ABSTRACT
Introduction In today’s era of reform in education, appraisal of performance has become a fact of life for teachers, principals and administrators. Almost daily, one seems to meet someone in education who is ready to chat about his or her recent appraisal experience. The stories vary from, ‘It was great!’ to ‘We simply went through the formalities’, to ‘I felt totally inadequate, put down or demeaned!’—depending on who is telling the story and his or her perspective on the appraisal experience. Similarly, there is also no shortage of ‘how to do it’ resource material on the task of appraisal. The process is now embedded in many education systems and this is certainly true in New Zealand.
