Data-driven decision making has become increasingly important in education around the world and, over the last two decades, in Germany as well. In line with recently modified policies on quality assurance in education worldwide, schools are expected to enhance schooling through systematic use of empirical data. Teachers are therefore expected to interpret and employ data to improve their instructional decisions, schooling in general, and to implement reforms and innovations. National and international research currently provides very little evidence concerning the question which determinants in school organization and structure can play a role in using data and therefore directly influence teachers’ evidence orientation. A few studies, however, suggest that principals’ leadership practice as well as structural conditions influence teachers’ active and successful participation in school and curriculum development (e.g., Schildkamp & Kuiper, 2010; Dedering, 2012).

On the one hand, in terms of school structure elements, schools’ prevailing communication, cooperation, and participation structures are mostly mentioned as potentially influencing teachers’ evidence orientation (Pant & Thiel, 2012; Wayman, Spring, Lemke, & Lehr, 2012; Breiter & Karbautzki, 2012). Recently, findings indicate the influence of school structure characteristics on teachers' evidence orientation (Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, Förster, Preuße, Mater, & Stump, in press). According to this study, especially internal cooperation and participation structures had considerable large effects on teachers' external evidence orientation. Participation structures and external cooperation were identified as predictors of teachers' internal evidence orientation.

On the other hand, the international state of research also indicates a central role of principals in systematic, data-based school development (Levin & Datnow, 2012; Anderson, Leithwood, & Strauss, 2010). It should, however, be noted that this mainly refers to the examination of the influence principals’ leadership styles have on the teaching staff. Several recent studies have determined the influence of the principals’ transformational leadership on teachers’ evidence orientation in decision-making (Stump, Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, & Mater, in press; Wayman et al., 2012). To date, there has been little empirical research on to what extent principals’ evidence orientation as determining their data-wise practice is essential to promoting teachers’ evidence orientation in their classroom practices and, therefore, to sustaining improvement in education. A further look at studies examining conditions for successful school improvement processes shows correlations between principals' practice, especially orientations, and innovation-stimulating attitudes of teaching staff (Buske, 2015; Urton, Wilbert, & Hennemann 2014).

Overall, there has been no simultaneous consideration of the various school organization and school structure elements as well as principals' data-wise practice and their influence on teachers’ evidence orientation. This presentation aims to further examine predictors for teachers’ evidence orientation, with a particular focus on school structures as well as principals’ evidence orientation. Thus, it addresses two aspects: perceived school structures, modeled on the individual level, and the influence of principals’ evidence orientation, modeled on the school level. Overall, the study contributes to the empirical determination which factors may ultimately encourage or obstruct evidence-based teaching practices. So, this study focuses the wider theme of the uses made of assessment results in teaching, evaluation and policy making as it highlights (possible) prerequisites for teachers' evidence orientation, which guides teaching and learning in the classroom.

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