The aim of this proposal is to explore how quality, quality assurance and evaluation of school units are connected in the field of school leadership More specifically, the intention is to examine the possibility of making a structural model that examines the interaction being developed between these concepts.

The implementation of quality assurance systems is one of the cornerstones of any educational system, while at the same time is being understood as a way to improve the quality of school units (Buzdar & Jalal, 2019). More specifically, the quality assurance of school units is a mechanism to ensure the provision of high-quality education, to identify and solve problems in the educational system in order to improve its quality. On the other hand, information is collected about the quality of the education provided (European Commission, 2020; Alaba, 2010). Within the framework of quality assurance of school units, quality should be ensured for the main stakeholders of the educational process. The adoption of quality assurance procedures in school units has many advantages, such as the establishment of high standards, the improvement of educational results, the recognition of the strengths and weaknesses of the educational system (Alaba, 2010). Moreover, improving the quality of education is the first strategic objective set by the Council of the European Union for the period 2021-2030 (2021/C 66/01).  

As it is concluded from the above the quality assurance of school units is aimed at ensuring that the objectives set are achieved and includes, among other things, evaluation procedures (Onuma & Okpalanze, 2017). Evaluation of school units is a key component of quality assurance (Eurydice, 2004) and these two concepts appear to be directly linked, as evaluation is one of the procedures that can be used to ensure the quality of schools in conjunction with others, such as the monitoring of the educational system or even the evaluation of teachers (Euridice, 2015).  The association of school quality assurance with school evaluation has been a major topic for many researchers (Gardezi et al., 2023; Onuma & Okpalanze, 2017), but no model of their interaction has been proposed so far.

School leadership is a key factor of quality education in schools as it affects school operations in many ways (Anastasiadou & Anastasiadis, 2019). However, the role of school leadership is also crucial for the quality assurance systems used to support schools (Afriadi et al., 2023). More specifically, school leadership has a positive direct impact on quality assurance (Hartati et al., 2019), whereas there is a direct and indirect effect of leadership on quality (Bellibaş et al., 2020). This intercorrelation can create a dynamic organizational entity with novel opportunities (Shattuck & Olcott, 2022). Last but not least, school leadership has become a critical factor for school evaluation in the effort of making schools more autonomous and more accountable as required in recent years (Pont, Nuche & Moorman, 2008). 

The present research is part of a broader study, which refers to how greek teachers perceive the concepts of quality assurance as well as quality and evaluation of school units. For the needs of the survey a questionnaire was constructed based on the quality indicators that had been the subject of scientific publications in Greece in the last 20 years. The questionnaire was submitted either direct or through e-mails between the time period of May 2021 and April 2022. The sample of the survey consisted of 1095 teachers from public as well as private schools, where 51.9% of the sample was working in primary education and 48.1% in secondary education. Finally, the 82.6% of the sample was working in public schools and respectively the 17.4% in private schools. In the beginning, Exploratory and Confirmatory factor analysis was applied in order to create the model. More specifically, exploratory factor analysis was applied to investigate the factor structure of the scales, as there was no ready-made theoretical model. Confirmatory factor analysis was performed to test whether the data fit the hypothesized measurement model. Additionally, the Cronbach's index was used as a reliability measure, which in all cases was above 0.70. The adequacy of the sample was examined with the statistical index of the Kaiser-Mayer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy (KMO) and the index of sphericity (Barlett's test of sphericity). Last but not least, two significant criteria were taken into account for the adaptation or creation of the scales: a. the percentage of the total variance explained and b. the item loadings of each factor. Therefore, the correlation index of each question with the final result was verified. The method used was the Maximum Likelihood Estimate (MLE). The structural model to examine the three concepts was done using the Structural Equation Modeling. Some indicators were used to assess the good adaptation of the metric and the structural model: the statistical criterion x2 (p >.05), the CMIN/DF index (≤ 3), the CFI indicator (≥ 0, 90), the SRMR index (& ≤ 0, 08) and the RMSEA index (< 0, 08). Finally, the excellence of the final model in terms of reliability, convergence validity and discriminant validity was ensured by the values of Composite Reliability (CR), Average Extracted Variance (AVE), and the Maximum Shared Variance (MSV).

The final Structural Model is supported by indicators that indicate excellent fit. The interpretation of the structural model in the field of the school leadership validates scientifically that the quality objectives significantly affect the objectives of quality assurance (b=0.807, p<.001), which in turn affect the evaluation objectives (b=0.690, p <.001). This finding is considered very important, as no corresponding effect has been identified in another survey. An additional important finding of the proposal is that the school unit quality targets appear to have a negligible impact on the level of education of teachers in terms of school unit assessment (b=0.058, p<.01) and on the degree of education for teachers in terms of the quality assurance of school units (b=0.065, p<.05). Accordingly, it is observed that the degree of training of teachers on the evaluation does not seem to have a great influence on the assessment itself (b=0.108, p<.001), while a major, also, finding is that the level of education of teachers on quality assurance significantly affects the degree to which teachers are educated on the issues of evaluation (b=0.791, p<.001). In conclusion, an interaction was found among the objectives for the quality of school units, their quality assurance and their evaluation, as a direct effect was detected between these concepts. In addition, interesting implications emerged, such as the importance of teacher training in quality assurance and the evaluation of school units.

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