Recently school inspections have become an important instrument in managing education. They were implemented for two reasons: to improve and to control school quality. To this day empirical findings do not provide a clear answer to the question whether inspections have a positive or negative impact on school quality improvement. A current summary of the state of research is given by de Wolf and Janssens (2007). Studies on satisfaction suggest that the majority of school principals of inspected schools are satisfied with the inspection of their own school. Side-effects of inspections are mentioned in a number of works. For example stress caused by the visits is pointed out as empirical evidence. But other side-effects like strategic behaviour are described as theoretically plausible but not well empirically explored. Studies on behavioural effects normally confine themselves to statements about which measures will be introduced in future in response to the results of the inspection. The inconsistent picture of the impact of school inspections can be illustrated with studies on student performance, also. While English studies tend to point out the negative effects of inspection on student performance, a Dutch study recently reported a positive effect in relation to student performance (Luginbuhl, Webbink & de Wolf, 2007).

The current state of research is based mainly on British and Dutch studies. This study extends this empirical basis by analyzing German schools. It focuses on inspected schools in the federal states Berlin and Brandenburg, which have a similar inspection procedure.This paper focuses on the hypothesis that schools deal in different ways with school inspection and its results. A theoretical framework was developed by Ehren and Visscher (2006) to systemize different impacts of school inspections and to explain the different effects. They pointed out that feedback should be given differently depending on the type of school. For low innovation capacity schools inspection feedback should include clear instructions for action. In contrast for high innovation capacity schools school inspection should only feedback strengths and weaknesses to promote an autonomous development.

Referring to Ehren and Visscher’s theory and the current heterogeneous empirical findings the research questions for this study are the following two:

0. How do school principals and teachers perceive school inspections and inspection reports? And if there are differences: Can we identify types of reaction patterns to school inspection?
0. Do aspects of school quality change after an inspection? And if so, is school improvement predicted by the types of schools identified in the first step?

De Wolf, I. F. & Janssens, J. G. (2007). Effects and side effects of inspections and accountability in education: an overview of empirical studies. Oxford Review of Education, 33 (3), 379-396. Ehren, M. C., & Visscher, A. J. (2006). Towards a theory on the impact of school inspections. British Journal of Educational Studies, 54 (1), 51-72. Luginbuhl, R., Webbink, D., & de Wolf, I. (2007). Do school inspections improve primary school performance? The Hague, NL: CPB.