School self-evaluation has become more and more important for the quality assurance of educational systems of many OECD countries. Since the eighties a variety of self-evaluation practices have emerged. Also, several goals have been ascribed to school self-evaluation: on the one hand accountability to central authorities or local stakeholders, on the other hand stress on the potential for school improvement. Recent recommendation by OECD indicates the need to align external evaluation with school self-evaluation in order to improve school quality.

Despite the growing attention toward school self-evaluation, research on this topic is still lacking and far from being exhaustive. Little attention has been given to assess the impact of self-evaluation on school improvement. Research evidences suggest that school self-evaluation is perceived as positive from school leaders and teachers; its usefulness concerns mainly the potential for improving teachers attitudes toward  professional development and toward school improvement.  On the other hand, there are unsufficient findings that school self-evaluation has a positive effect on students’ outcomes. Some studies evaluated the use of feedback in self-evaluation that aims at  improving school performance. These findings show a limited use of such feedback by schools. Other studies have pointed out the problem of validity and reliability of the self-evaluation process carried out by schools. Blok et al. (2008) analyzed school self-evaluation reports  finding significant shortcoming. The self-reports did not seem to be useful as a basis for accountability or for school improvement. A way of improving school self-evaluation validity is to connect it with external evaluation procedures. According to Nevo (2002), external evaluation can stimulate the internal evaluation process and improve its scope and validity. However, it has been pointed out that externally initiated self-evaluation may decrease school compliance and thus many of its positive impact on schools. Also, school self-evaluation that mainly focus on the measures of productivity or output can have paradoxical effects on teachers and schools: it might lead to resistance, destroying strategic compliance.

Literature reserach shows that, despite positive views of school self-evaluation, more research is needed on the quality of the process of self-evaluation carried out by schools in order to assess its validity and its use in the context of schools’ and students’ outcome improvement. Given the increasing importance attributed to school self-evaluation by national policies and by schools themselves, assuring validity is the basic requirement for expecting a positive impact on improvement.

Starting form such concerns, our study intended to assess the quality of the self-evaluation process carried out in 290 Italian schools involved in the Vales project. The Vales project, promoted by the Ministry of Education and by the National Institute for the Educational Evaluation of Instruction and Training (INVALSI) is a pilot study aimed at testing the validity of instruments and procedures for school evaluations, it is a preliminary step in the implementation of the National Evaluation System (enacted in 2013 which extend school evaluation to all Italian schools). Vales schools implemented self-evaluation and then received a visit by a team of external evaluators. Self-evaluation and external evaluation were strongly connected: first of all, they shared the same theoretical framework. Schools were asked to analyze the same areas evaluated by external teams, using the same set of indicators. School self-evaluation was supported by INVALSI; the schools received data about their performance in several areas (students’ achievement, educational and management processes) and information about national average data to compare their position; they also received a self-evaluation report format and a sourcebook. Self-evaluation reports were then used by external evaluators as one of their sources of information during school visits.

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