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Does accountability pressure through school inspections promote school improvement?

2015; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 26; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/09243453.2014.927369

1744-5124

Herbert Altrichter, David Kemethofer,

Teacher Education and Leadership Studies

Abstract"New" school inspections are essential parts of "evidence-based governance" concepts and have been implemented by many European countries as a major strategy to assure and improve the effectiveness and quality of their education systems. However, national inspection systems vary in their composition and in their contextual features. Using online survey data from approximately 2300 principals in 7 European countries, the paper explores the role of "accountability pressure" as an element for understanding the operation of inspection systems. The results indicate that principals who feel more "accountability pressure" are more attentive to the quality expectations communicated by inspections, more sensitive to stakeholders' reactions to inspection results, and more active with respect to improvement activities. However, also the number of unintended consequences is increasing with pressure. Inspection systems in different countries are seen by school leaders as applying differential degrees of "accountability pressure", which is reflected in system-specific amounts of improvement activities.Keywords: school inspectionaccountabilityaccountability pressurecomparative researchschool developmentschool improvement Notes1. Data collection was carried out by an international team of researchers, including (in addition to the authors of this paper) Melanie Ehren, Gerry Conyngham, David Greger, Jan-Eric Gustafsson, Stephan Gerhard Huber, Karen Jones, Gerry McNamara, Eva Myrberg, Joe O'Hara, Guri Skedsmo, and Peter Tymms.2. The Swiss part of the project is funded by Stiftung Mercator Schweiz.3. Interpretation of Dutch data must take into account the caveat discussed in the section on data sources and methods.