Inspectorates monitor and stimulate the quality of education on the basis of a system of school audits. These audits usually lead to professional insecurity, anxiety and stress among teachers (de Wolf & Janssens, 2007; Gray & Gardner, 1999; Penninckx & Vanhoof, 2015). When teachers’ conceptualizations of well-nourished ideas and practices are being questioned, teachers were found to lose their self-confidence and were being pushed to ignore their own professional ideas (Jeffrey and Woods, 1996; Perryman, 2009). In suchlike circumstances, teachers experienced strong negative emotions and feelings of stress, anxiety, anger, despair, depression, humiliation, grief and guilt (Jeffrey & Woods, 1996; Kelchtermans & Deketelaere, 2016). Other research has shown that an inspection visit affects the professional self-understanding of teachers (Kelchtermans, 2009). The concept of professional self-understanding refers to the whole of beliefs of teachers about themselves and can be divided into five components: self-image, self-esteem, job motivation, task perception and future perspective (Kelchtermans, 2005, 2009). Whereas positive emotions usually lead to satisfaction and a bright future perspective, negative emotions cause ambiguity and tension in the professional self-understanding of teachers. Ouston, Fidler, and Earley (1997) described a devastating effect on teachers’ professional self-esteem in schools that were judged to be failing. Also, the (emotional) impact on the professional self-understanding is mediated by the professional context and structural working conditions such as the schools’ policymaking capacities (Kelchtermans, 2005).

According to Ehren & Visscher (2008) school characteristics, such as policymaking capacities, are hypothesized to have a strong influence on teachers’ reactions on the inspection. This indicates that exactly the interplay of individual aspects of emotions and professional self-understanding on the one hand and school characteristics on the other hand may help to understand the impact of inspections. Although researchers (Nias, 1996; Schmidt & Datnow, 2005) have long been aware of the relationship between emotions and professional self-understanding, we embarked on this topic with the aim of bringing clarity to the field of teacher emotions and professional self-understanding in the context of school inspections:

a)      Which emotions do teachers experience during the inspection visit?

b)     What is the relationship between the experienced emotions and the impact of the inspection visit on the teachers’ professional self-understanding?

c)      How is the impact of the inspection visit on the teachers’ emotions and professional self-understanding mediated by the school’s policymaking capacities and the inspection’s judgement?

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