ABSTRACT
This chapter explores research and theory from psychology to illuminate important dynamics of teacher evaluation. Cognition, emotion, sensemaking, and motivation are central to teacher evaluation. Whether the aim of teacher evaluation is to hold teachers accountable or to spur their improvement through feedback, reflection, and learning, cognition plays a major role in the assessment of teachers. Through evaluative processes, teachers and their evaluators perceive stimuli in the environment, interpret these stimuli, and make decisions based on them. As evaluators—often principals—interpret teacher evaluation policies, make meaning of teacher evaluation rubrics and other artifacts, generate ratings for teachers, and construct and deliver feedback to teachers, they engage in sensemaking. Educators’ emotional states may affect how they provide or receive critical feedback. Lastly, teacher evaluation systems often have both extrinsic and intrinsic motivational mechanisms. The psychological constructs of cognition, sensemaking, emotion, and motivation thus play important, interrelated roles in teacher evaluation and form the basis of this chapter.
