The Context and Process for Performance Evaluations: Necessary Preconditions for the Use of Performance Evaluations as a Measure of Performance—A Critique of Perry

Abstract

This article challenges Perry's research using performance evaluations to determine whether the educational background of child welfare workers is predictive of performance. Institutional theory, an understanding of street-level bureaucracies, and evaluations of field education performance measures are offered as necessary frameworks for Perry's findings. Performance evaluations are insufficient absent a discussion of the link between organizational goals, supervisor training, practice protocols, and performance measurement tools. Three questions inform this critique and examples from child welfare practice illustrate the ways performance measures in this study may actually be a measure of organizational stasis and pressure to conform to practice as it has been.