In the last four years school inspection has been adapted as an instrument of external evaluation in each of the 16 German Federal States (Bos, Dedering, Holtappels, Müller, Rösner 2007). Therewith the states are following a trend that has a long tradition in other European countries. Until now empirical findings as to the concept, implementation and effects of school inspection in Germany do not exist. This is the starting point of our contribution: It provides first evidence referring to the connection between the results of inspection and development in the inspected schools – shown at the example of the quality dimension “teaching and learning”. The focus is laid on the question in which way and on which conditions schools make use of the inspection results strategically and as regards content for improving teaching and learning. Moreover we investigate, which measures for the improvement of teaching and learning are planned and implemented. According to the topic of the conference we analyse how teachers become learners based on data of inspection.

At the Institute for School Development Research (Institut für Schulentwicklungsforschung) 300 schools that went through the process of a school inspection during the last two years, were investigated. The study includes a systematic content analysis of the school inspection reports (Mayring 2000). According to their results in the quality dimension “teaching and learning” the schools were divided into three groups: the well, the mean and the bad performing schools. In a second step the investigation used a questionnaire for the 300 schools with open and closed questions about the way the results were used as regards strategy and content. Analyses of the questionnaires result in a comparison of school development strategies in well, mean and bad performing schools.

At the moment data analysis is still in progress. It is expected that the effects of the school inspection results on the school improvement activities primarily vary due to the level that has been reached in the quality dimension, i.e. “teaching and learning”. Moreover, other aspects such as teachers` attitude towards change or the pre-inspectional level or degree of strategic school and teaching improvement are relevant. The results will be related to findings from appropriate empirical studies in the international context (see for an overview: de Wolf, I./Janssens, F. J. G. 2007).