The document discusses a study on how Icelandic schools work with external evaluation feedback. It finds that while school principals and most teachers have positive views of external evaluations, teacher involvement is limited - only 36% of teachers read evaluation reports fully, and decisions on improvements are made mainly by management teams. Schools discuss evaluation results at staff meetings but rarely engage parents, students, or local authorities. Overall the study suggests external evaluation feedback has a top-down influence in schools, with weak ownership among teachers and narrow participation in improvement discussions.

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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