How Leadership Teams' Identify and Apply Evidence to Guide Decision Making

Background and Purpose: There exists a separation between research and practice and even though attempts have been made to bridge the gap, this divide persists. This is especially the case with regards to school leadership teams’(SLTs) – which include social workers, principals, teachers, parents, and staff from community-based organizations – use of research data to inform decision-making and continuous quality improvement of program services. However, there is a lack of research in this area. The purpose of this qualitative study is to identify how school leadership teams approach research evidence to influence school policies and practices, the factors that influence research use and the impact that data has on program outcomes and development. Research questions include: 1) What research evidence do school leadership teams use to carry out their goals?; 2)What factors influence the use of research among school leadership teams?; and 3) How do school-community organization collaborations affect the use of research evidence by school leadership teams?

Methods: Focus groups and semi-structured interviews with SLTs were conducted concurrently with the use of student-level data, and administrative document review. Participants (N = 36) were purposively sampled  from school leadership teams at nine minority-serving and poverty-impacted elementary school sites participating in a city-wide initiative focused on improving students’ well being and academic outcomes. A modified grounded theory approach was used to analyze the process through which SLTs approach research use and identify the factors that inhibit and promote research integration into decision-making.

 

Results: SLT participants discussed several methods for acquiring research evidence to inform school policies and practices including existing school-level data, parent meetings, and staff meetings. Several themes emerged associated with SLTs’ use of data including timeliness, quality of data, and capacity to assess school needs. Participants expressed a number of suggestions for facilitating use of research evidence such as professional development, consensus building around student outcomes (e.g., academic and social wellbeing).

Conclusions and Implications: This study contributes to the limited body of literature of school leadership team use of evidence research to evaluate program effectiveness and determine educational policies and practices. The findings of this study provide a better understanding of the barriers and facilitators of research use by SLTs in poverty-impacted schools, and how research evidence serves to guide decision-making processes for the purpose of improving students’ social and academic outcomes.