One School’s Approach to Overcoming Resistance and Improving Appraisal: Organizational Learning in Action

Abstract

This article reports on the action research (AR) approach adopted by one New Zealand (NZ) primary school to review and improve its appraisal system. Historically the staff had demonstrated considerable negativity towards appraisal. The classic reconnaissance, implementation and evaluation phases of AR were adopted by the case study school as a rigorous approach for improvement. A particular emphasis in this article is on the outcomes of the evaluation phase of the AR where the school lead team and an independent evaluator conducted a review of the effectiveness of the improvements via survey, a focus group interview and documentary analysis. Strong positive feedback was provided on the effectiveness of the lead team AR activity, as well as the outcomes associated with the appraisal system. Respondents’ suggestions for further improvement were combined with those linked to documentary analysis to identify areas for further enhancement of rigour in the system. These suggested enhancements have led to a subsequent iteration of improvement in the school that strongly locates the latter as a learning organization (LO), which demonstrates the openness and commitment to development also associated with organizational learning (OL).