TY - JOUR
T1 - Enhancing the sustainability of school improvement initiatives
AU - Askell-Williams, Helen
AU - Koh, Gloria A.
N1 - Funding Information:
Helen Askell-Williams (PhD) is an Associate Professor in Cognitive Psychology and Educational Practice in the College of Education, Psychology and Social Work at Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia. Helen coordinates postgraduate topics and courses in Cognitive Psychology and Educational Practice, and Building Positive Mental Health in School Communities. She has worked on collaborative research projects including investigations about teachers’ and learners’ knowledge about learning, and research about promoting student wellbeing and positive mental health. She has conducted focussed interviews with teachers and students in primary, secondary, and university settings. In addition, she has designed, conducted, and analysed large-scale surveys to assess components of students’ academic, social, and emotional wellbeing. Helen is currently the lead Chief Investigator on an Australian Research Council Grant project, Sustainability of Effective Educational Initiatives. Business web page: http://www.flinders.edu.au/people/ ; SEEI project web page: http://flinders.edu.au/seei .
Funding Information:
This study was supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Project under Grant number DP170100237. The authors would like to acknowledge feedback on the development of SITE: Sustaining Innovation Through Education from Professors Tracey Wade, Lambert Schuwirth, and Neil Humphrey, as well as research assistance at various phases of data collection from Dr Catherine Johnson and Dr Nerida Chazal. Thanks also to the school leaders, teachers, educators, and associated stakeholders who contributed their perspectives and time to this research project.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2020/12
Y1 - 2020/12
N2 - Schools address students’ educational needs by delivering a range of traditional and innovative programs. Selecting, implementing, and sustaining a new program is a school improvement initiative. Despite investments of (often) substantial resources, many such programs have relatively short school lives. Effective educational initiatives need to survive in order to continue to deliver personal, social, and economic benefits. However, practical guidance for sustainable implementation of new initiatives in school settings is relatively lacking. Drawing from literature and interviews with 70 school leaders and teachers, we created and delivered to 10 educational sites a self-assessment site improvement tool. Principal components analysis identified 20 components, and feedback from sites indicated the practical usefulness of the tool. Adopting a systems perspective with explicit attention to interactions between goals, processes, and emerging outcomes has the potential to generate more thorough consideration of the range of components that influence sustained program implementation leading to site improvement.
AB - Schools address students’ educational needs by delivering a range of traditional and innovative programs. Selecting, implementing, and sustaining a new program is a school improvement initiative. Despite investments of (often) substantial resources, many such programs have relatively short school lives. Effective educational initiatives need to survive in order to continue to deliver personal, social, and economic benefits. However, practical guidance for sustainable implementation of new initiatives in school settings is relatively lacking. Drawing from literature and interviews with 70 school leaders and teachers, we created and delivered to 10 educational sites a self-assessment site improvement tool. Principal components analysis identified 20 components, and feedback from sites indicated the practical usefulness of the tool. Adopting a systems perspective with explicit attention to interactions between goals, processes, and emerging outcomes has the potential to generate more thorough consideration of the range of components that influence sustained program implementation leading to site improvement.
KW - complex adaptive systems
KW - evaluation
KW - school improvement
KW - Sustainable implementation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85085703902&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/09243453.2020.1767657
DO - 10.1080/09243453.2020.1767657
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85085703902
SN - 0924-3453
VL - 31
SP - 660
EP - 678
JO - School Effectiveness and School Improvement
JF - School Effectiveness and School Improvement
IS - 4
ER -