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Principals’ sensemaking and enactment of teacher evaluation

Jessica G. Rigby (College of Education, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA)

Journal of Educational Administration

ISSN: 0957-8234

Article publication date: 5 May 2015

1560

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to look across six first-year principals to investigate their engagement with and sensemaking of specific messages of instructional leadership around teacher evaluation.

Design/methodology/approach

This research project, a cross-case study, was carried out using in-depth qualitative observations and interviews of six first-year principals over one school year. Sensemaking theory was used to analyze both how and the mechanisms through which principals understood their roles as teacher evaluators.

Findings

The results demonstrate that first, principals received a variety of messages about how to conduct teacher evaluations, and second, that connections to specific individuals influenced their associations to specific messages they received about instructional leadership and how they enacted teacher evaluation practices on their campuses.

Research limitations/implications

This is an in-depth qualitative analysis, and therefore is not generalizable to all first-year principals, school districts, or principal preparation programs. However, it adds to the field’s understanding of the meso level of policy implementation, highlighting the process of individuals’ sensemaking and the importance of their informal connections in the associations they make to messages about instructional leadership.

Practical implications

This research adds to the field of principal preparation and induction as it highlights what is important for first-year principals as they build their professional identities. Further, it highlights the variability in principals’ understanding and enactment of teacher evaluation policies, an important feature as this practice is coming to the fore both in current practice and research.

Originality/value

This study adds to an understanding of institutional theory by looking at the interaction between the organizational levels, and further explicates individual actors’ agency within a socio-organizational context. The findings also add to a dearth of empirical studies on the routine of teacher evaluation from the principal perspective.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The author would like to express deep gratitude to the following individuals who supported, edited, and discussed these ideas at length: Cynthia Coburn, Judith Warren Little, Todd LaPorte, Sarah Woulfin, and the Policy Implementation Research Group at the University of California, Berkeley. The author also wishes to acknowledge the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley and Peabody College at Vanderbilt University for financial support of the research and writing of this paper.

Citation

Rigby, J.G. (2015), "Principals’ sensemaking and enactment of teacher evaluation", Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 53 No. 3, pp. 374-392. https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-04-2014-0051

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2015, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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