the eyes of the external evaluator and the connotation persists of evaluation as the external monitoring of professional practice. This article suggests that in the case of educational programmes, initiatives and innovations the focus of judgement should move from the evaluators to the practitioners and the former should find a new role in supporting the professional development of the latter.

Keywords

autonomy instrumental evaluation processual evaluation professional development self-evaluation

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Anderson, G. L. (2002) ‘Reflecting on Research for Doctoral Students in Education’ , Educational Researcher 31(7): 22-25 .

Black, C. and J. D. Delong , eds (2002) Passion in Professional Practice, Action Research in Grand Erie. Ontario: Grand Erie District School Board .

Cullingford, G. (1999) An Inspector Calls: OFSTED and its Effects on School Standards. London: Kogan Page .

Darling-Hammond, L. and P. Youngs (2002) ‘Defining “Highly Qualified Teachers”: What does “Scientifically-based Research” Actually Tell Us?’ , Educational Researcher 31(9): 13-25 .

Denzin, N. K. and Y. Lincoln (1994) ‘Entering the Field of Qualitative Research’, in N. K. Denzin and Y. Lincoln (eds) The Handbook of Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage .

Department of Education and Science (DES), Ireland (2003a) Looking at Our School, an Aid to Self-evaluation in Primary Schools. Dublin: Department of Education and Science .

Department of Education and Science (DES), Ireland (2003b) Looking at Our School, an Aid to Self-evaluation in Second Level Schools. Dublin: Department of Education and Science .

Earley, P. , ed. (1998) School Improvement after Inspection? London: PCP .

Elliot, J. (1995) ‘Self Evaluation and Teacher Competence’ , Irish Educational Studies 14: 1-12 .

10.

Heywood Metz, M. and R. N. Page (2002) ‘The Uses of Practitioner Research and Status Issues in Educational Research - Reply to Gary Anderson’ , Educational Researcher 31(7): 26-28 .

11.

I-Probe.net (n.d.) ‘Self Evaluation, Create a Mirror for Your School’ at http://www.I-Probe.net.

12.

Kushner, S. (2000) Personalizing Evaluation. London: Sage .

13.

MacBeath, J. (1999) Schools Must Speak for Themselves: the Case for School Self-evaluation. London: Routledge .

14.

McDonald, B. (1996) ‘How Education Became Nobody’s Business’ , Cambridge Journal of Education 28(2): 241-249 .

15.

McNamara, G. and J. O’Hara (2001) ‘Process and Product: Issues in the Evaluation of School Development Planning’ , Evaluation 7(3): 99-119 .

16.

McNamara, G. , J. O’Hara and S. Griffin (2003) ‘Vision in the Curriculum: Evaluating Expressive Objectives’ , Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, IL, 21-5 April.

17.

McNamara, G. , J. O’Hara and B. Ni Ainglis (2002) ‘Whole School Evaluation and Development Planning’ , Educational Management and Administration 30(2): 201-211 .

18.

McNiff, J. (with J. Whitehead) (2002a) Action Research in Practice. London: Routledge Falmer .

19.

McNiff, J. (2002b) ‘Evaluating Information and Communications Technology: New Ways of Evaluating New Ways of Knowing’ , Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, 1-5 April. Available at: www.jeanmcniff.com (site visited: 3 September 2004).

20.

Norton Grubb, W. (1999) ‘Improvement or Control? A US View of English Inspection’, in G. Cullingford (ed.) An Inspector Calls, pp. 70-96. London: Kogan Page .

21.

O’Hara, J. and G. McNamara (1999) ‘Evaluation - Business or Vocation?’ , Evaluation 5(4): 73-77 .

22.

Schollaert, R. (2002) In Search of the Treasure Within, Towards Schools as Learning Organisations. Antwerp: Garant .

23.

Schon, D. (1983) The Reflective Practitioner. London: Temple Street .

24.

Schon, D. (1988) Educating the Reflective Practitioner. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass .

25.

Schon, D. (1995) ‘Knowing-in-action: the New Scholarship Requires a New Epistemology’ , Change (November-December): 27-34 .

26.

Slavin, R. E. (2002) ‘Evidence-based Education Policies: Transforming Educational Practice and Research’ , Educational Researcher (7): 15-21 .

27.

Smith, N. L. (1998) ‘Designing Investigative Evaluations: Problem Solution Versus Client Responsiveness’ , Evaluation 4(2): 117-129 .

28.

Stake, R. E. (2002) ‘Responsive Evaluation’ , Paper presented at an Evaluation Master Class Workshop, Coventry, 9 April.

29.

Stern, E. (2002) ‘Making Evaluation Useful and Usable’ , Paper presented to the Irish Evaluation Network, Dublin, 29 November.

30.

Stoll, L. and D. Fink (1996) Changing our Schools. Buckingham: Open University Press .

31.

Weiss, C. (1998) Evaluation: Methods for Studying Programmes and Policies, 2nd edn. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall .

32.

Whitty, G. (2002) Making Sense of Education Policy. London: PCP .