Building a participative data-based methodology for school change

• Grant number: 15/02625-3
• Support Opportunities: Improvement in Public Education Program
• Start date: July 01, 2015
• End date: January 31, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Education - Educational Planning and Evaluation
• Principal Investigator: Tel Amiel
• Grantee: Tel Amiel
• Host Institution: Núcleo Interdisciplinar de Informática Aplicada à Educação (NIED). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Dulcinéia Aparecida Ribeiro ; Matthew Taylor ; Richard P. West ; Wilmara Alves Thomaz

Abstract

This project has as its objective to implement and investigate a novel public school improvement methodology. The analysis of the school as an organization has gathered interest by researchers who aim to promote school improvement through systemic analyses. In this project we begin with a systemic perspective focused on "school climate" evaluating and promoting conditions for learning, teaching and community support, while promoting the values of openness to transformation and innovative practices. We make use of previously validated instruments to evaluate the perspective of all school actors (parents, student, staff, administration and teachers) regarding school climate. Once analyzed the data is used by a representative group that defines goals and actions based on these data. Researchers and collaborators locally document strategies, successes and difficulties, returning these analyses to the representative group. This methodology begins as part of a research project conducted for over a decade with hundreds of schools in the United States, and a pilot project conducted in Brazil between 2012-2014 in partnership with two public schools. It also benefits from recent post-doctoral studies by the proponent at Utah State University (USA). Here, we aim to formalize the research project collecting and analyzing longitudinal data (both qualitative and quantitative) in a systemic fashion. We aim to develop a sustainable methodology that can engage school actors in order to define, implement and evaluate change to their practice, and in time, foster openness to innovation and change in school organization. (AU)