Jihyun Kim Examines How Teachers Perceive Their Teacher Evaluation Policy

Teachers' perceptions of these policies impact instructional improvement and teacher behavior.

Teacher evaluation policies, a key element of education policy at both state and national levels, can provide teachers with valuable information about their instructional practice and how they might improve. However, if a teacher does not consider the evaluation process or the feedback it produces valuable or valid, says Jihyun Kim, the teacher will not make the instructional changes an evaluator recommends, rendering the evaluation ineffective. 

According to Kim, motivation is key. 

Kim, an assistant professor of educational leadership, studies the interaction between education policy and people. Sometimes, she says, policy discourse is separated from the everyday life of students and teachers. If teachers, the individuals who enact the policy, are not motivated to act, the policy will fail. Kim seeks to bridge the gap.

Kim says policy discourse is sometimes separated from the everyday lives of those who enact the policy. 

In a 2019 paper in the journal Teachers College Record, “Developing the ‘Will’: The Relationship between Teachers’ Perceived Policy Legitimacy and Instructional Improvement,” Kim and colleagues Min Sun of the University of Washington and Peter Youngs of the University of Virginia focus on how teachers’ perceptions of teacher evaluation policies influence their efforts to improve their instruction. The paper is one of the first to assess the degree to which teachers’ perceptions of teacher evaluation policies influence changes in their instruction.