Teacher Collaboration for Mandated Accreditation: A Case Study of Evaluating the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program

This qualitative case study investigates how teachers work together to complete the evaluation for a mandated accreditation of a program at one school. Specifically, the study describes the participants’ experiences of completing the evaluation, the effects of the evaluation on a school’s program as perceived by the participants, and the future of program evaluation. Qualitative data were collected in the form of document review, participant survey and interviews of evaluation team members. The evidence from the study shows that the majority of participants find the evaluation of the program transformative for their practices. Five major findings as suggested by the case study can be summarized as follows: (1) participants in this study find that their perceptions of completing the evaluation are influenced by the context of the specific school, their own experience with the given program, the personal relationships that exist between the leadership team and the teachers and among teaching colleagues, and the larger community of stakeholders situated in a specific culture; (2) the freedom to change practices and determine what is needed for the given school is crucial in how participants view the impact of an evaluation; (3) respondents’ perceptions of the intentions and abilities of the internal evaluation leaders may have some effect on how they view their evaluation experiences; (4) participants express the desire to determine what aspect of their program is most useful for them to evaluate, when to gather what data, and how to report their findings to their networks; and (5) participants argue that self-assessment is a regular function of continuous performance monitoring and a natural part of the learning climate where professional conversations lead to change. Implications from this study suggest that the context of the evaluation and the individual characteristics of the teachers can have an effect on how they perceive the collaboration required for the evaluation and how much value they place on engaging in these mandated processes. School leadership needs to establish a learning climate that supports the collaborative professional development of teachers. Suggestions for areas of further research are included at the end of the study.Ph.D