Educational institution
For educational institution to deliver the best instructions to students, the best teachers must be hired. For the principal to determine if their teachers are, the conduct of performance appraisal is needed. The said tool is one the evaluation techniques used by the management to determine the level of competence of their employees. Without the conduct of such, an educational institution continues to employ incompetent teachers. However, there are employees who are in favor of the said tool and there are also those who do not.
The underlying issue here is not the tool per se but on how it is conducted. Some reasons why others have a negative perception of performance appraisal is the documented tension between the summative purposes and the formative purposes of the appraisal and evaluation scheme. A study was conducted to find out the degree in which the principals meet accountability purposes in addition to the developmental purposes which is preferred by most teachers. The respondents of the study were secondary school principals who belong to a national organization.
The questionnaire given to the respondents was divided into five sections: opinion of the principal on their desire of the performance appraisal; the requirements which can result into an effective performance appraisal; the description of the system to be put in place; the overall rating of the effectiveness of such tool and the consequences they experienced. Of the 188 questionnaires returned, 90% indicated that their staffs were appraised. A total of 95% of the respondents said that it was required for schools to conduct performance appraisal. The remaining 5% said that ‘sometimes’ performance appraisal is desirable.
None of the respondents actually rejected the conduct of such. With this, it must be noted that most principals were satisfied with the implementation of a performance appraisal system. Section II: Key Learning Points The study on the principals’ perspective on the conduct of a performance appraisal system, aims at knowing the effectiveness of the secondary school principals in their belief that the meet the new requirements to appraise their staffs. It must be noted that in the conduct of the study, principals were asked to rate possible requirements for the conduct of an effective performance appraisal.
With this, there are three possible purposes that have to be considered. The first is the determination of the administrative requirements of the principal. Inclusive in the requirements are the performance of the staff which can inform successive goals of the institution and the determination of the promotion of the staff as well as basic competency. The second set of purpose includes the requirements of the staff. And most importantly the conduct of the said performance appraisal must meet the accountability and staff requirements of the state.
It must be noted that the principals strongly rejected and disagreed on the use of appraisal for the identification of the staffs’ competency promotion. The current status of the system shows that 34% of the principals are in favor of developmental and accountability purposes of their current performance appraisal system while the remaining 66% nominated developmental accountability only. Some principals gave a higher rating on the importance of holding staff accountable as a requirement of an effective performance appraisal system.
Hence, this shows a consistency of the beliefs of the principals regarding the important requirement to have an effective performance appraisal system. Section III In the Consequences Experienced section, I would like to quote on the statement: “Purposes are those reasons for which the evaluation process is initiated. Effects are those results of the evaluation process. Effects may or may not be related to the initial purposes of the process, but they are always related to the activities or practices undertaken as part of the evaluation process”.
I would like to personally make a statement about such item which I strongly believe to be very true. In the conduct of any strategic action for an organization, there is always a purpose behind it. The purpose may serve as the guiding principle of the organization as to what they want to achieve. In the process of an evaluation system, I believe the purpose behind the conduct of a performance appraisal system is to know the capability and competence of their teachers. This must be done in order to ensure students that the educational institution has, indeed, employed the best teachers.
The effects of the said performance appraisal system may be used by the management and the principle to determine who among the teachers need more training and exposure in the field and who among them need to be appraised and valued. The results of the evaluation are also beneficial to the teachers since they know in what particular aspect they need to improve themselves. Teachers, on the other hand, must constructively accept whatever the results of the evaluation are.
And in order to attain the best results of the conduct of such process, the management and the principal must use and implement strategies to ensure results are factual and existent. Section IV: Critical Analysis For educational institution, it is best to conduct a regular, semi-annual, performance appraisal system to know how the teachers are performing in their assigned field. The conduct of such may also be a basis for teachers to improve themselves. In relation to this, the research that was conducted was an avenue for the secondary principals to comment and suggest on how performance appraisal must be done.
The research conducted was also a good input for any other type of organization in relation to the processes which need to be incorporated to have an effective performance appraisal system. The results of the research conduct simply show that principals have a consistent belief with regards to the importance of conducting a performance review and the important requirements to include in the review process. Moreover, the results of the research can be used by other institutions as a basis to come up with items which can result into a more effective and efficient performance review process.
In the conduct of a performance appraisal system, there are certain activities in which any management must comply with to ensure an effective conduct of the process. These activities include designing a valid performance review process, designing a standard form of performance appraisal, to conduct a regular performance review to all employees, give employees an opportunity to suggest updates of their job description, document all inputs, conduct performance appraisal meetings, update and finalize the performance appraisal form and to keep employees informed of the updates.
(McNamara, 2008) With this, I believe that for organizations to succeed, regardless of what type of organization it is, it is very much important to conduct a performance appraisal and review process to continuously monitor how employees are performing. Section V: Application to the UAE Case The results of the research conducted can be used by the UAE government to improve their conduct of performance appraisal. It can also be used as a basis to enhance the performance of the teachers in the secondary level.
In addition, educational institution in UAE may now start implementing and conducting performance appraisal review in the regular basis to provide a constant monitoring to all their teachers. This is also an avenue for the teachers to seek improvements for the benefit of the school as well as of the students. Section VI: Learning From the article by Helen Timperley, I have learned and discovered how important it is to conduct a performance appraisal and review among employees.
In my personal point of view, a performance appraisal system is the best tool to constantly monitor and review if employees are performing their assigned duties and responsibilities and also if employees are working towards achieving the goals and objectives of the entire organization. One good thing which was specified in the article was the conduct of a research among secondary school principals. I believe performance appraisal is commonly done in some organizations but less applied by educational institution, most especially in the secondary level.
The conduct of such research is a good input for secondary principals and schools to practice and implement performance appraisal reviews to motivate teachers to perform better. Performance appraisal is one good motivation strategy to ensure that teachers always seek for improvement even outside the four walls of the classroom. Reference: McNamara, C. (2008). “Basics of Conducting Employee Performance Appraisals”. Retrieved on April 25, 2009 at [WWW] http://managementhelp. org/emp_perf/perf_rvw/basics. htm.
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