Session Information
26 SES 06 B, Teacher Leadership and Teachers' Dealings with Educational Leadership
Paper Session
Contribution
This paper aims to explore Norwegian lower secondary school teachers’ use of, and attitudes towards national test results at the local school level. Whether it is within high-stake or low-stake accountability contexts, teachers and school leaders seem to have varied experiences, knowledge and beliefs about how to make use of national test results. The accountability aspect of national testing policies and school leaders’ interference relate with studies in the field of accountability policies, which have found that teachers’ beliefs about and capacity for data use are disconnected to each other. (e.g. Datnow & Hubbard, 2016; Young, 2006; Ingram, Seashore Louis & Schroeder, 2004). Some experience they lack the ability to use the results to inform instruction, others find the test results irrelevant for their students (Author 1, In process).
The logic of accountability-driven development involves school leaders to interfere to improve teacher practice so that student performance comes closer to accountability targets (Hallinger, 2005). Hence, the question how teachers actually experience school leadership and requirements for making use of national test results at the local school level needs to be further investigated.
Accordingly, the paper addresses the following questions: (1) How do teachers perceive their principal’s facilitating work with national test results? (2) How do the teachers use the national test results - individually and in teacher teams? And (3) What attitudes do the teachers have towards national tests?
The Norwegian Accountability Context
National tests were introduced in Norway for the first time in 2004. Due to compelling criticism from researchers and public opinion to reduce the developing amount of league tables based on the results, the tests were reintroduced in Norway in 2007 after one year’s break in 2006 (Roe, Lie et al. 2005; Mausethagen, 2013). The relaunching of the tests took place with far less criticism, even though the public league table practice was continued. The relaunching included adjustments regarding reduction of subjects tested and the levels of students receiving the tests. These adjustments were made in order to meet the intention that the test results could serve as tools for formative assessment, and not only represent summative assessment.
Theoretical framework: According to Blase & Anderson (1995) the world of schools is a political world of power and influence, bargaining and negotiation. They claim that the micro politics of educational leadership affect the working world of teachers (Blase & Anderson, 1995). It has been stated that an important way to be effective in organizational settings is to cultivate and use one's social and political skill, and to build on the ability to influence, convince, and control others (Ferris et al., 2002; Mintzberg, 1983). The quality of school leadership is likely to be influenced by the degree of accomplished coherence between their own leadership agendas and the policy agenda set by the authorities (Youngs et al., 2011). In accomplished coherence, there is mutual influence and a principled combination of internal and external policy agendas (Seashore Louis & Robinson, 2012, p. 631). One of the reasons why reliance on outside-in approaches proves insufficient is that even when a policy is technically coherent or consistent it may not be experienced as such by school leaders and teachers in the local school (Honig and Hatch, 2004).
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Author 1, In review. Author 1 & Colleague, 2016 Blase, J., & Anderson, G. (1995). The micropolitics of educational leadership: From control to empowerment. Teachers College Press, Columbia University, 1234 Amsterdam Ave., New York, NY 10027. Datnow, A., & Hubbard, L. (2016). Teacher capacity for and beliefs about data-driven decision making: A literature review of international research. Journal of Educational Change, 17(1), 7-28. Ferris, G. R., Anthony, W. P., Kolodinsky, R. W., Gilmore, D. C., & Harvey, M. G. (2002). Development of political skill. Rethinking management education for the 21st century, 3-25. Hallinger, P. (2005). Instructional leadership and the school principal: A passing fancy that refuses to fade away. Leadership and policy in schools, 4(3), 221-239. Honig, M. I., & Hatch, T. C. (2004). Crafting coherence: How schools strategically manage multiple, external demands. Educational Researcher, 33(8), 16-30. Ingram, D., Seashore Louis, K., & Schroeder, R. (2004). Accountability policies and teacher decision making: Barriers to the use of data to improve practice. Teachers College Record, 106(6), 1258-1287. Lie, S., Roe, A., Kjærnsli, M., & Turmo, A. (2001). Godt rustet for framtida?: norske 15-åringers kompetanse i lesing og realfag i et internasjonalt perspektiv. Institutt for lærerutdanning og skoleutvikling, Universitetet i Oslo. Mausethagen, S., Skedsmo, G., & Prøitz, T. (2016). Ansvarliggjøring og nye organisasjonsrutiner i skolen – rom for læring? (Emerging ccountability and the introduction of new organisational routines in the school system: room for learning?). Nordiske organisasjonsstudier, 18(2). Mintzberg, H. (1983). Power in and around organizations (Vol. 142). EnglewooCliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Downloaded: 2. Desember 2016: http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/-?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=134841&silo_library=GEN01 Seashore Louis, K., & Robinson, V. M. (2012). External mandates and instructional leadership: school leaders as mediating agents. Journal of Educational Administration, 50(5), 629-665. Young, V. (2006). Teachers’ use of data: Loose coupling, agenda setting, and team norms. American Journal of Education 112(4), 521–48. Youngs, P., Holdgreve-Resendez, R. T., & Qian, H. (2011). The role of instructional program coherence in beginning elementary teachers' induction experiences. The Elementary School Journal, 111(3), 455-476
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