Comparing effects of school inspections in Sweden and Austria

Abstract

In recent years, school inspections have been newly introduced or adapted to the evidence-based governance logic in many European countries. So far, empirical research on the impact of school inspections has produced inconclusive results. Methodologically, it has mainly focussed on analysis of a national inspection model and used cross-sectional data. In the following paper, we investigate the effects of school inspections in a comparative and longitudinal perspective in Sweden and Austria (province of Styria). In these countries, inspections follow different governance approaches. While Austria represents a low-stakes system which does not link consequences for schools to inspection results, sanctions and even financial penalties are potential consequences of Swedish inspections. To discuss the effects of inspections, we asked principals in three consecutive years about the impact of inspections. Our results indicate that school inspections in Austria and Sweden do have a small to medium impact on school improvement and school effectiveness.

The role of feedback acceptance and gaining awareness on teachers’ willingness to use inspection feedback

“…Based on these findings, we cannot confirm the findings from Huber and Altrichter's (2017) study that point to a strong link between self-efficacy and teachers' willingness to participate in competence-oriented teaching and data use. Further in-depth research should explore this phenomenon in order to understand the role of teacher self-efficacy in feedback use processes.…”

“…In order to create a better basis for causal inference, a longitudinal research design could be used to compare, for example, the differences in responses of teachers before, during and after an inspection (in the short and long term). In addition, recent studies on the effects of school inspections have argued that teachers are more likely to accept inspection feedback in lowstakes systems (such as Flanders) than in high-stakes systems (Ehren et al 2015;Altrichter and Kemethofer 2015;Kemethofer et al 2017). Therefore, we recommend future research that compares and integrates findings from low-stakes and high-stakes educational evaluation environments.…”

Análisis Bibliométrico sobre Inspección Educativa en la Base de Datos Web of Science

“…Todos estos factores provocan que, en determinadas circunstancias, las inspecciones escolares tengan un impacto bajo en la REICE. Revista Iberoamericana sobre Calidad, Eficacia y Cambio en Educación 85 mejora y en la eficacia escolar (Kemerthofer, Gustafsson y Altrichter, 2017), perjudicando en estos casos el buen desarrollo de los centros educativos (Dedering, 2018).…”

Stichwort: Schulinspektion

“…Da in beiden Fällen "der Einfluss der Inspektion auf die Leistung von Schülerinnen und Schülern im Fach Deutsch resp. im Leseverständnis höher ausfiel als auf die Leistungen im Fach Mathematik" (Pietsch et al 2014a) Dennoch scheint die produktive "Verarbeitung von Inspektions-Feedback" nicht unmöglich zu sein, worauf eine Arbeit von Kemethofer et al (2016) hindeutet, die das Modell von Ehren et al (2013) in einer Längsschnittbetrachtung mit schwedischen und österreichischen Daten überprüft: Dabei zeigt sich, dass Inspektionen in beiden Ländern sehr wohl Prozesse der "Akzeptanz und Verarbeitung von Inspektions-Feedback" in dem Jahr, das auf den Inspektionsvorgang an der jeweiligen Schule folgt, stimulieren. Eine Erklärung für die unterschiedlichen Ergebnisse bietet die methodische Anlage der jeweiligen Studien: Theoretisch und empirisch macht es Sinn anzunehmen, dass der "Aufbau von Erwartungen" vor und während der Inspektionen stattfindet, was durch Querschnittsanalysen erfasst werden kann.…”