No abstract

No abstract

Previous research has revealed that teachers’ regulation activities in schools are most relevant for sustainable school improvement. However, previous studies have severe methodological and theoretical shortcomings. This paper presents the results of a mixed-method case study at four lower secondary schools, in which we developed a framework for understanding regulation activities and processes in schools and analyzed teachers’ regulation activities by using time sampling data of teachers’ performance-related and situation-specific day-to-day activities over 3 weeks. Our results revealed that teachers engage in regulation activities only relatively seldom. Significant differences between teachers were found that are systematically related to the teachers’ specific roles in the school. Teachers rated their regulation activities as especially beneficial for teaching, student learning, and teachers’ learning but as less beneficial for team and school development. Small differences between schools were identified. Further, the results revealed significant correlations between teachers’ perceived benefit of the daily activities and teachers’ daily satisfaction. Based on the results, it can be concluded that the newly developed method appears to be suitable for recording teachers’ daily regulation activities in a (relatively) valid manner and, consequently, for use as a complement to existing instruments. Limitations are discussed, and the need for further research is described.

School-external expectations regarding implementation of reforms and innovations often do not lead to successful school improvement processes in schools. To better understand these processes in schools, this paper aims to investigate school improvement processes on a deep level by focusing on cognitive, metacognitive, and motivational regulation strategies used by school teams and by exploring what school-external and school-internal factors are related to this strategy use. Principals, teachers, and specialist teachers ( N = 1328) at 59 primary schools responded to an online questionnaire indicating their school’s use of regulation strategies on school improvement. Results from descriptive, variance, and hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that school teams use all forms of school-based regulation strategies but that schools differ significantly in their strategy use. These differences were mainly explained more by school-internal deeper structures (e.g., task cohesion) and less by school-internal surface structures (e.g., school size) and not at all by school-external factors (e.g., governance systems).

Numerous studies show positive effects of students’ malleable implicit theories of their abilities on their self-regulated learning and learning achievements (Yeager and Dweck, 2012; Burnette et al., 2013), especially when domain-specific implicit theories are assessed (Costa and Faria, 2018). Thinking of school improvement as a collective learning process for the teaching staff, it is reasonable to assume that this relationship also exists on the teacher level. Hence, this study aims to provide answers to the following overarching question: What role do teachers’ implicit theories of professional abilities play for school improvement? In a first step, a measurement instrument was developed to assess teachers’ implicit theories of professional abilities in the domain of school improvement. In a second step, we explored the link between these implicit theories and collective teacher learning in the area of further developing the school’s educational practices. In a sample of N = 1,483 Swiss primary school teachers at N = 59 schools, we analyzed how teachers’ malleable (vs. fixed) implicit theories of professional abilities are related to collective metacognitive and emotional-motivational regulation activities and to the perception that the school is on the right track to improvement. Results show that teachers’ implicit theories of professional abilities can be assessed reliably. Structural equation modeling analyses revealed that the more teachers view professional abilities as malleable and developable, the more positive their perceptions of the schools’ improvement were. This relation was mediated by collective emotional-motivational regulation activities. However, no significant effect of a malleable implicit theory on collective metacognitive regulation was found. It can be concluded that teachers have varying beliefs about the malleability of teachers’ professional abilities that are linked to their collective regulation. It therefore acknowledges the domain-specific effects of teachers’ implicit theories in the area of school improvement.