Researchers at Harvard University are conducting a study called The Best Foot Forward Project to determine the accuracy and usefulness of teacher observation via video instead of in person. This report describes the first-year results of a randomized controlled trial of the project. As part of the study, 162 teachers were randomly assigned to an experimental group tasked to video their classroom performance for a year and send in five clips of their choice for feedback to 51 randomly assigned administrators who received training in video observation. The administrators were each assigned three teachers to evaluate. The results were then compared to 50 administrators and 185 teachers assigned to a control group who underwent in-person observation, as they had done in the past. Teachers were matched on years of experience, race/ethnicity, gender, and their schools' test scores.

Results of the first year of implementation included:

A smaller study was completed to determine if using videos that a teacher chooses could mask a teacher's true performance. A group of external observers used the Classroom Assessment Scoring System to compare videos that teachers did not submit to videos that they did. Results showed that teachers' strengths and weaknesses were consistent among submitted and not-submitted videos.
 

Researchers concluded that video observations offer several advantages over in-person observation: it reduces teacher anxiety and increases their perceptions of fairness; it promotes more congenial post-observation meetings between administrators and teachers than in-person observation; videoed teachers are more likely to make behavioral changes; and it allows administrators to perform evaluations on their schedule. The study is continuing and will examine the effects on student achievement of teacher behavioral changes following video observations and feedback.

Johns Hopkins University 

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