The effectiveness of the current female teacher performance evaluation system on female teacher performance improvement

With the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s (KSA) 2030 Vision launch, the Ministry of Education (MoE) has declared that human resources are indispensable among the most imperative factors for the success of any institution. From this standpoint, a teacher is at the root of any important achievement or transformation in society. Therefore, teachers need a performance evaluation system to ensure the continuation of professional development. Enhancing such a system may impact both the improvement of teacher performance and the outcomes of general education by helping to provide favourable conditions for the professional growth of the teachers. With careful consideration of the organization in the institution context, recent research shows that teacher evaluation is used as a method for professional development. Hence, the evaluation of teacher performance has been used as a strategic instrument in many nations to raise standards of teaching and pupil progress (Ryu 2020). The primary goal of this study is to determine whether the performance evaluation system is appropriate for fostering female teachers' professional development in terms of the clarity and accuracy of the current teacher performance evaluation (TPE) model, the role of administrative oversight of an evaluation process and also the mechanisms used in the evaluation process. The second goal elicits in-depth teachers’ views on their development and needs, as well as the availability of the provision of means, training, and learning with technologies. In addition, the importance of providing feedback will also be investigated. Thus, our study will focus on the theoretical background and the development of the teacher performance evaluation processes, including the standards, models, training and tools used for the evaluation purpose.

A mixed-method approach was employed to gather quantitative and qualitative data including a combination of quantitative (questionnaires) and qualitative (semi-structured interviews) methods in 33 schools of Riyadh city. Riyadh, the most populous city in Saudi Arabia and serves as the capital, with a population of more than 8 million—constituting a quarter of the country's total—it is more practical to conduct this study in that location. Riyadh also has a diverse population made up of both Saudis and non-Saudis, which may enable the collection of richer and more varied data. In addition, the Ministry of Education and the Primary Office for overseeing instructors are located in Riyadh, which is also where most circulars, rules, and orders pertaining to TPE are placed. Furthermore, the education system in the KSA is characterized by centralization, wherein schools across all sectors adhere to uniform regulations established by the Ministry of Education. Consequently, the educational settings exhibit consistency and uniformity throughout all regions of the KSA and the researcher received approval from the Ministry of Education to carry out this study in the Riyadh region's schools due to her work in the education sector there.

In the first phase, questionnaires were distributed among 100 teachers of different specialities working in elementary, middle, and secondary schools. The second stage of the research entailed conducting one-on-one in-depth interviews with eight principals in order to better analyse the problems and elements involved in teacher performance evaluation. The link, effect, and harmonies between TPE and Saudi teacher performance were discovered through statistical analysis and the semi-structured interview analysis. The crucial focus on augmenting teacher performance holds significant importance, attainable through the enhancement of evaluation mechanisms' quality. Nevertheless, given the context of official educational reforms and recent progressions within KSA, a contention arises that the prevailing system might not align adequately with the current requisites of educators.

The results of the present study indicate that the TPE model has to be recast and re-developed more coherently since some of its components are unclear and imprecise as it is executed to evaluate all teachers across all specialities. Also, the TPE system's operational mechanism is inefficient since it begins operation late in the year and lacks due professionalism. In addition, despite being responsible for the majority of the TPE procedures, it was discovered that the principals themselves had not received sufficient training in this area. Although training programs were widely accessible for teachers, they did not satisfactorily reflect on teacher development and had not been tested for the evaluation of the training effectiveness. Indeed, insufficient access to educational and technological resources has hindered efforts to enhance performance and elevate the overall quality of education. Moreover, the feedback provided by school principals and supervisors has proven to be unsuitable and lacking in the necessary depth to effectively assist teachers in improving their performance. The level of professional competence among educators has been notably deficient, primarily because professional growth has been contingent solely on the courses made available to them. One of the study's primary findings is the discrepancy between the teachers’ actual output and the performance evaluation score as given and reported by Riyadh school principals. The KSA uses national and international student tests on an annual basis to determine student level in international standards, however, the teacher evaluation process did not include the student Value-Added Model which demonstrates student growth learning outcomes. The particularly notable finding of this study was that the teachers in KSA schools exhibit high motivation and job satisfaction, resulting in a robust professional identity and an openness to development and change.

In conclusion, the mechanism through which the Saudi TPE system functions may be viewed as inefficient and unfit for purpose of addressing 21st-century teacher needs and expectations.