results of a survey of school leaders and teachers

1. Rethinking the futures of education
in the Nordic countries
Use of external evaluation feedback for
development in schools: who
participates and to what extent?
Björk Ólafsdóttir, PhD student, bjo13@hi.is

2. External evaluation: the Icelandic context
• 2008: new legislation mandated the Ministry of Education and municipalities to
evaluate compulsory schools.
• 2013: external evaluation funded jointly by the state and the municipalities.
• 2013-2018: ten schools (out of 127) evaluated annually. From fall 2018: 27 schools
evaluated annually. Directorate of Education carries out the external evaluation.
• Evaluation process: pre-evaluation, in-school evaluation and post-
evaluation.
• Ideology: development-supporting.
• Improvement plan delivered to the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture.
• Three main areas of the evaluation, quality of: (1) learning and teaching, (2)
leadership and management, and (3) internal school evaluation.
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3. Methods
Three types of data collected:
Questionnaire surveys sent to principals
and teachers in 22 schools in 2016.
• Principals (n = 22, RR = 100%).
• Teachers (n=550, RR = 60%).
Number of schools in each
of seven size categories
Size:
number of
students
Schools in
the study
0-50 3
51-100 3
101-200 5
201-300 3
301-400 3
401-500 2
501-700 3
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Conceptual framework:
An integrated model of a school as a
learning organisation (Kools and Stoll,
2016):

4. Result: Attitude and report reading
• Principals (95-100%) and teachers (80-93%) in the study have positive
attitudes towards the external evaluation - they believe:
– it’s results reflect the strengths and weaknesses of the school; were useful for
school development; and the improvement actions that followed had a positive
effect on practices in the school.
• All principals agreed with the statement that they have emphasized
that all teachers at school should make themeselves acquainted with
the evaluation findings.
• Teachers reading the external evaluation report:
– 26% did not read the report, 25% read only the summary, 13% read selected
sections and 36% red the report either loosely or carefully.
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5. Result: Team learning and collaboration
73%
14%
32%
86%
86%
100%
27%
86%
68%
14%
14%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
local authorities meeting
student meeting
parent meeting
school council meeting
teacher/staff meeting
management team meeting
Evaluation results and/or improvementactions were discussed at a
Yes No
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6. Result: Team learning and collaboration
Decisions on improvements were primarily made: Principals Teachers
by the management team and then handed to the teachers and other
staff for approval
45% 43%
by the principal/management team 32% 17%
in formal dialogue of teachers and other staff in the school 23% 40%
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Teacher‘s answer to statements about collaboration: Agree
It is primarily the role of the principal to make decisions on improvements
following external evaluation
41%
Teachers/school staff participated in formal discussions on improvement
following the external evaluation
81%

7. Results: Promoting continuous professional learning
82%
72%
18%
28%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Principals
Teachers
actions aimed to promote professional development
Agree
Disagree
86%
68%
14%
32%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Principals
Teachers
revision of teaching methods in the school
Agree
Disagree
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Findings of the external evaluation led to:

8. Summing up
RQ: How do schools work with the external evaluation findings and recommendations
that they receive in the evaluation report?
• Mainly the management team who works with the result of external evaluation and makes
suggestions for improvements → top down decisions
• In most schools, teachers and the school council participate to some extent in discussion
about the findings, although teachers are generally not reading the full evaluation report
→ weak ownership of the results among teachers
• Parents and students are not much involved in discussing results → narrow learning
community
A precautionary note: The respondents, in particular the leadership were responding to a ministry
sponsored questionnaire, which may have placed a positive bias on their responses.
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