Experience of preschool educators and counselors with the implementation of self-evaluation

Janez Vogrinc and Vesna Podgornik

Summary:   Conducting self-evaluation research essentially contributes to ensuring the quality of educational work because it allows for the internal quality control of an institution and reflection on the extent to which the goals and objectives have been achieved. Self-evaluation provides feedback on the implementation of the educational program, enabling further actions to be planned. Implementation of self-evaluation also fosters the professional development of teachers, improving their knowledge and understanding of their own teaching. This paper presents the results of empirical research that included 72 counselors and 398 teachers from 89 preschools. The aim of the research was to determine the frequency and manner in which educators and counselors in Slovenian preschool implement self-evaluation. The vast majority of educators and counselors considered the implementation of selfevaluation to be very important or important for their profession. Educators, on average, estimated that they were most qualified for setting the self-evaluation goals (substantive planning what to evaluate, etc.), whereas counselors ranked highest their ability to write reports and inform the public (other educators, parents, etc.) on their self-evaluation findings.