School Leaders’ Cognitive, Affective and Behavioral Attitude Towards Data Use

Author(s):

Kristin Vanlommel(submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2013

Network:

11. Educational Improvement and Quality Assurance

Format:

Paper

Session Information

11 SES 04 JS, Leadership for the Quality of Education

Paper Session
Joint Session with NW 26

Time:

2013-09-11

09:00-10:30

Room:

D-311

Chair:

Helene Ärlestig

Contribution

In the Flemish educational context, data use for school improvement is rather new. There is, however an international trend that emphasizes the importance of data-driven decision making. International research indicates that school leaders play a critical role in making data use a reality (Krüger, 2007). Not only do they define the goal and the expectations concerning data use, they also provide the conditions needed for the use of data. Only, school leaders often have no clear view on how to use data for school improvement and they often differ a lot in their attitude towards data use (Earl & Fullan, 2003; Earl & Katz, 2006; Krüger, 2007; Saunders, 200). This means that school leaders have to develop new knowledge, skills and attitudes: they have to develop a critical, scientific mind and enough data literacy to use data (Earl & Katz, 2002). This study investigates the attitude of school leaders concerning data use and the factors that influence this attitude.

As attitudes will guide decisions and behavior, a multicomponent model will be used to examine the attitude of school leaders (Sanbonmatsu & Fazio, 1990). Concerning this model, attitudes have a cognitive, affective and a behavioral component. The cognitive component includes that part of the attitude that determines the way the person understands and thinks about data use. The affective component is the part of the attitude where people experience emotions and make decisions based on what they are feeling. The behavioral component is the way the attitude influences how we act or behave. To get a good insight in the attitude of school leaders, these 3 components will be examined separately.

Another possible explanation for differences in (attitude with regard to) data use among principals relates to the external expectations which principals perceive regarding the need to work with data (Verhaeghe, Vanhoof, Van Petegem & Valcke, 2010). Data use may be promoted by external actors from both a developmental and an accountability perspective.

Given the above, the present study will set out to provide an answer to the following research questions:

How do principals characterize their attitude and behaviour with respect to data use?
What is the impact of affective attitude, cognitive attitude and self-efficacy on data use by principals?
What is the impact of the presence or absence of external expectations on the attitude and behaviour of principals with regard to data use?

Method

This article reports on an online survey study of the perception of principals regarding the abovementioned aspects of data use. Using a path analysis we tested the existence and strength of the relationships presented in the conceptual model. The target population of this study consisted of Flemish school principals (N = 3,600). As we were unable to use sampling in the classic meaning of the term, we applied a series of principles to the composition of the opportunity sample used. The first of these was to survey as many school principals as we could in order to reduce sampling error as far as possible (Creswell, 2005). A second principle we applied was to try to include expected variation in the target population, by which we mean variation in educational level, variation in school network and variation in earlier experiences with data use. In total, 451 principals were surveyed.

Expected Outcomes

The main conclusion is that data use requires more than the acquisition of a series of data skills. The path model tested indicates that data use shows a strong correlation with attitude to data use. This applies to the cognitive attitude, but it is twice as strong for the affective attitude to data use. This means that principals who state that they work in a strongly data-orientated manner also indicate that they have a positive affective attitude to data use. The path model tested also indicates that there is not much of a correlation between data use and principals’ personal self-efficacy. These findings are directly relevant for the design of professional development initiatives, which should take into account the indication that principals are more inclined to engage in data use when they are enthusiastic about this and feel comfortable with it. Valuable conclusions can also be drawn about the perception of external expectations. We found that principals perceive a certain degree of pressure from outside the school to use data, primarily from public authorities, but also from parents. Accountability-orientated and school development-orientated external expectations appear to be equally strong and also show a strong correlation with each other.

References

Author Information

Kristin Vanlommel (submitting)

University of Antwerp, Belgium

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