Policy, Practice and Effectiveness within the Secondary Schools of a Single System. Applying and extending a multilevel model

Abstract

To offer an explanation as to why educational systems perform differently, this study used the Dynamic Model of Educational Effectiveness (DMEE) to explore the effectiveness and equity dimensions of educational quality, at the classroom, school, and system levels, in the specific context of the Guernsey Federation of State Secondary Schools (GFSSS). This quantitative study employed three types of interconnected research methods that were structured observation, questionnaires, and document analysis. The aim was to uncover the breadth of variance within the context of GFSSS and to test the DMEE. To provide a more enriched picture of the lessons observed, a combination of low inference and high inference lesson observation instruments were used to observe 29 teachers, in 58 lessons, across the four-state secondary schools, regarding the teacher factors of the DMEE. A teacher questionnaire and a student questionnaire were used to quantify the attitudes and opinions of 30 teachers and 435 students across the four schools to gain the meaning of behaviours. The purpose was to analyse teacher perceptions of leadership decision making and the student perceptions of the teaching they experienced. Both methods were accompanied by the analysis of three types of documents, which focused on two aspects, the teaching, the creation of a learning environment, and their evaluation at the classroom, school, and system levels. The key findings of this study acknowledge internal self-evaluation, external evaluation, policymaking, distribution of leadership and the centrality of learning across all levels of an educational system as key enablers for the improvement of professional learning, organisational learning, and school capacity. The study highlights the need for educational systems to consider their educational purpose and to reconceptualise educational improvement as a holistic, integrated, evidence-based approach that promotes the learning outcomes of all students (effectiveness) while reducing the differences in student learning between groups of students from different background characteristics (equity), with greater consistency, coherence, cohesion, control, and predictability.