Instructors' Evaluation as an Instrument to Improve Performance and Determine Competence

Abstract

Experts in human resources management have suggested common objectives for evaluating performance of all organizations, including motivation and improvement of staff performance, identification of competence and skills, identification of educational needs and developmental contexts, etc. Achievement to these objectives is -a responsibility of evaluation system in any organization. The present article examined a sample of 141 full-time instructors of Kermanshah Azad University during the school year of 2010-2011, with the aim of investigating how much these objectives are achieved from instructor's point of view. The instrument used for collecting data included a researcher-made close-ended questionnaire with 25 items in likert scale and an open-ended questionnaire of 88% validity. To analyze the data, both descriptive and inferential statistics were used. The results indicate that current instructor evaluation system has been successful in noticing student and department managers' opinions about instructor evaluation, instructors' awareness of students' opinion about their performance, determining compatibility of instructors' performance with criteria of professional behavior. But it has no significant place in utilizing colleague's opinions and self-evaluation, improvement of attitudes and educational investigative skill, informing instructors of evaluation results, constructive feedback and using instructors' good research works to evaluate their performance.