Educational research has traditionally focused on trying to answer two basic questions: 1) which educational policies improve children's participation in the educational process and 2) which educational policies improve the quality of education offered to children.

Recent developments, changes and reforms in European education systems dictate the necessity of new approaches to investigating factors that significantly influence the process of school improvement. Undoubtedly, school culture has been at the heart of a variety of educational researches considered as a systemic factor of school improvement and school’s self-development. Until recently, educational research has tended to identify it as positive/non-toxic, negative/toxic and categorise it according to a variety of criteria, formulating this way different models of school culture. The systems approach defines it as an emergent phenomenon shaped by the decision-making processes and the decision-making premises which contribute to the absorption of uncertainty in every system’s structure but not in every function of the system.

The systems approach adopted in this research focuses on the definition and the specification of decision and non-decision premises in three domains, in the area of programmatic decisions, communication channels and personnel. It treats school culture as a phenomenon that is influenced and therefore shaped by these factors but at the same time feeds back on them, making it specific, unique and different in each school unit. It is argued, that school culture is utilized as a means of the autopoietic process of the system, the process of change, evolution and improvement of an educational organization developing at the same time double contingency relationships.

The autopoietic nature of the organisation differentiates the internal dimension of culture that emerges within the system, from another possible dimension of culture which may 'communicate' with and influence the external environment of the organisational system.

The complexity in the structure of an educational organisation does not allow the development of a homogeneous order of meaning. The presence of different groups shapes a dynamic that in turn develops complex 'patterns' and combinations of subcultures. This characteristic of school organisations intensifies the need for a systems approach, while the qualitative and complex dimension of school culture dictates the need for school culture itself to be explored as an emerging and evolving phenomenon.

The need to investigate school culture based on systems theory dictated the development of a qualitative research methodology that focuses on exploring the three factors influencing and shaping the emerging phenomenon of school culture and particularly that which is developed by the teacher and school management. 

The purpose of this paper is to study the validity and reliability of a research tool which aims at qualitatively observing and investigating teacher’s school culture through conditions of system decisions and therefore influencing the self-evaluation and self-improvement process.

Considering that the system consists of elements that are linked together in a dynamic way and produce an outcome, create a whole or influence other elements within the system, the 2022 OECD report underlines the need to adopt a systems approach to educational research methodology. The adoption of mixed approaches significantly enhances research, making it more "holistic and interpretatively rich". It is no longer enough to ask "what works?" without being able to answer "why?", "where?" and 'how?'. Prominent thinkers of systems theory such as Luhmann (2000) have emphasised the need to shift from 'first-order observation' to that of 'second-order observation'. This research makes an attempt to highlight the particular importance of qualitative, empirical research and participant observation as a data collection technique within the context of the case study. The three areas that comprise the conditions of decision making and decision premises and contribute to the emerging phenomenon of school culture are explored: - Programmatic decisions - Structural processes - Personnel An observation tool is firstly developed to investigate the school culture phenomenon. The tool functions as a first-order observation tool. It aims at investigating programmatic decisions (strategies, vision, goals), structural processes (flow of communication channels), values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviours by the participating teachers themselves. In the context of structured observation , the instrument is constructed by combining two observation systems, that of "category systems" and "rating scales". Participants are further asked to support their choices with comments and observations for each assessment. The survey sample is based on data from the educational process of the school year 2022-2023 school year. Considering the particular emphasis of systems theories on the participant observer, the pilot survey of the tool is implemented in a small secondary school unit in a semi-urban area and is applied and completed by the participating teachers and headteachers of the school unit.

The multidimensional form of the phenomenon of school culture and its complex investigation has discouraged the development of research in recent years. The approach to the phenomenon by systems theories makes it even more complex and poses another challenge. However, it has constantly been acknowledged that school culture is a key factor in the self-development and self-improvement of educational organizations. Its qualitative dimension dictates a particularly careful systemic approach and its further investigation through the adoption of qualitative data collection techniques. The development of an observation tool based on a systems approach to the term may investigate the phenomenon qualitatively and systemically. It may function as an additional tool with the aim of achieving the improvement of an educational organization. Primarily, however, it can be evaluated as a first attempt in order to develop, in the course of the research, a complete tool being used in the examination of school culture using a more systemic approach such as that of 2nd order participant observation.

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