Using Observational Data to Provide Performance Feedback to Teachers: A High School Case Study

Abstract

Educators face ongoing pressure to improve student outcomes, especially with regard to academic achievement and social behavior. One viable strategy for supporting and improving instructional practices is to conduct classroom observations and provide performance feedback. Researchers have shown performance feedback to be effective in the workplace, institutions, and educational settings. The present case study on a high school teacher provides preliminary promising information of the relevance and effectiveness of the combination of a classroom observation and a performance feedback process that focused on the relations among 3 key variables: classroom instructional settings, instructional practice, and classroom student behavior. The authors used a process based on the observational data that identified when students were off task and pinpointed the corresponding setting categories and the teacher's instructional actions. The authors provided performance feedback to the teacher on the basis of these findings. Then, the teacher made changes in the identified setting categories and teacher actions, resulting in substantial gains in class engagement and a reduction in problem behaviors.