School evaluation in Norway has traditionally been used as a tool for development. The purpose of the paper is to discuss how external school evaluation is used for organizational learning. The reseach question is: How does school use external evaluation as a tool for organizational learning?

Theoretical framework is based on a review of organizational learning, where some common aspects of organizational learning make the structure of the analysis. The four aspects are collective learningprocesses, inquiry and feedback, interpretation and responding and higher levels of learning. Based on the analyzes I discuss hoe the school experienced the external evaluation, how they interpreted the results, how they followed up the results and how they experienced change, increased knowledge and learning.  

Argyris, C., & Schön, D. A. (1978). Organizational learning: a theory of action perspective. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley. Collinson, V., & Cook, T. F. (2007). Organizational learning: improving learning, teaching, and leading in school systems. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. Cousins, J., & Leithwood, K. (1986). Current empirical research on evaluation utilization. Review of Educational Research, 56(3), 331 - 364. Cyert, R. M., & March, J. G. (1963). A behavioural theory of the firm: Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Dewey, J. (1997). How we think. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publ. Emstad, A.B., & Robinson, V.M.J. (2011) The role of eadership in evaluation utilization: Cases from Norwegian primary schools. Nordic Studies in Edication, 31 (4), 245-247 Fiol, C. M., & Lyles, M. A. (1985). Organizational learning. Academy of management review, 803-813. Hammerness, K., Darling-Hammond, L., Bransford, J., Berliner, D., Cochran-Smith, M., McDonald, M. (2005). How teachers learn and develop. In L. Holly, P., & Hopkins, D. (1988). Evaluation and school improvement. Cambridge Journal of Education, 18(2), 221-245. Huber, G. P. (1991). Organizational learning: The contributing processes and the literatures. Organization science, 2 (1), 88-115. Kim, D. H. (2004). The link between individual and organizational learning. I K.Starkey, S. Tempest & A. McKinley. How Organizations Learn–Managing the Search for Knowledge, s.29-50. Levitt, B., & March, J. G. (1988). Organizational learning. Annual review of sociology, 14, 319-340. MacBeath, J. E. C., & McGlynn, A. (2002). Self-evaluation: what's in it for schools? London: RoutledgeFalmer. March, J. G. (1991). Exploration and exploitation in organizational learning. Organization science, 2 (1), 71-87.. Schildkamp, K., Vanhoof, J., & Petegem, V. (2011). The use of school self-evaluation results in the Netherlands and Flanders. British Educational research Journal, Weiss, C. (1998). Have we learned anything new about the use of evaluation? American Journal of Evaluation, 19(1), 21-33