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This study investigated what sustainable data use and leadership looked like in schools that work on sustainable data use through professional learning communities (PLCs). A case study design was used to gain insights and describe sustainable data use through PLCs and leadership.We conducted over 500 hours of observations in three secondary schools, administered a social network questionnaire, and collected school policy documents. The findings show how the schools differed in the form of sustainable data use they achieved, and that sustainability could be considered more nuanced. Additionally, we identified concrete leadership practices carried out by formal leaders, informal leaders, or both, showing in depth how sustainability and leadership might be related. Suggestions for future research are provided. The insights gained could inspire schools to let teachers and students benefit from PLC work in the long term.

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The way in which school leaders implement professional learning communities (PLCs) is important for realizing sustainable school improvement. The assumption is that school leaders act based on their interpretation of the PLC, which is based on their underlying educational beliefs. In this study, we explored these latter aspects by interviewing six formal and informal school leaders, discussing the sustainability of PLCs in two secondary schools that had each worked with PLCs for seven years. The results of this in-depth qualitative study show that the schools differed in the degree of sustainability they achieved: one still used the PLC as intended; the other now omitted one step of the original format. This can be explained by the leaders' interpretations of the PLC and their educational beliefs. Furthermore, we found that student-and collaboration-oriented beliefs are critical for continuing the work of a PLC. Finally, we found that the organizational context mediateswhether leaders act upon their beliefs. Tensions between leaders' beliefs and the organizational context, such as fear of colleagues' resistance, appeared to influence their choice to act or not concerning specific aspects of the PLC. These findings can give school leaders insights into conditions for sustainable school improvement with PLCs.

This study investigated teachers’ monitoring and regulation of students’ learning from texts. According to the cue-utilization framework (Koriat, in Journal of Experimental Psychology, 126, 349–370, 1997), monitoring accuracy depends on how predictive the information (or cues) that teachers use to make monitoring judgments actually is for students’ performance. Accurate monitoring of students’ comprehension is considered a precondition for adaptive regulation of students’ learning. However, these assumptions have not yet been directly investigated. We therefore examined teachers’ cue-utilization and how it affects their monitoring and regulation accuracy. In a within-subjects design, 21 secondary education teachers made monitoring judgments and regulation decisions for fifteen students under three cue-availability conditions: 1) only student cues (i.e., student’s name), 2) only performance cues (i.e., diagrams students completed about texts they had read), and 3) both student and performance cues (i.e., student’s name and completed diagram). Teachers’ absolute and relative monitoring accuracy was higher when having student cues available in addition to diagram cues. Teachers’ relative regulation accuracy was higher when having only performance cues available instead of only student cues (as indicated by a direct effect). Monitoring accuracy predicted regulation accuracy and in addition to a direct effect, we also found and indirect effect of cue-availability on regulation accuracy (via monitoring accuracy). These results suggest that accurate regulation can be brought about both indirectly by having accurate monitoring judgments and directly by cue-utilization. The findings of this study can help to refine models of teacher monitoring and regulation and can be useful in designing effective interventions to promote teachers’ monitoring and regulation.