Effectiveness of Teacher Performance Appraisal and Development on Teacher Professionalism in Public Junior Schools in Tana Delta Sub-County, Kenya

Teacher professionalism, reflected in ethical conduct, instructional delivery, punctuality and adherence to professional standards, underpins the quality of schooling, and in Kenya the Teachers Service Commission’s Teacher Performance Appraisal and Development (TPAD) tool, introduced in 2016, is the employer’s main instrument for strengthening it. This article reports how five TPAD components, namely self-appraisal, lesson observation, continuous professional development (CPD) linked to identified gaps, feedback and performance target setting, relate to teacher professionalism in public junior schools in Tana Delta. The study was anchored on Locke and Latham’s Goal Setting Theory and used a convergent mixed methods design. Fourteen of the 45 public junior schools were sampled by proportionate stratified random sampling and 40 of 265 teachers were selected. Of these, 39 teachers returned questionnaires (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.925), 12 institutional administrators, 10 deputies and the Sub-County Director were interviewed, and lesson observations were conducted in the 14 schools using a structured schedule. Quantitative data were analyzed in SPSS Version 27 using descriptive statistics and regression at the 0.05 level of significance; qualitative data were analyzed thematically. Teachers agreed that CPD (4.36 to 4.49) and performance target setting (4.26 to 4.49) strengthen their professionalism, and were more divided on self-appraisal (3.15 to 4.56) and lesson observation (3.51 to 4.41). CPD linked to identified gaps had the strongest relationship with professionalism (R² = .777), followed by performance target setting (.721), feedback (.663), lesson observation (.595) and self appraisal (.396). Observed lessons averaged 75.4% of the maximum score and were weakest on the use of teaching and learning resources (61.1%). The administrators reported inflated self-appraisal scores, feedback that was mostly informal, observations not logged on the TPAD portal, and inadequate ICT infrastructure. The study concludes that TPAD is positively associated with teacher professionalism in these schools, with the strongest contribution coming from gap-targeted CPD and target setting, while self-appraisal, feedback and lesson observation depend on the quality of implementation. It recommended that , the Teachers Service Commission and institutional administrators should standardize self appraisal and feedback practices, improve lesson observation guidelines and address infrastructural constraints such as unreliable internet connectivity and inadequate ICT facilities in order to strengthen TPAD implementation in Tana Delta Sub County and similar ASAL areas. Keywords: Teacher Performance; Appraisal Development; TPAD; Teacher Professionalism; Continuous Professional development