Attitudes of social studies supervisors and teachers towards teachers' evaluation system in Saudi Arabia

The purpose of this study was to measure the attitudes of supervisors and teachers who teach social studies in Riyadh's boys' public high schools towards Saudi Arabia's teacher evaluation system. The researcher measured the teachers' and supervisors' attitudes regarding the fairness, accuracy, and usefulness of the evaluation system in Saudi Arabia. The researcher sought to determine whether teachers and supervisors believe that they understand the criteria and purposes of the teacher evaluation, whether they had participated in development of the form used for the evaluation, and whether they had been involved in the development of the teachers' evaluation system. Data was collected from 110 social studies high school teachers and 25 social studies supervisors in Riyadh city during the month of May 2002. Respondents indicated their level of agreement or disagreement with specific statements based on a five-point Likert scale. Most of the respondents do not think that the teacher evaluation system reflects the actual teachers' abilities. Both groups were not satisfied with the supervisors' level of awareness concerning the statements of the evaluation form and the accuracy of the supervision results. Both groups believed that the evaluation form has to be modified. They also believed that teachers do not benefit much from teacher evaluations. The respondents do not recommend that the evaluation be administered more than once a year. Based on the results, the researcher recommended that the teachers' evaluation system has to be clarified for use by teachers and supervisors. There is a need for the teacher evaluations system to reflect the actual teachers' abilities. Also, the supervisors should explain the benefits and advantages of teacher evaluations to the teachers.