Behaviorally anchored rating scales: An application for evaluating teaching practice Michelle Martin-Raugh * , Richard J. Tannenbaum, Cynthia M. Tocci, Clyde Reese Educational Testing Service (ETS), 660 Rosedale Rd., Princeton, NJ, 08541, USA highlights  We compared Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales to the Framework for Teaching.  BARS provide behavioral anchors delineating levels of performance.  Nineteen raters, users of the FfT trained to use BARS, evaluated teacher lessons.  We report rater agreement, usability judgments, and preferences for both tools.  Raters, although familiar with the FfT, reported favorable reactions to BARS. article info Article history: Received 25 January 2016 Received in revised form 18 July 2016 Accepted 22 July 2016 Keywords: Behaviorally anchored rating scales (BARS) Framework for Teaching (FfT) Appraisal Evaluation abstract We developed Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales (BARS) for measuring teaching practice, and compared them to the well-established Framework for Teaching (FfT; Danielson, 2013). BARS provide behavioral anchors delineating levels of performance via a set of behaviors. Our BARS focused on two dimensions of teaching, leading a classroom discussion and making content and practices explicit. We examined how a) rater agreement for BARS compares to rater agreement using the FfT, and b) how BARS and the FfT compare regarding perceived ease of use, perceived accuracy, and perceived advantages and disadvantages. Nineteen raters, who are users of the FfT and were trained to use BARS, independently evaluated video-taped teacher lessons using both methods. Rater agreement was higher for the FfT, which may, in part, be a factor of the raters' greater experience with that rating system. Nonetheless, raters reported that there are many aspects of BARS that are desirable. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. There is a great deal of agreement among both researchers and educators that teachers have a large effect on the lives of elemen- tary school students (Harris & Rutledge, 2010; McCartney, Dearing, Taylor, & Bub, 2007), and that effectively measuring teaching per- formance is an important area of inquiry. Recent education reforms aiming to improve student performance have focused, in part, on improving teacher selection, preparation, and evaluation (Goe, 2007). However, there is not yet consensus among educational researchers about the specific indicators that define quality teaching nor, not surprisingly therefore, about the best ways to measure teaching practice (cf. Ball & Hill, 2008). Prior research suggests that traditional principal evaluations of teachers insuffi- ciently differentiate between more and less effective teachers and provide an inadequate foundation for highlighting teacher needs for training and improvement (Danielson, 1996; Medley & Coker, 1987). More rigorous teacher evaluation tools may inform teacher development at crucial junctures, such as certification and selec- tion, and may be used to shape educator training and professional development (Glazerman et al., 2010; Jamil, Sabol, Hamre, & Pianta, 2015; Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, 2010). In this study, we report our efforts to develop and evaluate Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale (BARS), a type of performance rating scale featuring narrative behavioral anchors at scale points (Smith & Kendall, 1963), for use in measuring observed teaching practice for elementary school teachers teaching Kindergarten through 6th grade. The primary purpose of this study is to evaluate the viability of BARS for evaluating teaching practice. Specifically, we describe the development steps and potential benefits of this measure, and compare some of its properties to those of the commonly used Framework for Teaching (Danielson, 1996; 2007; 2013). Our goal is to consider the possibility of using BARS in the * Corresponding author. E-mail address: Mmartin-raugh@ets.org (M. Martin-Raugh). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Teaching and Teacher Education journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tate http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2016.07.026 0742-051X/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Teaching and Teacher Education 59 (2016) 414e419