Karen Trimmer

Independent Public Schools: A Move to Increased Autonomy and Devolution of Decision-making in Western Australian Public Schools

With the increasing diversity in schools and the call for addressing specific regional needs, decentralized regulation of the education system is often proposed as an alternative approach to achieve school improvement. Researchers have often associated experimentation and risk-taking as key aspects of effective educational leadership while engaging in discussions about authority among local leadership in schools. An Independent Public Schools initiative in Western Australia emerged with the objective to provide for greater autonomy, flexibility, and accountability as a means for improving student achievement over time. Karen Trimmers article speaks to the uncertain nature of the changes brought into the role of local leadership through the independent, charter, and academy school reform initiatives across the world that propose to deliver efficiency and quality in educational achievement and administration. The study can contribute to evidence-based dialogues around effective, context-specific shifts of authority in education.

Measurement and Modelling: Sequential Use of Analytical Techniques in a Study of Risk-Taking in Decision-Making by School Principals.

This paper investigates reasoned risk-taking in decision-making by school principals using a methodology that combines sequential use of psychometric and traditional measurement techniques. Risk-taking is defined as when decisions are made that are not compliant with the regulatory framework, the primary governance mechanism for public schools in Western Australia. This creates a dilemma for principals who need to be able to respond to the locally identified needs within a school, and simultaneously comply with all State and Commonwealth departmental requirements. A theoretical model was developed and data collected through the survey of a stratified random sample of principals in 253 Western Australian government schools. Rasch measurement was used to create a measurement scale. The hypotheses were tested used partial least squares structural equation modelling. This analysis provides evidence of the effect of governance structures, characteristics of schools and principals that influence decision-making in schools.

The Need for an Understanding of Education Law Principles by School Principals

This chapter is aimed at setting the scene for the whole book. We commence by exploring an evidence based view that all school principals need some understanding of legal principles as they pertain to the educational setting. The arguments suggest that having a basic understanding of legal matters, should enable principals to be better equipped to recognise and more appropriately respond to a legal problem. We then explore developing trends of this topic over the past two to three decades by examining what legal matters have intersected with school authorities. A consideration of what level of legal understanding principals do possess is then mentioned. Data drawn from a recent research study undertaken on this issue followed by considerations and implications that stem from not having a basic level of literacy are also revealed.

“Have You Been Non-compliant?” Dilemmas of Decision-Making for School Principals and Education Researchers

This chapter explores decision-making dilemmas for school principals through an education research study of risk-taking in such decision-making that in itself was difficult to negotiate for both the principals participating in the study and the researcher. The researcher asked principals to expose whether they had made decisions that were non-compliant with government policy requirements. Such decisions involve risk as principals may be exposed to criticism for non-compliance with established policy when they are unable to meet conflicting requirements, or when negative outcomes arise from decision-making. This created a dilemma for principals about whether to participate and respond to the question “Have you been non-compliant?” and for the researcher in undertaking the study and posing a question where there was risk of non-disclosure by the participants.

Evaluation as an Educational Development to Improve Practice: Teacher ICT Knowledge, Skills and Integration

Over the past ten years innovations in the use of ICT in schools have moved from introducing them into the classroom, integrating into teaching and learning, through to sophisticated e-learning practices that will continue to evolve. The continued progress in innovation in e-learning requires different and innovative ways of conceptualising, measuring and evaluating the educational developments. Underlying the aim of integrating and improving the use of ICT by students is an assumption that teachers themselves are competent and confident in the use of ICT in terms of teaching and learning. In 2001 over 95 percent of teachers interviewed in Western Australian (WA ) schools indicated that they assessed themselves as having more than a basic level of ICT operational skill. The majority of these teachers were not, however, confident about applying ICT to facilitate student learning. This chapter will consider a conceptual framework that represents factors of importance in understanding and measuring the ICT competence of teachers. It was developed initially in 2006 to assess the level and nature of ICT knowledge and skills among WA public school teachers and to establish to what extent teachers were integrating their ICT knowledge and skills in classrooms. The evaluation methodology was innovative in that it used psychometric measurement to validate teachers’ self-reported ICT knowledge and skills, the ways in which they use ICT and the extent to which they promoted the use of ICT in student learning against an objective online test of teacher ICT competence and integration. Structural equation modeling was then used to analyse the relationships between ICT skills and knowledge, ICT integration within learning, and the other factors identified in the conceptual framework. This conceptual framework and methodology has since been used nationally and internationally to assess teacher competence and utilisation of ICT and e-learning.

Principals’ Voices Via Modelling?

This chapter discusses the use of complexity theory as a lens to enable issues of voice to be considered in studies utilising quantitative methods. The voices of participants in education research are most often heard through qualitative research studies. The approach taken in this study was to listen to the voices of government school principals through qualitative interviews and to amplify their voices through a quantitative approach and the use of complexity theory.