Principals’ actions to improve quality in public education: a case study about MBA syllabus outcomes in Rio de Janeiro

Author(s):

Esther Lück(presenting / submitting)Sandra Mariano Ligia Elliot Fernando Pinho

Conference:

ECER 2017

Network:

26. Educational Leadership

Format:

Poster

Session Information

26 SES 04.5 PS, General Poster Session

General Poster Session

Time:

2017-08-23

12:00-13:30

Room:

W4.corridor (Poster Area)

Chair:

Contribution

Since 1990, educational policies have been aligned with state reforms following changes in the global economy. Educational policies incorporated public management methodologies based on efficiency criteria and strategic planning. In addition, it led to the dissemination of educational reforms emphasizing efficacy, accountability, quality, assurance and assessment. Several countries have shaped the education sector in different ways. Uljens et al. (2012) emphasize that ongoing shifts indicate the tendency of welfare states to assume mutual positive effects between economic growth, welfare, political and cultural citizenship, and the state having a central role. Considering that principals have a great role to play in this context, research with focus on school leadership has increased, like studies lead by Moos (2011), Day (2011), among others. In terms of the roles of principals, Day, Gu and Sammons (2016) underlined that the capacity to understand and make a precise diagnosis of the school’s needs and abilities to articulate and organize contextsensitive strategies contributes significantly to school improvement and effectiveness over time. The Brazilian government recognized that quality was a central ingredient to country development and modernization, and established an educational policy based on assessments and evaluations. The preparation and interpretation of large-scale assessments is a very complex task, and due to the multiple uses of the assessment results, teachers need to know more about the process and its methodological grounds in order to discuss and criticize results in a more informed way. Teachers should not only say: external evaluations don’t translate all the efforts that schools and teachers made to overcome the barriers that emerge inside and outside the school environment, etc. This kind of complaint appears when we discuss external assessments and its appropriate use by schools and teachers in our continuing educational program titled MBA on Education Leadership and Management targeting public school principals. The MBA is an 18 months certificate program offered by Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This program initiated in 2012 as part of state government policy in Rio de Janeiro to increase education quality in teaching and learning in their schools. Until 2016, 2.751 students participated in the program. A triple partnership gave official support to this program: the state government of Rio de Janeiro offered the agreement, the Federation of Industries of Rio de Janeiro provided financial support, and UFF, through the Department of Management and Entrepreneurship, undertook the academic responsibility to design and develop the MBA (Costa e Silva, Mariano and Cerqueira, 2013). In 2014, the MBA created a new syllabus called Educational Assessment and School Quality (AVED), which presents and discusses large-scale assessments established by national and local governments. This way, principals can learn methodological foundations and processes to decide which assessments need to be done, and which serve their purposes (Gatti, 2002; GAME, 2011; Moos, 2011; Luckesi, 2012). In addition, teacher professional development became a topic strongly related to multiple evaluation processes (Moos, 2011; Morgado, 2011; Pacheco, 2004). The present study is a second part of a research developed about how school principals perceive AVED objectives and achievements. The purpose of this study was to develop a qualitative analysis to identify how principals perceived the benefits of their participation in AVED syllabus thru the description of one concrete action/activity they are invited to report. This analysis was intended to determine whether AVED’s objectives were reached and whether they had helped principals to improve education quality in theirs schools.

Method

The survey involved 371 public schools’ principals and the data was collected in 2015 upon completion of AVED syllabus. A web-based software called ‘survey monkey’ was used to collect the principals’ answers. The instrument adopted was a questionnaire that had two parts: the first part consisted of several questions to identify the main contribution of AVED to support the school principal’s work and resulted in a quantitative analysis that was already reported. This study used the second part of the instrument, which consisted of the following open-ended question: Considering the reality of your school, describe one action/activity you developed in your school which you are convinced that is associated with the program’s content you have studied in AVED, and also describe the results that you have obtained with this action/activity. The principals described one specific action that he or her perceived to be a consequence of their participation in the AVED syllabus. As suggested by Minayo (2010), the method used was lexical analysis, based on counting the frequency of words and expressions that have relevance or significance for the study’s objectives. According to Minayo (2010), the frequencies allow to consolidate the application of a theme, which in turn is possible to situate the context of the ideas brought by the word and expression used in the text to be analyzed. In each action presented by a principal we identified all the relevant words and expressions that describe the nature of the action and the results that principals reported as having been reached. After putting these words or expressions in alphabetic order, it was possible to identify the extension of relevant issues focused by the described actions. Subsequently, a deeper analysis was made in order to group the identified words and expressions into categories that represent a consistent classification of the nature of the actions and their results. The study found seven categories from actions, namely 1) valuing external assessments; 2) planning and execution of school support activities; 3) pupil’s tutoring; 4) communication with family members; 5) pedagogy innovation; 6) shared management; and 7) teacher professional development. From the results, the study found also seven categories, namely 1) better understanding of the assessment processes; 2) better results in the school; 3) better teacher performance; 4) better school administration; 5) better school environment; 6) greater participation of family members; and 7) greater commitment of teachers to the quality of education.

Expected Outcomes

The findings from this research indicate that principals who participated in the AVED syllabus of the MBA program had assimilated the methodological foundation and processes such that assessment tests and their items were built to a satisfactory level. Consequently, principals attained an adequate perception of the purpose and the limits of external assessment and of the right way to use the results to establish good strategies in order to improve teaching and learning quality in theirs schools. Thru the actions described by principals, the study also revealed a significant improvement in school administration and in external and internal academic evaluation scores. The results can be divided into two groups: technical results and behavioural results. Among the technical results presented we cite score improvements and attaining goals established previously for external assessments, and progress in approval rates and bimonthly student grades. In the behavioural area, we observed a greater commitment to and awareness of educational practices, greater participation by the parents in the schooling of their child, improvement in the school environment and administration, teachers that are more motivated to understand the assessment processes, and greater interest by the entire academic body – faculty and students – to perform external assessments. The results have demonstrated that, despite the timid progress of education quality improvements in public schools, this is a slow process that needs to be continuously monitored by the government and by the society.

References

COSTA E SILVA, Fabiane; MARIANO, Sandra R. H.; CERQUEIRA, Joana D’Arc. 2013. Formação empreendedora de diretores de escolas. In: Anais do EnANPAD, 37. Rio de Janeiro, 2013, 13 p. Available at: http://www.anpad.org.br/admin/pdf/2013_EnANPAD_EPQ1799.pdf DAY, C., et al. (2011). Successful school leadership: linking with learning and achievement. Berkshire: McGraw Hill. DAY, C., GU, Q and SAMMONS, P, 2016. The impact of leadership on student outcomes: how successful school leaders use transformational and instructional strategies to make a difference. Educational Administration Quarterly. 52(2), 221258  GATTI, Bernadete 2002. Avaliação educacional no Brasil. EccoS Rev. Cient, UNINOVE, v. 4, n. 1, p.1741, July 2002. GRUPO DE AVALIAÇÃO E MEDIDAS EDUCACIONAIS (GAME) 2011. Avaliação externa como instrumento da gestão educacional nos estados – Relatório final. Belo Horizonte: UFMG, 2011. Available at: http://www.fvc.org.br/pdf/relatorioavaliacoesexternas.pdf ELLIOT, Ligia Gomes; LÜCK, Esther Hermes, 2014. Avaliação educacional e qualidade na escola. Rio de Janeiro: SESI/RJ; UFF, 2014. LÜCK, Esther Hermes; PINHO, Fernando. 2014. A voz dos professores: contribuições para projetos de formação inicial e continuada de professores. Seminário Estadual da ANPAERJ, 4. Niterói, April 2426, 2014. 18p.  LUCKESI, Cipriano Carlos 2012. Educação, avaliação e inovação – II. Brasília: MEC/INEP, 2012. (Textos para Discussão, 37). MARIANO, Sandra R.H.; COSTAESILVA, F.; MORAES, J. 2016. Brazil: Leadership in Brazil, In Arlestig, H., Day, C., & Johansson, O. (ed.), A Decade of Research on School Principals: Cases from 24 Countries. Springer. ISBN 9783319230269. Chapter 21. P. 445469. MINAYO, Maria Cecília de Souza, 2010. O desafio do conhecimento: pesquisa qualitativa em saúde. 12th ed. São Paulo: Hucitec, 2010. MOOS, Leif; JOHANSSON, Olof; DAY, Christopher, 2011. How school principals sustain success over time: international perspectives. London: Springer, 2011. (Studies in Educational Leadership, v.14) MOOS, Leif; JOHANSSON, Olof; DAY, Christopher. How school principals sustain success over time: international perspectives. London: Springer, 2011. (Studies in Educational Leadership, v.14) MORGADO, José Carlos. Identidade e profissionalidade docente: sentidos e (im)possibilidades, 2011. Ensaio: aval. pol. publ. Educ., Rio de Janeiro, v. 19, n. 73, p.793812, Oct/Dec 2011. Available at: http://www.scielo.br/pdf/ensaio/v19n73/04.pdf   PACHECO, José Augusto, 2004. A (difícil) construção da profissionalidade docente. Revista do Centro de Educação, UFSM, v.29, n.2, 4p., 2004. Available at: http://coralx.ufsm.br/revce/revce/2004/02/a1.htm ULJENS, Michael et al. 2012. The professionalization of Nordic school leadership – a challenge to teacher professionalism? 40th Nordic Research Association Congress. Copenhagen, March 810, 2012.

Author Information

Esther Lück (presenting / submitting)

Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil

Sandra Mariano

Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil

Ligia Elliot

Fundação CESGRANRIO, Brazil

Fernando Pinho

Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil

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