Evaluating Special Educators' Classroom Performance: Does Rater Type Matter?

Classroom observations remain the predominant data source used in teacher evaluations, but little is known about how rater characteristics may affect teachers' scores. For special educators, whose instructional practice requires specialized knowledge and skills, school administrators (i.e., the raters) without experience in special education teaching may not be able to provide reliable and unbiased scores. This study included three school administrators who viewed and scored the classroom teaching of 19 special educators in California and Idaho; individuals with special education teaching experience also scored a subset of the instructional lessons. Generalizability study analyses revealed that the school administrators were not consistently reliable scorers of the special education teachers' instruction. The school administrators were also more lenient on average in their ratings than peer teacher raters. Findings from this preliminary investigation suggest that rater background may matter, and future studies should explore how specific rater characteristics such as background and experience affect special educators' performance ratings.