Description
Book SynopsisThis open access book discusses challenges in school improvement research and different methodological approaches that have the potential to foster school improvement research. Research on school improvement and accountability analysis places high demands on a study’s design and method. The potential of combining the depth of case studies with the breath of quantitative measures and analyses in a mixed-methods design seems very promising. Consequently, the focus of the book lies on innovative methodological approaches.
The book chapters address design, measurement, and analysis developments as well as theoretical and conceptual developments. The relevance of the research presented in the chapters for educational accountability is discussed in the book’s discussion chapter.
More specifically, authors present one specific innovative methodological approach and clarify that approach with a concrete example in the context of school improvement, based on empirical data when possible. In this way, this book helps researchers designing complex useful studies.
Table of Contents1. Editorial, Introduction; A. Oude Groote Beverborg, K. Maag Merki, T. Feldhoff, & F. Radisch.
2. School Improvement Capacity – A Review and a Reconceptualisation from the Perspectives of Educational Effectiveness and Educational Policy; D. Reynolds & A. Neeleman.
3. Why must everything be so complicated? Demands and challenges on methods for analysing school improvement processes; T. Feldhoff & F. Radisch.
4. School improvement Capacity – theory and methodological challenges; K. Maag Merki.
5. Can lacking measurement invariance in school improvement research be interpreted?; M. Sauerwein & D. Theis.
6. The relationship between professional community practices and other school organizational and educational practices in 23 European countries;
C. Lomos.
7. Reframing the nature of inquiry in educational leadership research; D. Ng F. S..
8. Recurrence Quantification Analysis (RQA) as a methodological approach to assess school improvement processes; A. Oude Groote Beverborg, M. Wijnants, P.J.C. Sleegers, & T. Feldhoff.
9. Learning in collaboration: Exploring processes and outcomes through a mixed methods design; G. Devos & B. Vanblaere.
10. Group-actor-partnership-interdependence-model; K. Schudel.
11. The structure of leadership language: Rhetorical methods for studying instructional improvement; R. Lowenhaupt.
12. Designing and piloting a leadership daily practice log: Using logs to study the practice of leadership; J.P. Spillane & A. Zuberi.
13. Editorial, Discussion; A. Oude Groote Beverborg, K. Maag Merki, T. Feldhoff, & F. Radisch.
