Principals’ Sense-Making of Overlapping Educational Policies on Teaching and Learning in a Centralized Context: Mid-Point Findings

Author(s):

Paul Chua(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2016

Network:

Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)

Format:

Paper

Session Information

ERG SES G 05, Policies and Education

Paper Session

Time:

2016-08-23

09:00-10:30

Room:

OB-H2.12

Chair:

Olena Fimyar

Contribution

Weick’s (1995) and Weick’s and associates’ (2005) theory of sense-making has been utilized to investigate educational problems involving uncertainties and ambiguities in decentralized educational contexts such as in the Anglo-American countries (e.g. Coburn, 2001; Coburn, 2005; Spillane et al., 2002a). Weick’s et al. (2005) conception of sense-making is adopted: a two-part social construction (Berger & Luckmann, 1967) process of “what’s the story here?” i.e. interpretation and “now what should I do?” i.e. implementation.

In this research, the theory of sense-making will be deployed to investigate an educational problem that is situated in Singapore’s centralized context where decisions on resource allocations and curriculum (OECD, 2013) are made by the state, resulting in less “ambiguity about [the] ends and means of schooling”, an observation noted by Spillane (2015). Applying sense-making to a centralized education system is problematic (Spillane, 2015), since schools have less degree of freedom to decide on how to shape teaching and learning and a greater need to make sense and align to the broad central interpretations of the policies under such a contextual condition. As such, this research attempts to investigate how principals make sense of two recent overlapping educational policies on teaching and learning of 21st century competencies (21CC) and Student-Centric, Values-Driven Education (SVE) in Singapore.

This research also attempts to inquire into the factors that shape the sense-making process in a centralized context such as Singapore. From the sampled literature, it was found that both internal and external factors to the principals shape sense-making by principals. This conclusion is not too dissimilar from Spillane et al.’s (2002b) argument that teachers’ response to instructional policy is influenced by individual factors (knowledge, beliefs and emotions), and factors related to the organsiational and social contexts, among other factors. The support for the former point could be found in the fact that Weick (1995) has found that sense-making is driven by one's sense of identity. On the latter point, it should be noted that cognition is situated and contextual i.e. knowing is not solely an individual matter (Greeno, Collins & Resnick, 1986). Rather, an individual’s sense-making is influenced by the larger social and policy context that the sense-making takes place in.

Specifically, this research will exmaine the shaping of the process of sense-making by the principals' values and beliefs, as this aspect of research, while it has been conducted elsewhere, has not been conducted in Singapore schools before. With regards to the external factors, this research will inquire the impact that global trends and developments will have on Singapore principals' sense-making of educational policies, a novel line of research.

The research questions of this inquiry are:

1. How do the experienced secondary school principals make sense of the overlapping educational policy messages of 21CC and SVE in a centralized context?

a. What interpretations do the principals make of the policy messages?

b. How do the principals implement these policy messages in their schools?

c. How do the interpretation-implementation cycle(s) look like?

2. How do factors internal and external to the experienced secondary school principals shape their interpretation and implementation of the overlapping educational policy messages of 21CC and SVE in a centralized context?

a. How do the principals’ values and beliefs (societal, education profession, and moral and human (adapted from Day & Leithwood, 2007)) (internal factor) affect and is affected by the interpretation and implementation of these policies?

b. How do global and national trends and issues facing Singapore (external factor), either directly or indirectly through the school district context, school context and/or the principals’ values and beliefs, shape the interpretation and implementation of these policies by principals?

Method

A multi-case study methodology will be used. An argument will be made to justify for the case study methodology, followed by a justification for a multiple case study approach. To address the research questions, an in-depth understanding of the phenomenon of sense-making by principals is needed. As such, it seems that the case study methodology is appropriate as Creswell (2007) wrote if the intent of the research is “providing an in-depth understanding of a case” (p. 78), the case study methodology is suitable. Arguing from the perspective of research tradition (Bentz & Shapiro, 1998), which is defined as “body of research on a particular subject that has evolved over time, carried out … using a particular methodology …” (p. 90) the use of the case study methodology can again be justified. First, Spillane et al. (2002a) researched and wrote up three cases of “how mid-level managers make sense of … district accountability policy” (p. 731), a research objective that is not too dissimilar from the present one to be undertaken. Second, Coburn (2001), in her research on the sense-making of the Californian reading policy by teachers, used the case-study methodology to tease out the processes and sub-processes involved in the sense-making activity, as case study is a “strategy for documenting organizational processes as they unfold” (p. 147). To answer the questions of this research, especially 1c, the author needs to document the process of sense-making, thus rendering the case study approach suitable. Third, using a more recent research, among the three research questions of the case-study research by Ball et al. (2012), two of them are similar to the ones driving this research. One of them concerns how different individuals “interpret and enact policy …” (p. 11) and the other is: “How … do … contextual factors affect the ways in which schools enact policies” (p. 11). Arguing from the perspective of research tradition (Bentz & Shapiro, 1998) using these three examples, the case study methodology can be claimed to be suitable for use in this research. Given the need to inquire into the shaping of different values and beliefs of principals and the impact of different school/district/global contexts on sense-making, as encapsulated in the theoretical framework, a multiple case design to investigate how principals of different school settings make sense of the educational policies will be adopted for this research.

Expected Outcomes

Among other results, a "limited" version of sense-making is expected. In such a version of sense-making, it is anticipated some of the elements of Weick’s (1995) conception of sense-making will be exhibited. Under such a circumstance, a principal is expected to notice features of the policies in question and develop an interpretation of them and, in his/her mind, check it against his/her past experiences and knowledge, personal values, advice from others, as well as official policy narratives, the values of the profession and society, and other wider contextual factors such as institutional cultures. Any inconsistencies will be detected and the next plausible interpretation of the policies will be developed from the last, in an on-going manner, until it demonstrates sufficient consistency with the principal’s personal identity, as well as the larger policy, profession, organisational and societal contexts. Then, an implementation phase follows, which is mainly concerned with adjusting the implementation to conform to the largely “settled” interpretation, though there could be occasions for minor refinements to the interpretation. Weick’s (1995) elements that are expected to be exhibited include noticing of cues in the policies, the social (e.g. “advice from others) and the on-going nature of sense-making and the development of plausible interpretations of the policies. The element of enactive or creating the environment (Weick, 1995) has less potential to be exhibited as the interpretation of the policies has been largely “settled” and there is no need for the new cues arising from the implementation of the policies to impact on the interpretation, which is a function of the element of “enactive of the environment”. Additionally, there is no need for a retrospective understanding (Weick, 1995) of the policies i.e. after the implementation, as policies have been rationally understood before implementation occurs (Smerek, 2009).

References

Ball, S. J., Maguire, M., & Braun, A. (2012). How schools do policy: Policy enactments in secondary schools. UK: Routledge. Bentz, V. M. & Shapiro, J. J. (1998). Mindful inquiry in social research. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1967). The social construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. UK: Penguin. Coburn, C. E. (2001). Collective sensemaking about reading: How teachers mediate reading policy in their professional communities. Educational evaluation and policy analysis, 23(2), 145-170. Coburn, C. E. (2005). Shaping teacher sensemaking: School leaders and the enactment of reading policy. Educational Policy, 19(3), 476-509. Creswell, J. (2007). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Day, C. & Leithwood, K. (2007). Successful Principal Leadership in Times of Change. Dordrecht : Springer. Greeno, J. G., Collins, A. M., & Resnick, L. B. (1996). Cognition and Learning. IN D. C. Berliner & R. C. Calfee (Eds.), Handbook of educational psychology. New York: Macmillan Library Reference USA. OECD (2013), PISA 2012 Results: What Makes Schools Successful? Resources, Policies and Practices (Volume IV). PISA: OECD Publishing. Smerek, R. E. (2009). Sensemaking and sensegiving: Leadership processes of new college presidents (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Michigan, USA. Spillane, J. (2015). Personal Email Communication. Spillane, J. P., Diamond, J. B., Burch, P., Hallett, T., Jita, L., & Zoltners, J. (2002a). Managing in the middle: School leaders and the enactment of accountability policy. Educational Policy, 16(5), 731-762. Spillane, J. P., Reiser, B. J., & Reimer, T. (2002b). Policy implementation and cognition: Reframing and refocusing implementation research. Review of educational research, 72(3), 387-431. Weick, K. E. (1995). Sense-making in organizations. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Weick, K. E., Sutcliffe, K. M., & Obstfeld, D. (2005). Organizing and the process of sensemaking. Organization science, 16(4), 409-421.

Author Information

Paul Chua (presenting / submitting)

UCL Institute of Education

London Centre for Leadership in Learning

Singapore

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