Qualitative Research as a Foundation for Developing School Leadership Development

Author(s):

Ruth Jensen(presenting / submitting)Kirsten Foshaug Vennebo(presenting)

Conference:

ECER 2016

Network:

26. Educational Leadership

Format:

Paper

Session Information

26 SES 06 B, Advancing the Concept(s) of Educational Leadership

Paper Session

Time:

2016-08-24

15:30-17:00

Room:

OB-E1.19

Chair:

Marit Aas

Contribution

There is a huge literature on “evidenced-based practice”(Kvernbekk, 2011). The concept is used in many areas such medicine and education of policy-makers, practitioners and researchers. An argument is that practice should be based on our best knowledge of “what works”. Such approach could be conceptualized as, what Maxwell (2004) calls, the “regularity” approach to causation. The argument is that we cannot observe causation, only the regularities in the relationships between events: If x, then y etc., which might be a question of systematic relationships between variables. The regularity approach entails variable-oriented research (Engeström, 2011). The school effective tradition (Firestone, 1994; Firestone & Riehl, 2005; Hallinger & Heck, 2010; Leithwood & Jantzi, 2005; Mulford & Silins, 2003; Simkins, Coldwell, Close, & Morgan, 2009) has been one of several traditions using variable-oriented research. The tradition has been concerned with causal relationships between several variables in where leadership development, which is in focus in the present paper, is one of several factors that are supposed to effect student result. An assumption is that leadership development should be designed in accordance with our best knowledge about what kind of leadership development that works to effect leadership, which in turn effects student outcome.

By contrast to out-come based approaches, researchers who are positioned within the school improvement tradition (Fullan, 1992; Hargreaves, 1995) have focused on how to change conditions of schooling to improve educational productivity. The dominating data sources have been qualitative data within this tradition. However, questions of causality have attained little discussions in the qualitative literature on leadership development, methodologically. As such, the purpose of this paper is to provide enriched insight into if, and in case of how qualitative research could serve as a foundation for developing school leadership. In particular the paper aims 1) to problematize the concept “evidence-based practice” in relation to school leadership development, 2) to present three layers of causality in human action with reference to Engeström (2011), and 3) to illustrate how causation might be interpreted from an agentive layer grounded in re-analyzed processes-data from an empirical study.

The empirical study, which this paper refers to (Author 1, 2014), examines how leadership evolves in an interprofessional team of school leaders, administrators and researchers. The team was formed to support the school leaders in leading a local school improvement project and is thus considered to be an arena of leadership development. During a two-year period, the team examined several situations in the local project at the implications of leadership. Different types of school data, such as video-clips from classroom practices, observation notes, evaluations etc., often introduced by the researchers, served as a departure point of collective exploration. The study is based on process- data from the interactions in the team. The study is grounded in CHAT (Engeström, 1987).

CHAT offers an explicit set of analytic concepts for studying organizational phenomena as emerging constituents of object-oriented activity, giving virtue to the understanding of the complex relations involved in their origin. Hence, a CHAT approach provides an opportunity to study in-depth how evolving leadership development is constituted in the interplay of individuals, purposes, and tools to the affordances and constraints of the context (Author 2, 2015).

We have chosen third-generation of Cultural Historical Activity (CHAT) as a departure point for the re-analysis of the data to study expansive learning (Engeström, 1987) in the team. In CHAT development is understood as qualitative transformations of objects mediated by tools. Expansive learning and double stimulation constitute analytic concepts in the paper.

Method

As mentioned, the present study is built on data from a larger study. The study was designed as a longitudinal so-called panel study (Bryman, 2012) because it sought to examine how leadership evolves in a particular team consisting of the same people over two years. The study consist of ethnographic documentation in the form of 25h of audio- and video -recordings from the 10 workshops of the team. Video and audio data constitute ethnographic data, documentation of what happens in situ (Heat and Hindmarsh, 2002), which provides us with an opportunity to take an analytic approach beyond observation and field notes. The audio and video-recordings are transcribed. The present paper uses transcriptions from the entire data as a point of departure for the analysis to trace sequences of events. The study has a developmental approaches aimed to contribute to school leadership development by triggering learning processes in the team through the help of different physical tools. Thus, physiological tools are included in the data corpus along with 25 hours of audio and video data. Consequently, the study has an interactional approach. The data corpus was reconstructed into 34 episodes in accordance with what was being worked on in team in situ (Author 1, 2013). A new episode was delimited by a thematic start or a shift pertaining to the problem space (situational objects). The episodes, which include all interactions in the team, constitute sequences of events. For this paper we use interaction data from six episodes when re-analyzing the interactions. By showing excerpts from the data analysis in the context of CHAT, we illustrate how causation is analyzed from an agentive layer.

Expected Outcomes

First, the outcome of problematizing the concept “evidence-based practice” is that the authors come up with different ways of using the term. We also argue, with reference to Kvernbekk (2011) why evidence-based-practice might be a misguiding term. The argument is that practice is not based on evidence, but practice is based on a hypothesis/theory that is supported by evidence. Another aspect is that hypothesis/theory is not supported by evidence alone, but often by other sources to fill in the gap because there is a need of for other types of knowledge such as contextual knowledge, experiences etc. In the argumentation we refers to example within the literature on school leadership development, especially in Europe. Second, by presenting three layers of causality with reference to Engeström (2011), the paper nuances how causality could be interpreted in an “interpretive layer”, a “contradictory layer” as well as an “agentive layer”. Third, by illustrating how causation might be interpreted from an agentive layer grounded in the aforementioned empirical study (Author 2014), the findings exemplifies how the introduction of an issue and the introduction of an evaluation report mediated a redefined evaluation practice in two primary schools, and how another issue and the introduction of a structure for problem-definition became conducive for new leadership approaches in a lower secondary school. The paper is a methodologically contribution to the research on school leadership development because there is a need of widening up how qualitative research can serve as a foundation for developing school leadership development other from self-reports.

References

Author 1 (2013) Author 1 (2014) Author 2 (2015) Bryman, A. (2012). Social research methods. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Engeström, Y. (1987). Learning by expanding: An activity-theoretical approach to developmental research. Helsinki, Finland: Orienta-Konsultit. Firestone, William A. (1994). Redesigning teacher salary systems for educational reform. American Educational Research Journal, 31(3), 549-574. Firestone, W. A, & Riehl, C. (2005). A new agenda for research in educational leadership: Teachers College Press. Fullan, M. (1992). Successful school improvement: The implementation perspective and beyond. McGraw-Hill Education (UK). Hallinger, P. & Heck, R. H. (2010). Collaborative leadership and school improvement: Understanding the impact on school capacity and student learning. School Leadership and Management, 30(2), 95-110. Hargreaves, D. H. (1995). School culture, school effectiveness and school improvement. School effectiveness and school improvement, 6(1), 23-46. Heath, C., & Hindmarsh, J. (2002). Analysing interaction: Video, ethnography and situated conduct. In T. May (Ed.), Qualitative research in action (pp. 99–121). London: Sage Publications. Kvernbekk, Tone. (2011). The concept of evidence in evidence-based practice. Educational Theory, 61(5), 515-532. Leithwood, K. & Jantzi, D. (2005). A Review of Transformational School Leadership Research 1996–2005. Leadership and Policy in Schools, 4(3), 177 - 199. Maxwell, J. A. (2004). Causal explanation, qualitative research, and scientific inquiry in education. Educational researcher, 33(2), 3-11. Mulford, B. & Silins, H. (2003). Leadership for Organisational Learning and Improved Student Outcomes—What Do We Know? Cambridge Journal of Education, 33(2), 175-195. Simkins, T. ,Coldwell, M., Close, P. & Morgan, A. (2009). Outcomes of In-school Leadership Development Work A Study of Three NCSL Programmes. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 37(1), 29-50.

Author Information

Ruth Jensen (presenting / submitting)

University of Oslo

Kirsten Foshaug Vennebo (presenting)