The Implementation of Kentucky's School-Based Decision Making Program.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kentucky Univ., Lexington. Inst. on Education Reform.
This report describes what schools and educators across Kentucky are doing to implement school reform in school-based decision-making based on the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 (KERA). The School-Based Decision Making (SBDM) component of KERA is a decentralized governance structure that vests great authority in SBDM councils operating at…
School-Based Decision-Making: The Canadian Perspective.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Peters, Frank
1997-01-01
In Canada, school-based decision making is a political expedient to co-opt public support for public education at the same time as financial resources to schools are being curtailed. School councils are advisory in nature and have no statutory position in either school or school-system decisions. (17 references) (MLF)
Shared Decision Making--The First Year.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Rothstein, Richard
This report summarizes an evaluation of Shared Decision Making (SDM) in Los Angeles (California) schools and also includes some comments about School Based Management (SBM). SDM is a democratization of local school decision making that delegates decisions formerly made by principals to local school leadership councils composed of teachers,…
School Characteristics Influencing the Implementation of a Data-Based Decision Making Intervention
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
van Geel, Marieke; Visscher, Adrie J.; Teunis, Bernard
2017-01-01
There is an increasing global emphasis on using data for decision making, with a growing body of research on interventions aimed at implementing and sustaining data-based decision making (DBDM) in schools. Yet, little is known about the school features that facilitate or hinder the implementation of DBDM. Based on a literature review, the authors…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
David, Jane L.
Under the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA), School-Based Decision Making (SBDM) is the provision that creates school councils and delegates to them the authority to make important educational decisions to improve student performance. This paper describes findings from the third year of a 5-year study of SBDM that focused on early examples of…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Elmelegy, Reda Ibrahim
2015-01-01
The current research aims at clarifying how school-based management (SBM) can contribute to achieve the decision-making quality in Egyptian general secondary schools and determine the requirements of quality decision-making. It depends on the descriptive method in order to acknowledge the basics of the SBM and its relationship with the quality of…
School Counselors and Ethical Decision Making
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
West, Dana R.
2016-01-01
Students and their parents/guardians rely on school counselors to provide counseling services based on ethically sound principles. However, there is a lack of empirical evidence about what influences a school counselor's ethical decision making. Ethical decision making for this study was defined as the degree to which decisions pertaining to…
High Expectations: Untenured Teacher Involvement in School Decision-Making
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Turnbull, Barbara
2004-01-01
Findings from the current study show that new teacher expectations for involvement in school decision-making are not being actualized. Based on feedback from elementary and secondary teachers (n=504) in 87 schools, the results show significant differences between actual and preferred levels of participation in 16 areas of school decision-making.…
More Heads Are Better than One: School-Based Decision-Making in Varied School Environments
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Mokoena, Sello; Machaisa, Rebotile
2018-01-01
In this multi-case qualitative study the degree to which school-based decision-making (SBDM) is understood and conceptualised by the members of school governing bodies (SGBs)--educators, chairpersons of SGBs, principals, and learner representative councils-as well the extent to which decisions were shared among the various groups represented on…
Special Education Eligibility: An Examination of the Decision-Making Process
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kirkland, Erin K. B.
2012-01-01
The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of private practitioner and educational advocate opinions on school-based administrators' decision-making thought processes when making a recommendation for special education eligibility. Special education eligibility is a school-based team decision that involves multiple…
School-Based Decision Making: A Principal-Agent Perspective.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Ferris, James M.
1992-01-01
A principal-agent framework is used to examine potential gains in educational performance and potential threats to public accountability that school-based decision-making proposals pose. Analysis underscores the need to tailor the design of decentralized decision making to the sources of poor educational performance and threats to school…
Data-Based Decision Making in Education: Challenges and Opportunities
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Schildkamp, Kim, Ed.; Lai, Mei Kuin, Ed.; Earl, Lorna, Ed.
2013-01-01
In a context where schools are held more and more accountable for the education they provide, data-based decision making has become increasingly important. This book brings together scholars from several countries to examine data-based decision making. Data-based decision making in this book refers to making decisions based on a broad range of…
School-Based Management/Shared Decision-Making: A Study of School Reform in New York City.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Jewell, Kenneth E.; Rosen, Jacqueline L.
School-Based Management/Shared Decision Making is a city-wide program supported by New York City Schools in collaboration with Bank Street College, based on the belief that students, parents, school staff, and communities have unique needs, and that these needs can best be addressed by these persons. Participating schools formed teams of…
Decision Making about Computer Acquisition and Use in American Schools.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Becker, Henry Jay
1993-01-01
Discusses the centralization and decentralization of decision making about computer use in elementary and secondary schools based on results of a 1989 national survey. Results unexpectedly indicate that more successful programs are the result of districtwide planning than individual teacher or school-level decision making. (LRW)
Creating Smarter Classrooms: Data-Based Decision Making for Effective Classroom Management
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Gage, Nicholas A.; McDaniel, Sara
2012-01-01
The term "data-based decision making" (DBDM) has become pervasive in education and typically refers to the use of data to make decisions in schools, from assessment of an individual student's academic progress to whole-school reform efforts. Research suggests that special education teachers who use progress monitoring data (a DBDM…
The Impact of School-Based Decision Making: A Case Study.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Etheridge, Carol Plata; Hall, Mary Lee
As a last resort to catalyze change in its innercity schools, Memphis City School District (Tennessee) designated seven schools as school-based decision-making (SBDM) sites in April 1989. In the same month, Memphis State University researchers were appointed official observers/researchers of SBDM implementation. Not to be confused with…
Efficiency of Fiscal Allocations in Site-Based Empowered Schools
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Meyer, Jerome Jay
2011-01-01
This study implemented a two phase concurrent mixed-methods design to generate a greater understanding of how elementary schools with increased autonomy in fiscal decision making allocated their money, how their site-based decisions affected allocative efficiency, and how increased autonomy affected site-based decision making when compared with a…
Site-Based Budgeting in Fort Worth, Texas.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Peternick, Lauri; Sherman, Joel
1998-01-01
Examines the Fort Worth Independent School District's decentralized decision-making system through three lenses: a review of site-based decision-making procedures at several schools; an examination of who participates; and stakeholders' perceptions. Some schools operated democratically, significantly including teachers, parents, and community…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Izu, Jo Ann; And Others
Site-based management is designed to bring decision making to the school level and involve all stakeholders in a process that will result ultimately in improved student outcomes. Enacted into law in June 1989, Hawaii's School/Community-Based Management Initiative (SCBM) is part of a national trend toward decentralizing decision making and…
A Preliminary Inquiry into School-Based Management.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Brown, Daniel J.
General interest in decentralized decision-making in education is increasing in both Canada and the United States. This paper attempts a preliminary study of school-based management, which shifts some budgetary decision-making authority from the central office to individual schools. Although many academic specialties have explored decentralization…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Crone, Deanne A.; Carlson, Sarah E.; Haack, Marcia K.; Kennedy, Patrick C.; Baker, Scott K.; Fien, Hank
2016-01-01
The use of data-based decision making (DBDM) in schools to drive educational improvement and success has been strongly promoted by educational experts and policymakers, yet very little is documented about the actual DBDM practices used in schools. This study examines DBDM practices in 25 middle schools through 80 standardized observations of data…
Factors Promoting and Hindering Data-Based Decision Making in Schools
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Schildkamp, Kim; Poortman, Cindy; Luyten, Hans; Ebbeler, Johanna
2017-01-01
Although data-based decision making can lead to improved student achievement, data are often not used effectively in schools. This paper therefore focuses on conditions for effective data use. We studied the extent to which school organizational characteristics, data characteristics, user characteristics, and collaboration influenced data use for…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Helwig, Charles C.; Arnold, Mary Louise; Tan, Dingliang; Boyd, Dwight
2003-01-01
This study explored judgments and reasoning of Chinese 13- to 18-year-olds regarding making decisions involving children in peer, family, and school contexts. Findings indicated that judgments and reasoning about decision-making varied by social context and by the decision under consideration. Evaluations of procedures became more differentiated…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kaniuka, Theodore S.; Vitale, Michael R.; Romance, Nancy R.
2013-01-01
Successful school reform is dependent on the quality of decisions made by educational leaders. In such decision making, educational leaders are charged with using sound research findings as the basis for choosing school reform initiatives. As part of the debate regarding the usability of various evaluative research designs in providing information…
The Effect of Shared Decision-Making on the Improvement in Teachers' Job Development
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Chi Keung, Cheng
2008-01-01
Background: Teacher Participation in decision-making is one of the recommendations of school-based management and one of the key characteristics of an effective school. Although teacher participation in decision making is claimed to be correlated with their affective outcome, few researchers have been attempted to verify the predictive…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Klose, Laurie McGarry; Lasser, Jon; Reardon, Robert F.
2012-01-01
This preliminary, exploratory study examines the impact of select social psychological phenomena on school-based ethical decision-making of school psychologists. Responses to vignettes and hypothetical statements reflecting several social psychological phenomena were collected from 106 practicing school psychologists. Participants were asked to…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Lutz, Frank W.; Iden, Robert M.
As Texas public schools undertake their third year of implementing site-based decision making (SBDM), it becomes increasingly important to examine the extent to which SBDM has achieved its purported goals. This paper examined how Texas public school districts might effect mandated governance changes through the political phenomenon known as…
"Sugar-Ray" School-Based Decision Groups.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hunt, John J.; And Others
1992-01-01
Investigates differences between high-achieving and low-achieving school-based decision groups in decision making. Decision groups (207 groups of 3 members each) used computer simulations to address problems facing principals concerning fourth grade academic achievement. Higher-achieving groups made more decisions and made a combination of related…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Akoma, Ahunna Margaux
2012-01-01
This case study of one school district examined how school leaders use student performance data and technology-based data analysis tools to engage in data-informed decision-making for continuous improvement. School leaders in this context included leaders at the district, school, and classroom levels. An extensive literature review provided the…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Murray, David R.; And Others
Within the arena of public school reform, teacher empowerment and participation in the decision making process at the building level are of paramount importance. A collaborative team of teacher educators and public school staff was assembled to assess various perceptions of site-based decision making throughout Georgia. A random sample of 400…
Systemic Data-Based Decision Making: A Systems Approach for Using Data in Schools
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Walser, Tamara M.
2009-01-01
No Child Left Behind has increased data collection and reporting, the development of data systems, and interest in using data for decision-making in schools and classrooms. Ends-driven decision making has become common educational practice, where the ends justify the means at all costs, and short-term results trump longer-term outcomes and the…
Schools and Data: The Educator's Guide for Using Data to Improve Decision Making
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Creighton, Theodore B.
2006-01-01
Since the first edition of "Schools and Data", the No Child Left Behind Act has swept the country, and data-based decision making is no longer an option for educators. Today's educational climate makes it imperative for all schools to collect data and use statistical analysis to help create clear goals and recognize strategies for…
Using a Problem-Solving/Decision-Making Model to Evaluate School Lunch Salad Bars
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Johnson, Carolyn C.; Spruance, Lori Andersen; O'Malley, Keelia; Begalieva, Maya; Myers, Leann
2017-01-01
Purpose/Objectives: Evaluation of school-based activities is a high priority for school personnel. Nutrition activities, such as salad bars (SBs) incorporated into school lunchrooms, may increase children's consumption of low-energy, high fiber diets. The purpose of this paper is to describe a problem-solving/ decision-making model and demonstrate…
The Micropolitics of School Principals' Decision Making in Nigeria: Principals' Perspective
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Olayiwola, Shina; Alabi, Kingsley
2015-01-01
This study depicted a micropolitical analysis of school principals' decision making as regards the influence of formal and informal groups on school administrative processes from the point of view of principals. It was based on descriptive survey study of all 24 public secondary schools within Ile-Ife community, Osun State, Nigeria, out of which a…
Building the Foundation for Data-Based Decision Making: Creating Consensus on Language and Concepts
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Crum, Karen
2009-01-01
Data Based Decision Making (DBDM), the process of gathering, analyzing, applying, and sharing data in order to promote school improvement, has recently become a prominent process in the quest to assist students in attaining educational success and helping schools meet accountability benchmarks (Wayman, 2005; Poynton & Carey, 2006). This…
Decision Making: New Paradigm for Education.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Wales, Charles E.; And Others
1986-01-01
Defines education's new paradigm as schooling based on decision making, the critical thinking skills serving it, and the knowledge base supporting it. Outlines a model decision-making process using a hypothetical breakfast problem; a late riser chooses goals, generates ideas, develops an action plan, and implements and evaluates it. (4 references)…
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Widodo, BS; Sulistinah
2018-01-01
Leadership is the important component that should be possessed by headmaster candidates. Headmaster with a strong leadership potential can make a better development for school so there are many people say that “school is headmaster itself”. This study was aimed to analyze leadership potential of elementary school headmaster candidates in Trenggalek region. The samples of this study were 46 teachers who followed headmaster selection. The measurement was conducted through Leadership Potential Assessment (LPA) and interview. The result showed that there were 24 of 46 teachers who followed the test and interview had a good leadership potential to lead the elementary school. Of 24 candidates who passed the test had a good result on leadership skill, as follows: 1) quick and urgent decision making, 2) critical decision making, 3) creative decision making, and decision making based on evident that implements the four leadership skill (influence, move, develop and empower).
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Williams, Kellie
2013-01-01
Purpose: The purpose of this comparative research study was to determine the perceptions of career counselors and principals on the types of career decision-making difficulties experienced by high school students and the extent to which a large-scale high school technology-based career development program addresses these difficulties, using the…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kimball, Steven M.; Milanowski, Anthony
2009-01-01
Purpose: The article reports on a study of school leader decision making that examined variation in the validity of teacher evaluation ratings in a school district that has implemented a standards-based teacher evaluation system. Research Methods: Applying mixed methods, the study used teacher evaluation ratings and value-added student achievement…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Larsen, Donald E.; Hunter, Joseph E.
2014-01-01
Research conducted by Larsen and Hunter (2013, February) identified a clear pattern in secondary school principals' decision-making related to mandated change: more than half of participants' decisions were based on core values and beliefs, requiring value judgments. Analysis of themes revealed that more than half of administrative decisions…
Women's decision-making autonomy and children's schooling in rural Mozambique.
Luz, Luciana; Agadjanian, Victor
2015-03-24
Women's decision-making autonomy in developing settings has been shown to improve child survival and health outcomes. However, little research has addressed possible connections between women's autonomy and children's schooling. To examine the relationship between rural women's decision-making autonomy and enrollment status of primary school-age children living in their households and how this relationship differs by child's gender. The analysis uses data from a 2009 survey of rural households in four districts of Gaza province in southern Mozambique. Multilevel logistic models predict the probability of being in school for children between 6 and 14 years old. The results show a positive association of women's decision-making autonomy with the probability of being enrolled in primary school for daughters, but not for sons. The effect of women's autonomy is net of other women's characteristics typically associated with enrollment and does not mediate the effects of those characteristics. Based on the results, we argue that women with higher levels of decision-making autonomy may have a stronger preference for daughters' schooling and may have a greater say in making and implementing decisions regarding daughters' education, compared to women with lower autonomy levels. Results also illustrate a need for considering a broader set of autonomy-related characteristics when examining the effects of women's status on children's educational outcomes.
Site-Based Decision Making Using Faculty Senates: Three Years of Experience in West Virginia.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Barnette, J. Jackson; Hange, Jane
The West Virginia education reform legislation of 1988 and 1990 mandated greater involvement of school personnel, parents, and community in site-based decision making. This paper examines the operations and activities of faculty senates, which are composed of all full-time educators in each school, for the years 1990-91, 1991-92, and 1992-93. A…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Fey, Marc E.
2006-01-01
Purpose: This paper is a personal reaction to Gillam and Gillam's treatise on evidence-based decision making in schools. This evaluation focuses principally on the costs and benefits of clinicians' search for external evidence, potential problems associated with efforts to grade that evidence, and the integration of this evidence with "internal"…
Kentucky and Missouri School Improvement Models.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Wheeler, Nedra; Agruso, Ramona
The Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 mandates radical changes in curriculum, finances, and governance for all Kentucky schools and requires that all schools implement school-based decision making (SBDM). SBDM involves a cooperative problem solving approach to operational decisions. New York's Johnson City school district developed an…
Models of Shared Leadership: Evolving Structures and Relationships.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hallinger, Philip; Richardson, Don
Current reform efforts, focusing on teacher empowerment, are based on the belief that lasting school improvement will occur when teachers become more involved in professional decision-making at the school site. Presented in this document are four conceptually distinct models of teacher involvement in schoolwide decision-making, identified on the…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Moser, Michelle
1998-01-01
Using survey and interview responses, examines school members' perceptions of school autonomy over budget decisions, availability of budget information at the school level, and members' willingness to engage in shared decision making in Rochester, New York. Results suggest there are implementation barriers in Rochester pilot schools. Participants…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Røn Larsen, Maja
2016-01-01
This article addresses inter-professional work and decision-making around inclusion in school, using an approach inspired by social practice theory. Based on a case analysis, the article presents analytical examples of the ways in which knowledge from children's everyday life tends to be considered anecdotal and disregarded in the decision-making…
Investigating the Decision-Making of Response to Intervention (RtI) Teams within the School Setting
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Thur, Scott M.
2015-01-01
The purpose of this study was to measure decision-making influences within RtI teams. The study examined the factors that influence school personnel involved in three areas of RtI: determining which RtI measures and tools teams select and implement (i.e. Measures and Tools), evaluating the data-driven decisions that are made based on the…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Polka, Walter S.; Litchka, Peter R.; Calzi, Frank F.; Denig, Stephen J.; Mete, Rosina E.
2014-01-01
The major focus of this paper is a gender-based analysis of school superintendent decision-making and problem-solving as well as an investigation of contemporary leadership dilemmas. The findings are based on responses from 258 superintendents of K-12 school districts in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania collected over a…
Lyon, Aaron R; Ludwig, Kristy; Romano, Evalynn; Leonard, Skyler; Stoep, Ann Vander; McCauley, Elizabeth
2013-11-01
This study evaluated influences on school-based clinicians' decision-making surrounding participation in a modular psychotherapy training and consultation program lasting one academic year. Clinicians were recruited from three participation groups: those who never engaged, those who engaged and then discontinued, and those who participated fully. Qualitative interviews explored influences on initial and continued participation, as well as differences in decision-making by participation group, knowledge about evidence-based practices, and attitudes toward evidence-based practices. Eight major themes were identified: time, practice utility, intervention/training content, training process, attitudes toward training, social influences, commitment to training, and expectations. Some themes were discussed universally across all comparison groups, while others varied in frequency or content. Recommendations for increasing participation are presented, based on the findings.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Gulcan, Murat Gurkan
2011-01-01
Any kind of practices at schools are made based on a planned and programmed process. There is a decision taken prior to every action and it is important at what level these decisions are taken. Development of participative management approach at schools positively affects the teaching process. Education staff participation in decisions causes…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
National Education Association, Washington, DC. Research Div.
Site-based decisionmaking programs offer important opportunities for school systems; however, the risks involved are significant and the decision to embrace the concept at the local level is a highly complex one. With site-based decisionmaking programs, teachers are directly involved in making decisions that affect the whole school, not merely…
Women’s decision-making autonomy and children’s schooling in rural Mozambique
Luz, Luciana; Agadjanian, Victor
2015-01-01
BACKGROUND Women’s decision-making autonomy in developing settings has been shown to improve child survival and health outcomes. However, little research has addressed possible connections between women’s autonomy and children’s schooling. OBJECTIVE To examine the relationship between rural women’s decision-making autonomy and enrollment status of primary school-age children living in their households and how this relationship differs by child’s gender. METHODS The analysis uses data from a 2009 survey of rural households in four districts of Gaza province in southern Mozambique. Multilevel logistic models predict the probability of being in school for children between 6 and 14 years old. RESULTS The results show a positive association of women’s decision-making autonomy with the probability of being enrolled in primary school for daughters, but not for sons. The effect of women’s autonomy is net of other women’s characteristics typically associated with enrollment and does not mediate the effects of those characteristics. CONCLUSIONS Based on the results, we argue that women with higher levels of decision-making autonomy may have a stronger preference for daughters’ schooling and may have a greater say in making and implementing decisions regarding daughters’ education, compared to women with lower autonomy levels. Results also illustrate a need for considering a broader set of autonomy-related characteristics when examining the effects of women’s status on children’s educational outcomes. PMID:26491400
Assessing Professional Decision-Making Abilities.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
McNergney, Robert; Hinson, Stephanie
1985-01-01
Describes Teacher Development Decision Exercises, a computer-based method of diagnosing abilities of elementary and secondary school supervisors (principals, staff developers, curriculum coordinators) to make professional preactive or planning decisions. This approval simulates assessment of supervisors' abilities to use professional knowledge to…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Tyler, Teresa Ann
2012-01-01
This exploratory, quantitative study investigated the relationship between special educators' perceptions of workplace decision-making and two types of satisfaction, overall job satisfaction and satisfaction with school/organization decision-making. To address this purpose, literature-based contributors to job satisfaction were identified and…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Banker, Nancy Sirmay
This case study of a small suburban school district in the San Francisco Bay Area examines the interplay among individuals and groups within the district who make and implement policy decisions. The issue of awarding credit for experience-based learning focuses and directs the study. As an introduction to examination of the ways decisions are…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Atkinson, Linton
2015-01-01
This paper is a research dissertation based on a qualitative case study conducted on Teachers' Experiences within a Data-Driven Decision Making (DDDM) process. The study site was a Title I elementary school in a large school district in Central Florida. Background information is given in relation to the need for research that was conducted on the…
Parent Decision-Making When Selecting Schools: The Case of Nepal
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Joshi, Priyadarshani
2014-01-01
This paper analyzes the parent decision-making processes underlying school selection in Nepal. The analysis is based on primary survey and focus group data collected from parent meetings in diverse local education markets in two districts of Nepal in 2011. It highlights three main arguments that are less frequently discussed in the context of…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Whitmire, Kathleen A.; Rivers, Kenyatta O.; Mele-McCarthy, Joan A.; Staskowski, Maureen
2014-01-01
Speech-language pathologists are faced with demands for evidence to support practice. Federal legislation requires high-quality evidence for decisions regarding school-based services as part of evidence-based practice. The purpose of this article is to discuss the limited scientific evidence for making appropriate decisions about speech-language…
Instructional decision making of high school science teachers
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Carver, Jeffrey S.
The instructional decision-making processes of high school science teachers have not been well established in the literature. Several models for decision-making do exist in other teaching disciplines, business, computer game programming, nursing, and some fields of science. A model that incorporates differences in science teaching that is consistent with constructivist theory as opposed to conventional science teaching is useful in the current climate of standards-based instruction that includes an inquiry-based approach to teaching science. This study focuses on three aspects of the decision-making process. First, it defines what factors, both internal and external, influence high school science teacher decision-making. Second, those factors are analyzed further to determine what instructional decision-making processes are articulated or demonstrated by the participants. Third, by analyzing the types of decisions that are made in the classroom, the classroom learning environments established as a result of those instructional decisions are studied for similarities and differences between conventional and constructivist models. While the decision-making process for each of these teachers was not clearly articulated by the teachers themselves, the patterns that establish the process were clearly exhibited by the teachers. It was also clear that the classroom learning environments that were established were, at least in part, established as a result of the instructional decisions that were made in planning and implementation of instruction. Patterns of instructional decision-making were different for each teacher as a result of primary instructional goals that were different for each teacher. There were similarities between teachers who exhibited more constructivist epistemological tendencies as well as similarities between teachers who exhibited a more conventional epistemology. While the decisions that will result from these two camps may be different, the six step process for instructional decision-making that was established during this study shows promise for use in both situations.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Tienken, Christopher H.
2015-01-01
The ubiquitous use of standardized test results to make varied judgments about educators, students, and schools within the public school system raises concerns of validity. If the test results have not been validated for making multiple determinations, then the decisions made about educators, students, schools, and school districts based on the…
The Demands of Decentralization: Skills and Knowledge for Leaders in Restructured Schools
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Gok, Kubilay; Peterson, Kent D.; Warren, Valli D.
2005-01-01
One of the most visible and widespread of the current educational reforms is the attempt to decentralize authority to schools and to involve teachers and others in shared decision making. Often occurring together as site-based shared decision making (SBDM), this reform is turning out to be more difficult to implement than once thought. Few noted…
Factors Influencing the Functioning of Data Teams
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Schildkamp, Kim; Poortman, Cindy
2015-01-01
Background: Data-based decision making can lead to increased student achievement; however, schools struggle with the implementation of data-based decision making. Professional development in the use of data is therefore urgently needed. However, professional development is often ineffective in terms of improving the knowledge, skills, and attitude…
Using Data-Based Inquiry and Decision Making To Improve Instruction.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Feldman, Jay; Tung, Rosann
2001-01-01
Discusses a study of six schools using data-based inquiry and decision-making process to improve instruction. Findings identified two conditions to support successful implementation of the process: administrative support, especially in providing teachers learning time, and teacher leadership to encourage and support colleagues to own the process.…
School-Based Management and Arts Education: Lessons from Chicago
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Fitzpatrick, Kate R.
2012-01-01
School-based management, or local school control, is an organizational school reform effort aimed at decentralizing school decision-making that has become prevalent in districts throughout the United States. Using the groundbreaking Chicago system of local school control as an exemplar, this article outlines the implications of such reform efforts…
Academic Achievement and School-Wide Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Gage, Nicholas A.; Sugai, George; Lewis, Timothy J.
2013-01-01
Turning around chronically low-performing schools requires a multifaceted school-wide, systematic effort that includes strong leadership and data-based decision making. School-wide efforts to turn-around low-performing schools should address the academic, social, and behavioral needs of all students. One evidence-based, systematic school-wide…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Baldwin, Grover H.
The use of quantitative decision making tools provides the decision maker with a range of alternatives among which to decide, permits acceptance and use of the optimal solution, and decreases risk. Training line administrators in the use of these tools can help school business officials obtain reliable information upon which to base district…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Irvin, P. Shawn; Pilger, Marissa; Sáez, Leilani; Alonzo, Julie
2016-01-01
Identifying and measuring indicators of learning difficulties among young children and implementing effective instructional approaches are complicated, particularly during the transition to kindergarten. Purposeful school-based transition policies and practices support teacher and school decision-making and, thus, can ease the…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Shakeshaft, Charol; Becker, Jonathan; Mann, Dale; Reardon, Martin; Robinson, Kerry
2013-01-01
The authors describe a simulation-based set of full-motion video scenarios which require students studying educational leadership to make decisions that solve problems presented in "A Year in the Life of a Middle School Principal." The decision points were designed to reflect the proficiencies emphasized in ISLLC [Interstate School…
A Curriculum To Improve Decision-Making for School Psychologists.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Davidow, Joseph R.
School psychologists are often asked to make significant decisions about students, but there has been a lack of research on how psychologists make such decisions. Obtaining the objective that school psychologists make sound decisions is an important goal, which involves training in how to minimize the adverse impact of predictable biases in human…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Radakovic, Nenad
2015-01-01
Research in mathematics education stresses the importance of content knowledge in solving authentic tasks in statistics and in risk-based decision making. Existing research supports the claim that students rely on content knowledge and context expertise to make sense of data. In this article, however, I present evidence that the relationship…
Who Defines "Democratic Leadership?": Three High School Principals Respond to Site-Based Reforms.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Brouillette, Liane
1997-01-01
Focuses on behaviors and activities of three high school principals as they respond to district's decision to implement a shared decision-making model designed to give teachers and parents a larger voice. Describes these administrators' varying responses, along with varied ways democratic leadership was multilaterally defined in each school by…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Burns, William R. Travis
2012-01-01
An emergent research base suggests that teacher perceptions of fairness with respect to interactions with school administrators, decision-making processes, and decision outcomes have much to contribute to our understanding of effective schools. This study focused on the relationship between organizational justice and organizational citizenship…
Making Instructional Decisions Based on Data: What, How, and Why
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Mokhtari, Kouider; Rosemary, Catherine A.; Edwards, Patricia A.
2007-01-01
A carefully coordinated literacy assessment and instruction framework implemented school-wide can support school teams in making sense of various types of data for instructional planning. Instruction that is data based and goal driven sets the stage for continuous reading and writing improvement. (Contains 2 figures.)
Exploring Principal Autonomy in Charter, Private, and Public Schools
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Adamson, Linda
2012-01-01
This qualitative multiple case study concerned how school principals in charter, private, and public school settings experience autonomy, based on the schools' governance structures and accountability systems. Principal autonomy was defined as the authority that school principals exercise to lead staff effectively, to make decisions based on…
Why a Data-Based Decision-Making Intervention Works in Some Schools and Not in Others
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Keuning, Trynke; Van Geel, Marieke; Visscher, Adrie
2017-01-01
The use of data for adaptive, tailor-made education can be beneficial for students with learning difficulties. While evaluating the effects of a data-based decision-making (DBDM) intervention on student outcomes, considerable variation between intervention effects, ranging from high-intervention effects to small or even negative intervention…
Beyond State Planned School-Based Curriculum Development: One Chinese School's Story
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Ye, Wangbei
2012-01-01
View through a power perspective, this article critically evaluates tensions involved in China's school-based curriculum development (SBCD) in middle schools: the state's concern about control, accountability, and schools' eagerness to struggle for more decision-making power. This article examines how a Chinese school and its teachers go beyond…
Couple decision making and use of cultural scripts in Malawi.
Mbweza, Ellen; Norr, Kathleen F; McElmurry, Beverly
2008-01-01
To examine the decision-making processes of husband and wife dyads in matrilineal and patrilineal marriage traditions of Malawi in the areas of money, food, pregnancy, contraception, and sexual relations. Qualitative grounded theory using simultaneous interviews of 60 husbands and wives (30 couples). Data were analyzed according to the guidelines of simultaneous data collection and analysis. The analysis resulted in development of core categories and categories of decision-making process. Data matrixes were used to identify similarities and differences within couples and across cases. Most couples reported using a mix of final decision-making approaches: husband-dominated, wife-dominated, and shared. Gender based and nongender based cultural scripts provided rationales for their approaches to decision making. Gender based cultural scripts (husband-dominant and wife-dominant) were used to justify decision-making approaches. Non-gender based cultural scripts (communicating openly, maintaining harmony, and children's welfare) supported shared decision making. Gender based cultural scripts were used in decision making more often among couples from the district with a patrilineal marriage tradition and where the husband had less than secondary school education and was not formally employed. Nongender based cultural scripts to encourage shared decision making can be used in designing culturally tailored reproductive health interventions for couples. Nurses who work with women and families should be aware of the variations that occur in actual couple decision-making approaches. Shared decision making can be used to encourage the involvement of men in reproductive health programs.
Campus-Level Decision-Making Practices: Principals and Teachers Differ in Their Views
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Noel, Cindi; Slate, John R.; Brown, Michelle; Tejeda-Delgado, Carmen
2009-01-01
With the implementation of site-based decision-making occurring in schools, the extent to which teachers perceive their involvement in decisions on planning, budgeting, curriculum, staffing patterns, staff development, and campus-level organization and the extent to which teachers' views of their involvement in these activities are congruent with…
Transformational Leadership & Decision Making in Schools
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Brower, Robert E.; Balch, Bradley V.
2005-01-01
It is essential for every school leader to possess the savvy to effect positive change, raise achievement levels, and foster a positive school climate. Now it seems that the struggle for school leaders to make productive decisions has become clouded with ever-growing uncertainty and skepticism. "Transformational Leadership & Decision Making in…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Irvin, Larry K.; Horner, Robert H.; Ingram, Kimberly; Todd, Anne W.; Sugai, George; Sampson, Nadia Katul; Boland, Joseph B.
2006-01-01
In this evaluation we used Messick's construct validity as a conceptual framework for an empirical study assessing the validity of use, utility, and impact of office discipline referral (ODR) measures for data-based decision making about student behavior in schools. The Messick approach provided a rubric for testing the fit of our theory of use of…
The Role in Research for the School Administrator.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hunter, Richard C.; Gish, Elmer H.
This paper was part of a symposium focusing on the role of educational administrators in school-based research. The author states that the role of research for the school administrator should be to support decision-making, both in providing a rational basis on which decisions can be made and in helping administrators feel confident their decisions…
Why Do School Psychologists Cling to Ineffective Practices? Let's Do What Works
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
VanDerHeyden, Amanda M.
2018-01-01
This article considers the cost of poor decision making in school psychology, especially with regard to determining eligibility for special education under the category of specific learning disability. One common costly decision made by school psychologists is failing to use evidence-based assessment and intervention procedures that are likely to…
Nurse educators and decision making: a female perspective.
Valentine, P E
1992-01-01
Quality of work life issues are major concerns of nurses today. Decision making is one such issue. This article is part of a larger case study of a Canadian hospital school of nursing that asked whether women nurse educators bring unique orientations to the workplace that have relevance for the administration of nursing organizations. The process of decision making, a small part of the larger study, is discussed in this article. The results suggested that women nurse educators used a cooperative, collaborative, highly participatory style of decision making that resulted in decisions based on consensus. The implications this female style of decision making has for nurses and nurse administrators is discussed.
Vocational Career Decision-Making of Finnish Upper Secondary School Students
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Meriläinen, Matti; Puhakka, Helena; Sinkkonen, Hanna-Maija
2014-01-01
The aim of this research was to clarify the characteristics of Finnish upper secondary school students as vocational decision-makers. The focus was especially on what skills and competences were related to decision-making at different phases of the decision-making process. Altogether, 216 upper secondary school students filled in the…
The International Study of Leadership in Education: Monitoring Decision Making by School Leaders
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Wildy, Helen; Forster, Pat; Louden, William; Wallace, John
2004-01-01
School principals have difficulty embracing the competing demands of school restructuring. These demands include being accountable for the outcomes of other decision-making groups within, or external to, the school community; having strong views while making decisions collaboratively; and using group processes without wasting the time, commitment,…
Using National Data to Make Decisions as a Solo Librarian: A Conversation with NCES
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Andrews, Sandra D.
2011-01-01
School libraries have increasingly seen the number of school librarians in each school decrease, creating more solo librarian positions in schools. While this is not a new dilemma, it is one that requires initiative and persistence on the part of the school librarian to accomplish tasks and make decisions. Making decisions about individual school…
Teacher Empowerment Depends on Needs, Expectations of Principals, Schools, Districts.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kirby, Peggy C.; And Others
1992-01-01
Based on 2 years' experience with 30 principals learning and applying a school-based, school-defined improvement procedure, this article discusses 3 sources of resistance to shared decision making presented in a principals' center environment: certain principals' personality characteristics, teaching staff composition in certain schools, and…
An Artificial Neural Network-Based Decision-Support System for Integrated Network Security
2014-09-01
group that they need to know in order to make team-based decisions in real-time environments, (c) Employ secure cloud computing services to host mobile...THESIS Presented to the Faculty Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Graduate School of Engineering and Management Air Force...out-of-the-loop syndrome and create complexity creep. As a result, full automation efforts can lead to inappropriate decision-making despite a
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Dellar, Graham B.
Central to restructuring efforts in Australia was the establishment of school decision-making groups (SDMGs), which gave school staff and community representatives more autonomy over decisions concerning educational policy and school development. This paper presents findings of a study that examined the responses of three secondary schools to the…
Shared Decision Making for Better Schools.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Brost, Paul
2000-01-01
Delegating decision making to those closest to implementation can result in better decisions, more support for improvement initiatives, and increased student performance. Shared decision making depends on capable school leadership, a professional community, instructional guidance mechanisms, knowledge and skills, information sharing, power, and…
The Role of Censorship in School
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Petress, Ken
2005-01-01
School authorities face great complexities and inevitable challenges when deciding to make or not to make censorship decisions in schools. Matters of educational content, age level, acceptability by parents and communities, and appropriateness in the school setting are among the decisions having to be made. When school official decisions result in…
Collaborative Strategic Decision Making in School Districts
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Brazer, S. David; Rich, William; Ross, Susan A.
2010-01-01
Purpose: The dual purpose of this paper is to determine how superintendents in US school districts work with stakeholders in the decision-making process and to learn how different choices superintendents make affect decision outcomes. Design/methodology/approach: This multiple case study of three school districts employs qualitative methodology to…
Cognitive Development Effects of Teaching Probabilistic Decision Making to Middle School Students
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Mjelde, James W.; Litzenberg, Kerry K.; Lindner, James R.
2011-01-01
This study investigated the comprehension and effectiveness of teaching formal, probabilistic decision-making skills to middle school students. Two specific objectives were to determine (1) if middle school students can comprehend a probabilistic decision-making approach, and (2) if exposure to the modeling approaches improves middle school…
School-Based Management/Shared-Decision Making--a Pilot Program: A Historical Perspective.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Dade County Public Schools, Miami, FL.
The Dade County (Florida) Public School system has had various types of school-based management (SBM) procedures in operation since 1974. During the 1985-86 school year, a committee of principals and other administrators reviewed the concepts of SBM from a different viewpoint, using various materials that addressed the professionalization of…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Curtis, Jennifer Lee
2010-01-01
The purpose of this study was to identify, describe, and examine the perceptions of teachers and leaders when implementing a Web-based data warehouse (DW) for instructional decision-making in a K-12 public school setting. It identified the challenges and benefits of DW implementation by measuring teacher and leader concerns, studied teacher and…
School/Community-Based Management Revisited in the Pacific. PREL Briefing Paper.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Koki, Stan
Across the United States, School/Community-Based Management (SCBM), also called site-based management, is gaining support. The effects of SCBM in some Pacific-region schools are detailed. SCBM arose in response to mandates giving decision-making powers to the people who have to carry out educational initiatives. One evaluation of SCBM…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Davidow, Joseph; Levinson, Edward M.
1993-01-01
Describes factors that may bias psychoeducational decision making and discusses three heuristic principles that affect decision making. Discusses means by which school psychologists can be made aware of these heuristic principles and encouraged to consider them when making psychoeducational decisions. Also discusses methods by which bias in…
How High School Students Construct Decision-Making Strategies for Choosing Colleges
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Govan, George V.; Patrick, Sondra; Yen, Cherng-Jyn
2006-01-01
This study examined how high school seniors construct decision-making strategies for choosing a college to attend. To comprehend their decision-making strategies, we chose to examine this process through the theoretical lens of bounded rationality, which brings to light the complexity in constructing a college choice decision-making strategy…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kaskaya, Alper; Calp, Sükran; Kuru, Oguzhan
2017-01-01
Decision making is one of the most important life skills. While making correct, timely, accurate and appropriate decisions lead to positive changes in one's life, making incorrect decisions may have a negative impact. It is an important issue to examine what the 4th grade students in primary school have about the decision-making ability to be…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
O'Hora-Weir, M. Eileen; Ganopole, Selina
The School Community Based Management (SCBM) process for the Hawaii public school system, legislated in 1989, elicits input from administrators, teachers, support staff, parents, students, and community members. SCBM shifts some of the decision making powers to the school and can be adopted by a school on a voluntary basis. This study develops a…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Izu, Jo Ann; And Others
Hawaii's School/Community-Based Management Initiative (SCBM), which was enacted into law in 1989, is part of a national trend toward decentralizing decision making and increasing school autonomy that arose during the 1980s. A voluntary program, SCBM offers schools flexibility, autonomy, and a small amount of resources in exchange for…
Involving Students in Natural Resource Decision-Making Groups.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Ellsworth, Peter; Ellsworth, Judith
2001-01-01
Describes the Coordinated Resource Management (CRM) in the Classroom project, in which Wyoming high school students work on an authentic natural resource problem, using a decision-making process based on consensus to reach agreement on solutions to the problem. Notes implementation issues of professional development and support, and considers…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Coburn, Cynthia E.; Toure, Judith; Yamashita, Mika
2009-01-01
Background/Context: Calls for evidence-based decision making have become increasingly prominent on the educational landscape. School district central offices increasingly experience these demands. Yet there are few empirical studies of evidence use at the district level. Furthermore, research on evidence use among policy makers in noneducation…
Group Participation and Satisfaction: Results from a PBL Computer-Supported Module
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Ochoa, Theresa A.; Gottschall, Holly; Stuart, Shannon K.
2004-01-01
Special education policy requires schools to make disciplinary decisions concerning students with disabilities within a multidisciplinary team. In order to respond to this mandate, teacher educators must ensure that teachers have group collaboration and decision making skills. This article describes a multimedia problem-based learning module…
Are Leaders Influenced by Advocates in Decisions on Special Education Eligibility?
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kirkland, Erin K. B.; Bauer, Scott C.
2016-01-01
The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of the opinions of private practitioners and educational advocates on instructional leaders' decision-making processes when making a recommendation for special education eligibility. School-based administrators (n = 56) with varying years of experience as special education administrators…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Roberts, Scott W.
1995-01-01
This study examined the effectiveness of school-based drug education in affecting knowledge, attitudes, decision making, motivation, and self-esteem. Pre- and postintervention surveys of fourth through eighth graders indicated that self-esteem did not improve significantly. Knowledge and attitude scores improved significantly, with a positive…
Reinventing School-Based Management: A School Board Guide to School-Based Improvement.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Drury, Darrel W.
This report critiques the movement to decentralize decision making in public education. It provides an indepth examination of school-based management (SBM) with the aim of revealing why this type of reform seems to have had so little payoff for students. It addresses several key questions: What are the objectives of SBM, and are these objectives…
The Extent of Teacher Participation in Decision-Making in Secondary Schools in Zimbabwe
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Wadesango, Newman
2010-01-01
In Zimbabwe, there have been some debates on democratisation and decentralisation, which led to the development of policies meant to increase teacher participation in decision-making in schools. However, despite these developments, teacher participation in decision-making in Zimbabwean schools is regarded as insignificant. Teachers work closely…
Evaluation of Implementation of School/Community-Based Management. Final Report.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hawaii Business Roundtable, Honolulu.
A formative evaluation was conducted of two elementary schools that have been engaged in the School/Community-Based Management (SCBM) process in Hawaii. The evaluation process was aligned with the SCBM philosophy, which promotes shared decision making, shared responsibility, and collaboration. Stakeholders contributed to the evaluation, which…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Shahidul, S. M.
2013-01-01
This study aims to understand the parents' household decision-making process with respect to allowing girls to drop out of school, an area that has, thus far, been overlooked in the research regarding school dropouts. This paper has examined the household decision-making process between fathers and mothers and explores how their respective levels…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Faucette, Sidney L.
This paper describes school restructuring efforts undertaken since 1991 in the Virginia Beach Public Schools (Virginia). These efforts are based on a resolution adopted by the school board in December 1991, which supported the implementation of school-based management and shared decision making. Several common restructuring themes were shared by…
Site-Based Management in Education: How To Make It Work in Your School.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Candoli, I. Carl
This handbook explains site-based management (SBM) in schools to help those who wish to decentralize their operation so that the campus-level staff have flexibility in making decisions that affect the students at their location. The text is divided into four major sections, each devoted to a particular area of concern under the SBM concept.…
Ability Grouping and Differentiated Instruction in an Era of Data-Driven Decision Making
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Park, Vicki; Datnow, Amanda
2017-01-01
Despite data-driven decision making being a ubiquitous part of policy and school reform efforts, little is known about how teachers use data for instructional decision making. Drawing on data from a qualitative case study of four elementary schools, we examine the logic and patterns of teacher decision making about differentiation and ability…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Blau, Ina; Presser, Ofer
2013-01-01
In recent years, school management systems have become an important tool for effective e-leadership and data-based decision making. School management systems emphasize information flow and e-communication between teachers, students and parents. This study examines e-leadership by secondary-school principals through the Mashov school management…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Bandy, Tawana; Burkhauser, Mary; Metz, Allison J. R.
2009-01-01
Although many program managers look to data to inform decision-making and manage their programs, high-quality program data may not always be available. Yet such data are necessary for effective program implementation. The use of high-quality data facilitates program management, reduces reliance on anecdotal information, and ensures that data are…
Consensus Building: A Key to School Transformation
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Baron, Daniel
2008-01-01
Consensus-based decision making can turn faculty meetings into meaningful and productive work sessions in which faculty members know that their input is respected and valued and important decisions are made. Reaching consensus has different meanings in different contexts. Decisions are made "by consensus" when the decision affects the entire…
Schools as Open Social Systems: A Study of Site Specific Restructuring.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Dellar, Graham B.
This paper revisits the literature on the nature of school organizations and presents a view of secondary schools as complex social systems, as opposed to bureaucratic-rational structures. Research was conducted into three Western Australia secondary schools planning to implement school-based decision making and planning procedures. The…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Superfine, Benjamin Michael
2009-01-01
Courts hearing school finance reform cases have recently begun to consider several issues related to standards-based accountability policies. This convergence of school finance reform litigation and standards-based accountability policies represents a chance for the courts to reallocate decision-making authority for each type of reform across the…
Shared Decision Making in Local School Planning: An Urban School System's Experience.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Elenbogen, Janet C.; Hiestand, Nancy I.
The practices and perceptions of a shared planning team decision-making model and the effects on student achievement and attendance are examined in this study. Survey results, test scores, and background data on schools were utilized to analyze the relationships among the degree of shared decision-making and planning effectiveness ratings, student…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Godreau Cimma, Kelly L.
2011-01-01
The purpose of this qualitative case study was to describe one Connecticut middle school's voluntary implementation of a data-driven decision making process in order to improve student academic performance. Data-driven decision making is a component of Connecticut's accountability system to assist schools in meeting the requirements of the No…
Career Decision-Making Difficulties among Israeli and Palestinian Arab High-School Seniors
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hijazi, Yahya; Tatar, Moshe; Gati, Itamar
2004-01-01
Making a career decision becomes a major priority for adolescents during the last year of high school. The present study examined the taxonomy of career decision-making difficulties among 1,613 Arab 12th-grade students attending schools in East Jerusalem, areas in the West Bank under the Palestinian National Authority, and Israel. No significant…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Obiunu, Jude J.
2008-01-01
The study investigated the effects of reciprocal peer tutoring in the enhancement of career decision making process among secondary school adolescent students. The interaction of sex with treatment on career decision making process of secondary school adolescent students was also investigated. 120 students from two co-educational secondary schools…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Goldring, Leslie
2002-01-01
Describes six research-based traits of school culture that affect student achievement: shared vision, traditions, collaboration, shared decision-making, innovation, and communication. Draws practical implications for teachers and administrators. (Contains 17 references.) (PKP)
Developing Environmental Decision-making in Middle School Classes.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Rowland, Paul McD.; Adkins, Carol R.
This paper presents Rowland's Ways of Knowing and Decision-making Model for curriculum development and how it can be applied to environmental education curricula. The model uses a problem solving approach based on steps of: (1) coming to know the problem through the ways of knowing of the disciplines and personal knowledge; (2) proposing solutions…
Consumer Education: A Guide for Teachers of Home Economics.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Gray, Ava A.; Whorley, Beulah
The guide offers suggested curriculum materials in consumer education for secondary schools or as background information for teaching adults. It focuses on an understanding of decision making, the economic system, and management. The units of instruction are based on 13 concepts: (1) the process of decision making in relation to consumer behavior;…
Using Basal Readers: From Dutiful Fidelity to Intelligent Decision Making
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Dewitz, Peter; Jones, Jennifer
2013-01-01
When schools and teachers adopt core reading programs they can use them with fidelity or make intelligent decisions about the texts, lessons and components they select to use. The evidence suggests that these programs are not research-based documents, but rather compromises between what the research suggests about effective reading instruction and…
Human Resource Support for School Principals in Two, Urban School Districts: An Exploratory Study
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Lochmiller, Chad R.
2010-01-01
School districts are increasingly focused on instructional practice in classrooms. Many urban school districts have shifted decision-making responsibility to school principals in order to improve instruction. This reform strategy has been referred to as decentralization or school-based management. Decentralization has a significant influence on…
Gendered Behavior Patterns in School Board Governance
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Mountford, Meredith; Brunner, C. Cryss
2010-01-01
Background/Context: Educational leadership literature lacks research focused on how gender influences decision making, in particular at the highest level of school governance, the school board table. Consequently, whether gender makes a difference during decision making at the school board table has yet to be determined. Purpose/Objective/Research…
The Decisions of Elementary School Principals: A Test of Ideal Type Methodology.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Greer, John T.
Interviews with 25 Georgia elementary school principals provided data that could be used to test an application of Max Weber's ideal type methodology to decision-making. Alfred Schuetz's model of the rational act, based on one of Weber's ideal types, was analyzed and translated into describable acts and behaviors. Interview procedures were…
School-based Parents' Groups--A Politics of Voice and Representation?
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Vincent, Carol; Martin, Jane
2000-01-01
Considers discussion-based parents' forums at two British secondary schools. Each school has attracted an elite group of white, middle-class professional women with limited decision-making power that remains unconnected to the wider parent body. It is difficult for controversial parental issues to be heard. (Contains 39 references.) (MLH)
Leadership and Conflict in Two School Districts: "Visible" and "Invisible" Factors.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Bridgeland, William M.; Thomas, David M.
1979-01-01
In this study, the decision making processes of two Michigan school systems are examined with respect to issues in each community, effectiveness of school leadership, and system differences. Information is based on census data, school data, and intensive interviews with key informants. (Author/WI)
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Davis, Stephen H.
2004-01-01
This article takes a critical look at administrative decision making in schools and the extent to which complex decisions conform to normative models and common expectations of rationality. An alternative framework for administrative decision making is presented that is informed, but not driven, by theories of rationality. The framework assumes…
Context-Sensitive Ethics in School Psychology
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Lasser, Jon; Klose, Laurie McGarry; Robillard, Rachel
2013-01-01
Ethical codes and licensing rules provide foundational guidance for practicing school psychologists, but these sources fall short in their capacity to facilitate effective decision-making. When faced with ethical dilemmas, school psychologists can turn to decision-making models, but step-wise decision trees frequently lack the situation…
Participatory Decision Making.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
King, M. Bruce; And Others
Shifting from traditional, hierarchical bureaucracies to participatory governance and decision making is a major theme in school restructuring. This paper focuses on the involvement of teachers in key aspects of school decision making. Specifically, the paper describes how changes in power relations supported teachers' focus on improving the…
Contextual Influences in Developing a School-Based Comprehensive Information System.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Dorr-Bremme, Donald W.
This is one of a series of reports based on an ongoing reality test of systemic evaluation for instructional decision making. This feasibility study is being carried out by the Center for the Study of Evaluation with the Laboratory in School and Community Relations at a suburban Los Angeles high school (called Site A). Viewing a school as a…
The Transformation of Schools' Social Networks during a Data-Based Decision Making Reform
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Keuning, Trynke
2016-01-01
Context: Collaboration within school teams is considered to be important to build the capacity school teams need to work in a data-based way. In a school characterized by a strong collaborative culture, teachers may have more access to the knowledge and skills for analyzing data, teachers have more opportunity to discuss the performance goals to…
The Effect of School Based Management on Parent Behavior and the Quality of Education in Mexico
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Bando, Rosangela
2010-01-01
Institutional reforms have been proposed to improve the delivery and financing of education. School Based Management (SBM) is one such institutional reform where decision making is transferred to the school level. Funds are transferred directly to the school and parents, along with teachers and the principal, allocate and oversee the use of…
The Translation of Basic Behavioral Research to School Psychology: A Citation Analysis
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Reed, Derek D.
2008-01-01
In recent years, school psychology has become increasingly grounded in data-based decision making and intervention design, based upon behavior analytic principles. This paradigm shift has occurred in part by recent federal legislation, as well as through advances in experimental research replicating laboratory based studies. Translating basic…
Applied Empiricism: Ensuring the Validity of Causal Response to Intervention Decisions
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kilgus, Stephen P.; Collier-Meek, Melissa A.; Johnson, Austin H.; Jaffery, Rose
2014-01-01
School personnel make a variety of decisions within multitiered problem-solving frameworks, including the decision to assign a student to group-based support, to design an individualized support plan, or classify a student as eligible for special education. Each decision is founded upon a judgment regarding whether the student has responded to…
School and District Intervention: A Decision-Making Framework for Policymakers.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Bowles, Susan A.; Churchill, Andrew M.; Effrat, Andrew; McDermott, Kathryn A.
This paper seeks to help state policymakers understand their relatively new role in improving the academic performance of local schools and districts. The first section, "Intervention Decision-Making Framework," focuses on the intervention decision making framework model, performance criteria, strategic criteria, diagnostic…
School-Based Budgeting in New York City: Perceptions of School Communities.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Iatarola, Patrice; Stiefel, Leanna
1998-01-01
Summarizes results of surveys and interviews of community members from 29 New York City schools involved in school-level budgeting during 1995-96. Analyzes respondents' knowledge about school budgets, ideas about resource decision making, perceptions of budgetary power, and suggestions. Fully 80% of respondents supported a participatory process.…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Duke, Richard T. RT, IV
2017-01-01
This qualitative case study explored perspectives of alternative school leaders regarding professional ethics and standards. The study researched two components of alternative school leadership: effective alternative school characteristics based on professional standards and making decisions around the best interests of students. This study…
Involving Teachers in Charter School Governance: A Guide for State Policymakers
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Sam, Cecilia
2008-01-01
This guide for state policymakers examines teacher involvement in charter school governance. Teacher involvement is defined to include the gamut of decision-making roles not typically afforded teachers in traditional public schools, including founding schools, serving on governing boards, and engaging in site-based collective bargaining. Different…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Lauber, Diana; Warden, Christine
So that New York City could build on the experiences of other large cities as it implemented Performance Driven Budgeting (PDB) in the schools, a study was conducted of the school based budgeting training in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Denver. These districts have from 6 to 10 years experience in site-based budgeting. The study is based on…
One Step at a Time: SBM as an Incremental Process.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Conrad, Mark
1995-01-01
Discusses incremental SBM budgeting and answers questions regarding resource equity, bookkeeping requirements, accountability, decision-making processes, and purchasing. Approaching site-based management as an incremental process recognizes that every school system engages in some level of site-based decisions. Implementation can be gradual and…
Local Management of Schools: Rationality and Decision-Making in the Employment of Teachers.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Huckman, Lynda; Hill, Tim
1994-01-01
Examines the use of rational planning techniques in five English elementary schools. Discusses the decision-making processes used to determine the employment and remuneration of teachers. Finds that the decree of control over decision making was related closely to the extent to which decisions would contribute to solutions of other school…
Making the School Uniform Decision: Is It Right for "Your" School?
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
McDaniel, Thomas R.
2013-01-01
Do school uniforms make a difference in student academic performance, school spirit, discipline, and safety? What are the legal restrictions that bear on the school uniform decision in public schools? Do uniform policies lead to less school violence? Do they impose an economic hardship, outweighing the advantages, on low-income families? The…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Krugly, Andrew; Stein, Amanda; Centeno, Maribel G.
2014-01-01
Data-based decision making should be the driving force in any early care and education setting. Data usage compels early childhood practitioners and leaders to make decisions on the basis of more than just professional instinct. This article explores why early childhood schools should be using data for continuous quality improvement at various…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Gallavan, Nancy P.
2003-01-01
In 1960, Shirley Engle identified the primary purposes or "heart of social studies instruction" as educating citizens living in a democracy and teaching them the process of decision making based on values formulation through genuine problem solving. Engle's recommendations for helping students to confront and comprehend today's complex issues…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Dawson, Vaille Maree; Venville, Grady
2010-01-01
An outcome of science education is that young people have the understandings and skills to participate in public debate and make informed decisions about science issues that influence their lives. Toulmin's argumentation skills are emerging as an effective strategy to enhance the quality of evidence based decision making in science classrooms. In…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Walker, Elaine M.
2000-01-01
This study examined issues faced during implementation of school-based management (SBM) in New Jersey's special needs or Abbott districts, using a literature review, surveys of K-12 schools, and focus groups with central office administrators. The study examined forms of SBM, team operations, local autonomy versus state power, skills required to…
Decision-Making as a Struggle and a Play: On Alternative Rationalities in Schools as Organizations
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Salo, Petri
2008-01-01
In this article an alternative interpretation of the functions of decision-making and the inherent activities at teachers' meetings at schools are presented. The metaphor of "play" is introduced in order to make the teachers' actions during decision-making comprehensible, not only for outsiders, but more importantly for "involved insiders", such…
Promoting Shared Decision Making through Descriptive Inquiry
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Seher, Rachel; Traugh, Cecelia; Cheng, Alan
2018-01-01
This article shows how City-As-School, a progressive public school in New York City, used descriptive inquiry to deepen shared decision making, which is a central value of the school and part of a democratic way of life. Descriptive inquiry is a democratic knowledge-making process that was developed at the Prospect School in North Bennington,…
Research in Brief: Shared Decision Making Enhances Instructional Leadership.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Lindle, Joan Clark
1992-01-01
A study of three middle school principals about their instructional leadership activities before and after the establishment of shared decision making revealed an enhancement of leadership. The nature of the middle school teacher's role demands participative leadership and communication and decision making revolved around instructional issues.…
Maternal Household Decision-Making Autonomy and Adolescent Education in Honduras.
Hendrick, C Emily; Marteleto, Leticia
2017-06-01
Maternal decision-making autonomy has been linked to positive outcomes for children's health and well-being early in life in low- and middle-income countries throughout the world. However, there is a dearth of research examining if and how maternal autonomy continues to influence children's outcomes into adolescence and whether it impacts other domains of children's lives beyond health, such as their education. The goal of this study was to determine whether high maternal decision-making was associated with school enrollment for secondary school-aged youth in Honduras. Further, we aimed to assess whether the relationships between maternal autonomy and school enrollment varied by adolescents' environmental contexts and individual characteristics such as gender. Our analytical sample included 6,579 adolescents ages 12-16 living with their mothers from the Honduran Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) 2011-12. We used stepwise logistic regression models to investigate the association between maternal household decision-making autonomy and adolescents' school enrollment. Our findings suggest that adolescents, especially girls, benefit from their mothers' high decision-making autonomy. Findings suggest that maternal decision-making autonomy promotes adolescents' school enrollment above and beyond other maternal, household, and regional influences.
Maternal Household Decision-Making Autonomy and Adolescent Education in Honduras
Hendrick, C. Emily; Marteleto, Leticia
2017-01-01
Maternal decision-making autonomy has been linked to positive outcomes for children’s health and well-being early in life in low- and middle-income countries throughout the world. However, there is a dearth of research examining if and how maternal autonomy continues to influence children’s outcomes into adolescence and whether it impacts other domains of children’s lives beyond health, such as their education. The goal of this study was to determine whether high maternal decision-making was associated with school enrollment for secondary school-aged youth in Honduras. Further, we aimed to assess whether the relationships between maternal autonomy and school enrollment varied by adolescents’ environmental contexts and individual characteristics such as gender. Our analytical sample included 6,579 adolescents ages 12–16 living with their mothers from the Honduran Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) 2011–12. We used stepwise logistic regression models to investigate the association between maternal household decision-making autonomy and adolescents’ school enrollment. Our findings suggest that adolescents, especially girls, benefit from their mothers’ high decision-making autonomy. Findings suggest that maternal decision-making autonomy promotes adolescents’ school enrollment above and beyond other maternal, household, and regional influences. PMID:29075048
School District Approval for Staff Development: "Garbage Can" Decision-Making.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Furman, Gail Chase
This paper explores the decision-making process leading to school district approval for staff development. A retrospective field study approach was used to investigate the decision of a small, rural school district in eastern Washington (enrollment 2,200) to adopt a comprehensive English composition teaching program throughout the curriculum. This…
Fidelity Assessment to Improve Teacher Instruction and School Decision Making
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
McKenna, John William; Parenti, Melissa
2017-01-01
Teachers must provide high-quality instruction based on evidence-based practices to provide students meaningful opportunities to learn and to improve school outcomes. Although teachers have access to a variety of resources on evidence-based practices, poor implementation may limit the effectiveness of teacher practices, as indicated by low levels…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Lee, Yew-Jin; Chue, Shien
2013-01-01
School-based curriculum innovations, including those in science education, are usually not adequately evaluated, if at all. Furthermore, current procedures and instruments for programme evaluations are often unable to support evidence-based decision-making. We suggest that adopting fidelity of implementation (FOI) criteria from healthcare research…
Categorical Funds: The Intersection of School Finance and Governance
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Smith, Joanna; Gasparian, Hovanes; Perry, Nicholas; Capinpin, Fatima
2013-01-01
How a state chooses to design its system of funding schools is ultimately a question of education governance, determining who--state policymakers, school districts, or school principals--gets to make the decisions about how and where funding is spent. States have two primary ways of funding schools: the foundation, or base funding that is intended…
Practical Considerations in Creating School-Wide Positive Behavior Support in Public Schools
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Handler, Marcie W.; Rey, Jannette; Connell, James; Thier, Kimberly; Feinberg, Adam; Putnam, Robert
2007-01-01
School-wide positive behavior support (SWPBS) has been identified as an effective and efficient method to teach students prosocial skills. It requires both effective behavior support practices and systems that will support these changes, including data-based decision making among the school leadership team. There are many practical and systemic…
Board and Senior Management Alignment on School Strategy
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Sarros, James C.; Sarros, Anne M.; Cooper, Brian K.; Santora, Joseph C.; Baker, Robin
2016-01-01
This study examines the degree to which senior executive members of a school's decision-making team (senior management team and board of directors) are aligned on fundamental principles of school strategy. Our study is based on a conceptual framework of strategic leadership as it applies in an Australian independent school context. We also examine…
Diversity in School Performance Feedback Systems
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Verhaeghe, Goedele; Schildkamp, Kim; Luyten, Hans; Valcke, Martin
2015-01-01
As data-based decision making is receiving increased attention in education, more and more school performance feedback systems (SPFSs) are being developed and used worldwide. These systems provide schools with data on their functioning. However, little research is available on the characteristics of the different SPFSs. Therefore, this study…
Spatial Planning of School Districts
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Maxfield, Donald W.
1972-01-01
The development of several plans based on linear programming and geographic methodology will permit school administrators to make better decisions concerning the planning of school districts: where to locate boundaries, how to eliminate overcrowding, where to locate new classrooms, and how to overcome de facto segregation. The primal and dual…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Blake, Jamilia J.; Gregory, Anne; James, Marlon; Hasan, Gwen Webb
2016-01-01
The purpose of this study was to demonstrate how school psychologists can proactively address disparities in school suspension through the examination of office discipline referrals (ODR). Results of two studies examining high school ODRs suggest that there is value in school psychologists disaggregating and analyzing ODRs at the school level and…
"Teacher, Teacher, Tell Us about the Brain!" Sharing Decision Making about Curriculum in Preschool
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Verwys, Susan K.
2007-01-01
In this article, the author presents a discussion regarding the sharing of decision making regarding curriculum in preschool. The preschool where she teaches is housed in a diverse, faith-based elementary school in the heart of Grand Rapids, Michigan, a midsize, midwestern city. It offers full-day, half-day, and two-and-a-half-hour preschool…
Decision-Making in the Classroom and Early Adolescents' Valuing of Mathematics.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Mac Iver, Douglas; Reuman, David A.
In many upper-elementary school classrooms, students are given few decision-making prerogatives. In junior high school, it becomes increasingly rare for them to receive the decision-making opportunities they believe they should have. Both person-environment fit theory and pawn theory would predict that a failure to provide students with such…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Harrington, Karen; Griffith, Catherine; Gray, Katharine; Greenspan, Scott
2016-01-01
This article provides an overview of a grant project designed to create a district-wide elementary school counseling program with a strong data-based decision-making process. Project goals included building data literacy skills among school counselors and developing the infrastructure to efficiently collect important social-emotional indicators…
Trouble in Paradise: Teacher Conflicts in Shared Decision Making. NCEL Occasional Paper No. 8.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Weiss, Carol H.; And Others
Drawing on interviews with 180 staff members from 45 public high schools in 15 states, this document examines the advantages and disadvantages of teacher participation in shared decision making. The settings of six high schools that had structured mechanisms for teacher participation in school decisions are described, and problems that emerged…
School Democratization in Prefigurative Form: Two Brazilian Experiences
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
McCowan, Tristan
2010-01-01
Recent moves towards greater pupil participation in school decision-making have in part been based on instrumental rationales, such as increases in test scores and improvements in behaviour. This article assesses a different approach--that of the "prefigurative"--through which the school embodies the democratic society it aims to create.…
Application of Algebra Curriculum-Based Measurements for Decision Making in Middle and High School
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Johnson, Evelyn S.; Galow, Patricia A.; Allenger, Robert
2013-01-01
This article reports the results of a study examining the utility of curriculum-based measurement (CBM) in algebra for predicting performance on a state math assessment and informing instructional placement decisions for students in seventh, eighth, and tenth grades. Students completed six Basic Skills algebra probes across different time…
South Huntington's Evolution to Shared Decision Making.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Domenech, Daniel A.
School administrative decisions must be based on a broad range of input; the power of group thinking is required to ensure that the best decisions are made. The necessary transition from the old, closed autocratic administrative decisionmaking system to a new, open democratic organization requires not a radical leap, but a gradual transition. The…
School Psychologist Diagnostic Decision-Making: A Pilot Study
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Barnard-Brak, Lucy; Stevens, Tara; Robinson, Eric; Holt, Ann
2013-01-01
The current study examined the diagnostic decision-making of school psychologists as a function of a student's disability and academic performance with three research questions using a randomly-selected sample of school psychologists from the state of Texas. Results from the first research question indicated that school psychologists significantly…
Decision-Making Processes in Texas School Districts That Arm Personnel
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Domain, Melinda Willoughby
2014-01-01
This qualitative phenomenological study employed narrative inquiry to describe the decision-making processes that Texas school districts followed in enacting firearms policies that allow school employees to carry concealed weapons on district property. Exploration of the lived experiences of eight Texas superintendents in such schools contributed…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Rukeyser, William L.; Kuersten, Joan
1998-01-01
Parents must be well-informed about computer technology in order to make appropriate decisions for their schools. The paper discusses pro's and con's of computers in the schools, the importance of dispelling myths about education and technology, and parents' roles in making decisions. (SM)
The Effect of School Autonomy and School Internal Decentralization on Students' Reading Literacy
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Maslowski, Ralf; Scheerens, Jaap; Luyten, Hans
2007-01-01
Over the past 2 decades, a large number of countries have been engaged in the decentralization of decision-making to schools. Although the motives and incentives for school autonomy are often diverse, it is commonly believed that decentralization will enhance the quality of schooling. Based on a secondary analysis of data from OECD's Programme for…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Lydon, Mary C.; Cheffers, John T. F.
1984-01-01
This article reports on a study that sought to determine the effects of variable decision-making teaching models upon the development of body coordination and self-concept of elementary school children. Results indicated that level of motor skill achievement was maintained when students were given decision-making responsibility. (Author/DF)
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Martin-Donald, Kimberly A.
2010-01-01
This study investigated relationships between high school counselors' ethical decision-making, gender, attitudes towards gender, and sexual attitudes. Of the 161 respondents, only 157 participants' data sets were included in the data set. Participants completed the Ethical Decision-Making Questionnaire, The Brief Sexual Attitudes Scale (Hendrick,…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hariri, Hasan; Monypenny, Richard; Prideaux, Murray
2012-01-01
This paper examines relationships between teacher-perceived principal decision-making styles and teacher job satisfaction in schools in Lampung Province, Indonesia. We use the General Decision-making Style instrument, the Job Satisfaction Survey and a demographic questionnaire developed for this study. Our findings show that: 12 out of the 15…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Chisholm, Joe; Edmunds, Alan
2001-01-01
Examines differences in levels of career decision-making self-efficacy in Cape Breton high school students who lived in communities with recent closures of mining and steel industries compared to students from communities with no such closures. Students demonstrated considerable confidence in their career decision-making abilities implying that…
The Elementary School Principal's Influence on Teachers' Curricular and Instructional Decisions.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Larsen, Marci L.; Malen, Betty
Within the research on teacher planning and decision making the principal is seldom mentioned as a key shaper of teachers' curricular and instructional decision making. This paper presents findings of a case study of two elementary school principals. The study examined the congruence between principals' aims and teachers' decisions; the statements…
Grievance and Arbitration Practices and Decisions in Schools: Outcomes of Rational Decision Making?
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Osborne-Lampkin, La'Tara
2010-01-01
Some researchers suggest that grievance procedures and the arbitration process are effective tools that encourage careful decision making by school districts and administrative staff in the handling of personnel decisions (Shipley, 1974). Others contend that grievance procedures, which typically include arbitration as the final stage of the…
Segregation and Immigration: An Examination of School Composition for Children of Immigrants
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Wells, Ryan
2009-01-01
Immigration in the U.S. continues to increase and to become increasingly diverse. About 20% of U.S. students are children of immigrants. This phenomenon is occurring as schools are racially and ethnically resegregating even as race-based decision making for K-12 schooling has been severely limited. This study examines school segregation for…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Diessner, Rhett
This report describes activities from 1986 through 1990 of the Mastery in Learning Project, which focused on "restructuring the school" and "sharing decision making" at one elementary school in Lewiston, Idaho. Based on need surveys of various constituents of school life (administrators, students, teachers, and parents), a…
Using vs. Being Used by School Information Systems.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Sirotnik, Kenneth A.
This is one of a series of reports based on an ongoing reality test of systemic evaluation for instructional decision making. This feasibility study is being carried out by the Center for the Study of Evaluation with the Laboratory in School and Community Relations at a suburban Los Angeles high school (called Site A). Viewing a school as a…
"Knowledge" in English Primary Schools' Decision-Making about Sex and Relationships Education
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Wilder, Rachel
2018-01-01
Objective: To assess what kinds of knowledge policymakers in a sample of English primary schools utilised to make decisions about their school's sex and relationships education policy. Method: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with policymakers at three primary schools in the southwest of England, and documentary analysis of the schools'…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Tomlinson, Carol Ann; Murphy, Michael
2018-01-01
Carol Ann Tomlinson and Michael Murphy explore how educators can create an empathetic school--"a place where our central and shared goal was to understand the experiences and perspectives of those who share our space and making decisions based on what would serve them best."
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Trimmer, Karen
2016-01-01
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…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Somech, Anit
2010-01-01
The increasing emergence of participation in decision making (PDM) in schools reflects the widely shared belief that flatter management and decentralized authority structures carry the potential for promoting school effectiveness. However, the literature indicates a discrepancy between the intuitive appeal of PDM and empirical evidence in respect…
The Impact of Membership Diversity on School Council Decision Making.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Robertson, Peter J.; Kwong, Sophia S.
This study explores the relationship between demographic diversity among members of school leadership councils and the nature and quality of their decision-making processes. A survey was mailed to all members of the leadership councils at 156 Los Angeles (California) Unified School District schools--of which 78 were involved in the shared…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Park, Vicki; Datnow, Amanda
2009-01-01
The purpose of this paper is to examine leadership practices in school systems that are implementing data-driven decision-making employing the theory of distributed leadership. With the advent of No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) in the US, educational leaders are now required to analyse, interpret and use data to make informed decisions in…
Examining School Board Leaders' Use of Online Resources to Inform Decision-Making
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kay, Robin; Carruthers, Loralea
2017-01-01
In the past five years, there has been considerable interest in the decision-making process of school board officials in the field of education. However, a paucity of research exists on how these leaders use online resources to inform decision-making. Through an online survey and face-to-face interviews, this study examined the use of online…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Cohen, Matthew D.
Results of studying inclusion of Illinois students with disabilities in regular education are presented. The moral, educational, and legal bases for inclusion in public school general education were reviewed. Differences regarding planning and decision making for children with disabilities were investigated in three schools that were relatively…
Gaining Voice: Democratic Praxis in Restructured Schools.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Rusch, Edith A.
Is the work of democracy too hard for schools to implement? This paper presents findings of a study that examined the dialectical relationship between the espoused values of democracy in schools and the actual practice of equity and inclusion in site-based decision making. Specifically, it examines the lived experience of the people inside schools…
And the Survey Says: The Case for Community Engagement
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Johnson, Paul A.
2009-01-01
Often superintendents and boards of education employ an expert-based, school-centered, "decide and defend" decision making approach when dealing with critical school district issues. In the case presented here, involving what to do with an historic school building, it is an approach that did not yield the result the superintendent or board of…
Rise and Fall of Decentralized School Governance--Decision-Making Practices in Georgia
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Gorgodze, Sophia
2016-01-01
The current study investigates educational decision-making in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. The focus is on decisions concerning issues of school governance decentralization/recentralization in the period of 2003-2012. The research draws on in-depth interviews with over 20 top decision-makers, and an extensive review of legal documents,…
A fuzzy MCDM approach for evaluating school performance based on linguistic information
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Musani, Suhaina; Jemain, Abdul Aziz
2013-11-01
Decision making is the process of finding the best option among the feasible alternatives. This process should consider a variety of criteria, but this study only focus on academic achievement. The data used is the percentage of candidates who obtained Malaysian Certificate of Education (SPM) in Melaka based on school academic achievement for each subject. 57 secondary schools in Melaka as listed by the Ministry of Education involved in this study. Therefore the school ranking can be done using MCDM (Multi Criteria Decision Making) methods. The objective of this study is to develop a rational method for evaluating school performance based on linguistic information. Since the information or level of academic achievement provided in linguistic manner, there is a possible chance of getting incomplete or uncertain problems. So in order to overcome the situation, the information could be provided as fuzzy numbers. Since fuzzy set represents the uncertainty in human perceptions. In this research, VIKOR (Multi Criteria Optimization and Compromise Solution) has been used as a MCDM tool for the school ranking process in fuzzy environment. Results showed that fuzzy set theory can solve the limitations of using MCDM when there is uncertainty problems exist in the data.
Teaching Quality across School Settings
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Cohen, Julie; Brown, Michelle
2016-01-01
Districts are increasingly making personnel decisions based on teachers' impact on student-achievement gains and classroom observations. In some schools, however, a teacher's practices and their students' achievement may reflect not just individual but collaborative efforts. In other settings, teachers' instruction benefits less from the insights…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Buchanan, Gregory S.
2013-01-01
This research study examines the various decision-making processes that superintendents may encounter within the field. The degree to which public school superintendents and public school systems are being held accountable has increased in recent years. The recent unethical decisions made within the last decade in both the public and private…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Carlyon, Tracey; Fisher, Anthony
2012-01-01
One of the most challenging decisions for primary school principals is to decide what class level each of their teachers will teach. It seems there is very little research on the way principals go about making these decisions. Government reforms have had significant impact on the role of the primary school principal in New Zealand, and a trend has…
Teachers' Grading Decision Making
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Isnawati, Ida; Saukah, Ali
2017-01-01
This study investigated teachers' grading decision making, focusing on their beliefs underlying their grading decision making, their grading practices and assessment types, and factors they considered in grading decision making. Two teachers from two junior high schools applying different curriculum policies in grade reporting in Indonesian…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Codding, Robin S.; Mercer, Sterett; Connell, James; Fiorello, Catherine; Kleinert, Whitney
2016-01-01
There is a paucity of evidence supporting the use of curriculum-based mathematics measures (M-CBMs) at the middle school level, which makes data-based decisions challenging for school professionals. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among three existing M-CBM indices: (a) basic facts, (b) concepts/application, and (c)…
Praises & Nudges: A Case of District-Wide Change.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Doyle, Richard; And Others
This paper describes the processes and outcomes experienced by the Marshalltown Community School District (Iowa) as it implemented a shared decision-making, school-improvement program. A district Shared Decision Making (SDM) Team and School Improvement Program (SIP) teams were trained to facilitate greater staff participation in the…
Does STES-Oriented Science Education Promote 10th-Grade Students' Decision-Making Capability?
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Levy Nahum, Tami; Ben-Chaim, David; Azaiza, Ibtesam; Herskovitz, Orit; Zoller, Uri
2010-07-01
Today's society is continuously coping with sustainability-related complex issues in the Science-Technology-Environment-Society (STES) interfaces. In those contexts, the need and relevance of the development of students' higher-order cognitive skills (HOCS) such as question-asking, critical-thinking, problem-solving and decision-making capabilities within science teaching have been argued by several science educators for decades. Three main objectives guided this study: (1) to establish "base lines" for HOCS capabilities of 10th grade students (n = 264) in the Israeli educational system; (2) to delineate within this population, two different groups with respect to their decision-making capability, science-oriented (n = 142) and non-science (n = 122) students, Groups A and B, respectively; and (3) to assess the pre-post development/change of students' decision-making capabilities via STES-oriented HOCS-promoting curricular modules entitled Science, Technology and Environment in Modern Society (STEMS). A specially developed and validated decision-making questionnaire was used for obtaining a research-based response to the guiding research questions. Our findings suggest that a long-term persistent application of purposed decision-making, promoting teaching strategies, is needed in order to succeed in affecting, positively, high-school students' decision-making ability. The need for science teachers' involvement in the development of their students' HOCS capabilities is thus apparent.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Al-Omari, Aieman Ahmad
2013-01-01
The present study examined the relationships between leadership styles and decision-making styles among public schools principals. A total of 108 principals returned questionnaires from Russaifa Education District in Jordan. The Decision Style Inventory and the Administrative Styles Questionnaire were used in this study. "Directive decision…
Examining Data-Driven Decision Making in Private/Religious Schools
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hanks, Jason Edward
2011-01-01
The purpose of this study was to investigate non-mandated data-driven decision making in private/religious schools. The school culture support of data use, teacher use of data, leader facilitation of using data, and the availability of data were investigated in three schools. A quantitative survey research design was used to explore the research…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Buschor, Christine Bieri; Kappler, Christa; Keck Frei, Andrea; Berweger, Simone
2014-01-01
The study examines the career decision-making of Swiss academic high school students opting for a career in a non-traditional, gender-typed area of work during the transition to higher education. Based on a longitudinal study, a qualitative study with 11 female students in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and 13 male student…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Haynes, Gill; McCrone, Tami; Wade, Pauline
2013-01-01
This paper explores the decision-making processes of young people aged 13-14?years in 30 consortia across England as they chose their options for Key Stage 4 at a time when a new qualification, the 14-19 Diploma, was being introduced. It draws on data collected as part of a longitudinal national study (January 2008-August 2011) of the introduction…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kim, Boyoung; Lee, Bo Hyun; Ha, Gyuyoung; Lee, Hong Kwon; Lee, Sang Min
2015-01-01
This study examines the role of dysfunctional career thoughts between two-wave longitudinal data (Time 1 and Time 2) in career decision-making self-efficacy during school-to-work transition periods. Career decision-making self-efficacy was measured before (Time 1) and after college graduation (Time 2). The results indicated that the growth of…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Faddis, Toni Osborn
2017-01-01
The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore and describe the individual experiences of elementary principals' in Southern San Diego County when making ethical decisions that are unique to schools near the United States/Mexico border. Ethical decision-making, in this case, is the term used to depict an incident that calls for a…
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Wong, Jacqueline Yin Sang
2015-10-01
Evidence and explanatory mechanism are central to scientific practices. Using such information could also inform decisions about issues in which science can play some role, from policy issues like climate change to personal issues like vaccination. While research suggests that people tend to focus on non-science considerations when making science-related decisions, there is also evidence that people can reason very productively with evidence and mechanism. This study examines how the goals participants pursue when reading a science report influences how they attend to information about causal mechanism and evidence. Two hundred and seventeen high school students were asked either to evaluate the truth of a scientific claim, to make a personal decision based on the claim, or to make a social policy decision based on the claim using an online task-based survey. All three groups of participants attended to evidence and mechanism, but participants with different goals requested different types of information and were influenced by evidence and mechanism for different reasons. The findings suggest that goals influence how participants use evidence and mechanism.
Establishing a Framework for Quality
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Lehman, Kirby
2006-01-01
The Jenks School District applies a continuous improvement approach that focuses on academics, arts, activities, athletics and attitude, weaving in leadership, professional development, technology and data-based decision making to prepare all learners to be productive, responsible citizens. Since 1998, the Jenks School District has embraced a…
Challenges and Research Agenda of School Leadership in Taiwan
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Pan, Hui-Ling Wendy; Chen, Peiying
2011-01-01
Throughout the world, rapid political and economic change has applied enormous pressure on educators addressing leadership and accountability measures to improve instructional practices and student performance. Decentralisation of central authority regarding school site-based decision-making has drastically changed the educational environment in…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kivela, Jari; Haldre, Kai; Part, Kai; Ketting, Evert; Baltussen, Rob
2014-01-01
Policy-makers making decisions on the implementation of school-based sexuality education (SE) programmes face two important questions: (1) what are the costs of implementing and scaling up SE programmes, and (2) what are the impacts? This paper responds to these questions by retrospectively assessing costs, impact and cost-effectiveness of the…
Johnson, K
2000-01-01
While community based crisis response teams offer needed resources to schools impacted by crisis, they are often not asked to help. Reports from crisis team leaders at the school shooting incidents at James W. Parker Middle School, Edinboro, Pennsylvania and Columbine High School, Littleton, Colorado are contrasted regarding utilization of community resources. Factors limiting the usefulness of community based teams include unfamiliarity with school organization, culture, and procedures. Key differences in school vs. community team precepts, decision-making, and strategic paradigms render team coordination difficult. Successful cross training presents opportunities for school-community partnership and utilization of community teams for school duty.
What Districts Can Do To Improve Instruction and Achievement in All Schools.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Togneri, Wendy
2003-01-01
A study of five high-poverty districts making strides in improving student achievement revealed that these districts focused on systemwide strategies including new approaches to professional development; making decisions based on data, not instinct; and redefining leadership roles. (MLF)
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kubik, Martha Y.; Fulkerson, Jayne A.; Story, Mary; Rieland, Gayle
2006-01-01
School-based body mass index (BMI) screening and parent notification programs have been recommended as a childhood overweight prevention strategy. However, there are little empirical data available to guide decision making about the acceptability and safety of programs. A pilot study was conducted using a quasiexperimental research design. In fall…
Controlled Autonomy: Novice Principals' Schema for District Control and School Autonomy
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Weiner, Jennie M.; Woulfin, Sarah L.
2017-01-01
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to gain insights into how a group of novice principals, all in schools that deployed principles of autonomy as mechanisms for improvement, conceptualized what the authors label "controlled autonomy"--a condition in which school leaders are expected to both make site-based decisions and be accountable…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Etheridge, Carol Plata; And Others
This study examines the effects of principal leadership styles on the development of the working styles of seven local school councils in Memphis (Tennessee) during their first 15 months of operation. The successful implementation of a school-based decision making (SBDM) management model depends upon the ability of the local school council to…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Salas, Kathryn
2013-01-01
Post secondary education is essential to success. To ensure that students who graduate from high school are prepared to make informed decisions about their life after high school, they need to be explicitly taught career development skills. These skills should be part of a comprehensive, results-based, developmentally appropriate comprehensive…
Autonomy and School Improvement: What Do We Know and Where Do We Go from Here?
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Honig, Meredith I.; Rainey, Lydia R.
2012-01-01
New "autonomy initiatives" aim to increase schools' decision-making authority as a strategy to leverage school improvement. These policies build on lessons of previous reforms such as site-based management in ways that bode well for their success. However, how are these policies actually faring in implementation? The authors addressed that…
School Principals as Agents of Reform of the Russian Education System
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kasprzhak, A. G.; Filinov, N. B.; Bayburin, R. F.; Isaeva, N. V.; Bysik, N. V.
2015-01-01
The paper is based on the results of a study of secondary school principal decision-making styles conducted in eight regions of the Russian Federation (one per federal district) in 2014 using the methodological approach developed by Alan J. Rowe. The study aimed to assess the reformist potential of Russian school principals. We believe that this…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Oregon Univ., Eugene. Center for Educational Policy and Management.
This workshop presenter's guide is intended for use by administrators in training one another in the Project Leadership program developed by the Association of California School Administrators (ACSA). The purposes of the guide are: to provide administrators with a framework for deciding when others (particularly subordinates) should participate in…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Vanlommel, Kristin; Vanhoof, Jan; Van Petegem, Peter
2016-01-01
There is a growing expectation that schools should systematically collect and analyse data as a point of departure for decisions. However, research shows that teachers themselves are less convinced that they need to base their decisions on data, as they mainly rely on their intuition and experience. This article examines the extent to which…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Watkins, Arthur Noel
The purpose of this study was to identify and describe the decision-making processes in senior high schools that were implementing programs of individualized schooling. Field methodology, including interviews, observations, and analysis of documents, was used to gather data in six senior high schools of varying size located throughout the country,…
Asbestos in the Schools: A Guide for School Administrators, Teachers, and Parents.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Harvey, Carolyn; Rollinson, Mark
The past few years have created decision-making problems for school managers dealing with asbestos hazards in the past, for failing to do so in the present, and for doing so improperly in the future. This book summarizes the available knowledge pertinent to the decisions that school administrators and others must make regarding asbestos in the…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Inandi, Yusuf; Giliç, Fahrettin
2016-01-01
The aim of this research is to study the relationship between primary school teachers' level of participation in decision making, school culture and their level of readiness for change. The data in the study were collected from 597 primary school teachers (304 men and 293 women) in central districts of Mersin in 2014 spring semester. Participation…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hammad, Waheed
2010-01-01
This article explores cultural factors impeding members of the school community from engaging in shared decision-making (SDM) processes. It reports on findings from a larger qualitative research study of SDM in Egypt's secondary schools. The purpose of the study was to identify barriers to SDM, using data collected from nine general secondary…
Vocational Interests of Intellectually Gifted and Highly Achieving Young Adults
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Vock, Miriam; Koller, Olaf; Nagy, Gabriel
2013-01-01
Background: Vocational interests play a central role in the vocational decision-making process and are decisive for the later job satisfaction and vocational success. Based on Ackerman's (1996) notion of "trait complexes," specific interest profiles of gifted high-school graduates can be expected. Aims: Vocational interests of gifted and…
Understanding Resource Allocation in High Schools.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hartman, William T.
Despite commonly held views concerning educators' rational decision-making behavior, there are competing interpretations of school personnels' objective, actions, and decision-making processes. Alternative explanations emphasize bureaucratic routine, administrative convenience, educator self-interest, and political motivations, rather than…
The Contribution of Emotional Intelligence to Decisional Styles among Italian High School Students
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Di Fabio, Annamaria; Kenny, Maureen E.
2012-01-01
This study examined the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) and styles of decision making. Two hundred and six Italian high school students completed two measures of EI, the Bar-On EI Inventory, based on a mixed model of EI, and the Mayer Salovey Caruso EI Test, based on an ability-based model of EI, in addition to the General…
Learning to Make Decisions Through Constructive Controversy.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Tjosvold, Dean
Students must make decisions about their lifestyle, future careers, academic pursuits, and classroom and school issues. Learning to make effective decisions for themselves and for society is an important aspect of competence. They can learn decision making through interacting and solving problems with others. A central ingredient for successful…
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Gresch, Helge; Hasselhorn, Marcus; Bögeholz, Susanne
2013-10-01
Dealing with socio-scientific issues in science classes enables students to participate productively in controversial discussions concerning ethical topics, such as sustainable development. In this respect, well-structured decision-making processes are essential for elaborate reasoning. To foster decision-making competence, a computer-based programme was developed that trains secondary school students (grades 11-13) in decision-making strategies. The main research question is: does training students to use these strategies foster decision-making competence? In addition, the influence of meta-decision aids was examined. Students conducted a task analysis to select an appropriate strategy prior to the decision-making process. Hence, the second research question is: does combining decision-making training with a task analysis enhance decision-making competence at a higher rate? To answer these questions, 386 students were tested in a pre-post-follow-up control-group design that included two training groups (decision-making strategies/decision-making strategies combined with a task analysis) and a control group (decision-making with additional ecological information instead of strategic training). An open-ended questionnaire was used to assess decision-making competence in situations related to sustainable development. The decision-making training led to a significant improvement in the post-test and the follow-up, which was administered three months after the training. Long-term effects on the quality of the students' decisions were evident for both training groups. Gains in competence when reflecting upon the decision-making processes of others were found, to a lesser extent, in the training group that received the additional meta-decision training. In conclusion, training in decision-making strategies is a promising approach to deal with socio-scientific issues related to sustainable development.
Teacher Participation in Decision Making and Its Impact on School and Teachers
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Sarafidou, Jasmin-Olga; Chatziioannidis, Georgios
2013-01-01
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine teacher involvement in different domains of decision making in Greek primary schools and explore associations with school and teacher variables. Design/methodology/approach: A survey employing self-administered questionnaires, with a Likert-type scale assessing teachers' actual and desired…
Research Report: Schools as Effective Data Users
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Protheroe, Nancy
2010-01-01
Data use and decision-making--these two phrases have appeared together in probably hundreds of education articles and have been the topic of a host of presentations during the past decade. In addition, research studies have confirmed the importance of data-informed decision-making to school improvement. Thus, school leaders have found it makes…
School Board Decision Making Practices
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Beard, Nicole R.
2017-01-01
The purpose of this study was to examine the way in which school boards use data when making decisions, specifically their orientations, perceptions, concerns and priorities around data. This study sought to understand how school boards use data when setting or tracking progress toward goals and aimed following the process of board use of data to…
The Fearless School Leader: Making the Right Decisions
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
McCabe, Cynthia
2011-01-01
This book identifies the six fearless decisions that school leaders need to make to be successful. The author analyzes the top fears that impede effective leadership and lower student achievement, then provides a step by step antidote that will change fear into intention, increase confidence, and produce positive results in your school. In this…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Murzyn, Amy; Hughes, Trudie
2015-01-01
This multiple case study described the experiences of case managers making mathematics placement decisions for high school students with high incidence disabilities. Participants included three parents, three students, three case managers, three mathematics teachers, and three administrators from different high schools across rural, suburban and…
Ethical Decision-Making by High School Principals in Evaluating Teachers
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Bakopoulos, Fotini
2013-01-01
The purpose of this study was to examine the ethical beliefs and preparation practices of high school principals when making decisions on the evaluation of teacher performance for retention and/or tenure. The participants consisted of a total of 10 high school principals, associate principals, and assistant principals who evaluate the performance…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Renzulli, Joseph S.
This monograph addresses the role of gifted education in total school improvement by describing three service delivery components (the Total Talent Portfolio, Curriculum Modification Techniques, and Enrichment Learning and Teaching) and several organizational components of the Schoolwide Enrichment Model (SEM). The report describes how the SEM can…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Muñoz, Marco A.
2016-01-01
Research-Practice Partnerships (RPP) can enable and support an evidence-based school culture for decision-making in districts across the nation. Based on our experiences in a large urban district, a key element for a successful RPP is to understand that school districts have their own research needs/agenda typically articulated in strategic plans.…
Genetics Curriculum Materials for the 21st Century
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Dawson, Vaille; Carson, Katherine; Venville, Grady
2010-01-01
The purpose of this project was to provide innovative and cutting edge genetics materials for 14-17 year olds (Year 10-12) in Australian schools, which aimed to engage students and encourage evidence based decision-making. In 2008, an Australian School Innovation in Science, Technology and Mathematics (ASISTM) project called "Genetics…
2017-12-01
Action Reports .....................................................................9 2. Psychological Impact of Training... INTEGRATION ...................................................................60 D. JOHN BOYD’S OODA LOOP...impact of a school-based active shooter cannot be understated. Beyond the given risk of injury and death, a potential psychological impact exists to all
Argumentation and Decision Making in Professional Practice
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Gainsburg, Julie; Fox, John; Solan, Lawrence M.
2016-01-01
How is argumentation used in professional practice? As schools aim to ensure that students are college-and-career ready, classroom practices might be informed by argumentation in the professions. An analysis of evidence-based reasoning in 3 professions--engineering, law, and medicine--offers out-of-school perspectives on the practices and purposes…
School System Simulation: An Effective Model for Educational Leaders.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Nelson, Jorge O.
This study reviews the literature regarding the theoretical rationale for creating a computer-based school system simulation for educational leaders' use in problem solving and decision making. Like all social systems, educational systems are so complex that individuals are hard-pressed to consider all interrelated parts as a totality. A…
The Legacy of Apollo: Assessed and Appreciated.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Griffin, Richard A.; Griffin, Ann D.
1997-01-01
The real-life drama 25 years ago when Apollo 13 was rescued through a collaborative team of colleagues provides a model for changes in many public schools. In Texas, the state code specifies that site-based decision making address planning, budgeting, curriculum staffing patterns, staff development, and school organization. (MLF)
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Chikoko, Vitallis
2008-03-01
This paper reports on a study of the role of parent governors in five neighbouring rural primary schools in Zimbabwe. The study proposed that despite the presence of a legal decentralised school governance structure in which parents form the majority, they did not have the capacity to function effectively therein, and were still marginalised in school governance decision-making. Four areas of decision-making were investigated: school organisation; curriculum; employment and appraisal of teaching staff; and financial resources. Interviews were conducted with parent governors, school heads and teachers. Findings show that all the respondent groups perceived significant parental involvement in the area of school finances only. However, parents were perceived to lack the capacity to make decisions in all four areas. The study concludes that the role of parents in the running of schools in the country has not significantly grown from that of being school financiers and builders of infrastructure. Therefore, building school governance capacity among parents is necessary.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Bowen, Natasha K.; Powers, Joelle D.
2011-01-01
Evidence-based practice and data-driven decision making (DDDM) are two approaches to accountability that have been promoted in the school literature. In spite of the push to promote these approaches in schools, barriers to their widespread, appropriate, and effective use have limited their impact on practice and student outcomes. This article…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Slaven, Lori A.
2014-01-01
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the degree of importance of Harvey et al.'s (1997) 13 problem-solving strategies for making retrenchment decisions on school district budgets as perceived by California superintendents of medium-sized school districts. Methodology: The subjects in the present study were 86 superintendents of…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Brockbank, Brennan R.
2017-01-01
Purpose: This study sought to identify, understand, and describe the decision-making processes used by school districts to determine the middle school science course sequence as part of the adoption of the Next Generation Science Standards. Additionally, this study explored and described the expressed comments, feelings, and beliefs of…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Bigham, Gary D.; Riney, Mark R.
2017-01-01
To meet the constantly changing needs of schools and diverse learners, educators must frequently monitor student learning, revise curricula, and improve instruction. Consequently, it is critical that careful analyses of student performance data are ongoing components of curriculum decision-making processes. The primary purpose of this study is to…
Design and Data in Balance: Using Design-Driven Decision Making to Enable Student Success
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Fairchild, Susan; Farrell, Timothy; Gunton, Brad; Mackinnon, Anne; McNamara, Christina; Trachtman, Roberta
2014-01-01
Data-driven approaches to school decision making have come into widespread use in the past decade, nationally and in New York City. New Visions has been at the forefront of those developments: in New Visions schools, teacher teams and school teams regularly examine student performance data to understand patterns and drive classroom- and…
Participative Decision-Making and Job Satisfaction for Teachers in the UAE
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Al Nuaimi, Samira; Chowdhury, Hossan; Eleftheriou, Konstantinos; Katsioloudes, Marios I.
2015-01-01
Purpose: Knowledge of teachers' participative decision making (PDM) and job satisfaction (JS) is important, as teachers comprise most of a school's staff. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of teacher gender, nationality and school type on teachers' PDM and JS in Abu Dhabi's schools and to determine whether there any significant…
The Microfoundations of Human Resources Management in US Public Schools
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Pogodzinski, Ben
2016-01-01
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify the extent to which human resources (HR) decision making is influenced by the social context of school systems. More specifically, this study draws upon organizational theory focussed on the microfoundations of organizations as a lens identify key aspects of school HR decision making at the…
[Determining the efficacy of a high-school life-skills' programme in Huancavelica, Peru].
Choque-Larrauri, Raúl; Chirinos-Cáceres, Jesús Lorenzo
2009-01-01
Determining the efficacy of a life-skills' programme within the context of a school health promotion programme using teenagers from a high-school in the district of Huancavelica, Peru during school year 2006. This was non-equivalent experimental research with pre-test and post-test. The subjects consisted of 284 high school students. The variables analyzed were communication, self esteem, assertiveness, decision making, sex and age. There was a significant increase in the experimental group's communication and assertiveness skills' development. There were no significant differences in decision-making and self-esteem skills. The life-skills' programme was effective during one school year, especially in terms of learning and developing communication and assertiveness skills. However, self-esteem and decision-making skills did not present a statistically significance difference. Programme implementation must thus be redirected and the life-skills' programme should be implemented throughout all high-school years.
Assessing English Language Learner Content Knowledge in the Mainstream Classroom
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Clark-Gareca, Beth
2013-01-01
In K-12 environments in the US, classroom tests are a central means by which teachers assess English Language Learner (ELL) content knowledge. Performance on routine classroom assessments is often a contributing criterion for school based decision-making and can affect decisions relating to academic tracking, retention, and access to academic…
The Relationship between Shared Leadership and Administrative Creativity in Kuwaiti Schools
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Alanezi, Ahmad
2016-01-01
To continue to fulfill their social and educational role, educational institutions must develop or adopt modern leadership trends based on solid theory and proven effectiveness. Shared leadership is a method of management that allows teachers to participate in decision making and share in the implementation of those decisions. A study sample of…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Murphy, Jody
A model career decision-making program to reduce the effects of sex-role stereotyping in career choices of senior high school students was conducted at Columbine High School (Lakewood, Colorado). Project goals included the following: (1) to provide students with self-awareness and career-decision-making activities designed to broaden options these…
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Brotman, Jennie S.; Mensah, Felicia Moore
2013-06-01
Studies across fields such as science education, health education, health behavior, and curriculum studies identify a persistent gap between the aims of the school curriculum and its impact on students' thinking and acting about the real-life decisions that affect their lives. The present study presents a different story from this predominant pattern in the literature. Through a year-long ethnographic investigation of a health-focused New York City public high school's HIV/AIDS and sex education program, this study illustrates a case in which 20 12th grade students respond positively to their education on these topics and largely assert that school significantly influences their perspectives and actions related to sexual health decision-making. This paper presents the following interpretation of this positive influence: school culture influences these students' perspectives and decisions around sexual health by contributing to the formation of students' identities. This paper further shows how science learning in particular becomes important for students in relation to decision-making when it is linked to issues of identity. These findings suggest that, in addition to attending to the design of classroom curriculum, HIV/AIDS and sex education researchers and curriculum developers (as well as those in science education focusing on other controversial science topics) might also explore the kinds of relational and school-wide factors that potentially influence students' identities, decisions, and responses to school learning.
High School Students' Career Decision-Making Difficulties According to Locus of Control
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kirdök, Oguzhan; Harman, Esranur
2018-01-01
This study intends to elaborate upon difficulties in career decisions of high school students with different locus of control. 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th grade students aged 14-19, 282 (%55.4) females, 227 (%44.6) males totaling 509 participants involved in research located in the south of Turkey. Career Decision-Making Difficulties Questionnaire…
Cooking and Staff Development: A Blend of Training and Experience.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Koll, Patricia; Anderson, Jim
1982-01-01
The making of a staff developer combines deliberate, systematic training and an accumulation of knowledge, skills, and assumptions based on experience. Staff developers must understand school practices and adult learning theory, shared decision-making and organization of support, and be flexible, creative, and committed to their work. (PP)
Sex and Career Decision-Making Styles.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Lunneborg, Patricia W.
1978-01-01
Tested the hypothesis of greater reliance on the intuitive style by females and on the planning style by males in making career decisions. There were no sex differences in these high school and college samples for stage or style of decision making, vocational self-concept crystallization, or self-rated vocational decisiveness. (Author/BEF)
Gamification of Dietary Decision-Making in an Elementary-School Cafeteria
Jones, Brooke A.; Madden, Gregory J.; Wengreen, Heidi J.; Aguilar, Sheryl S.; Desjardins, E. Anne
2014-01-01
Despite the known health benefits of doing so, most US children do not consume enough fruits and vegetables (FV). School-based interventions can be effective in increasing FV consumption, but the most effective of these require that schools allocate their time, effort, and financial resources to implementing the program: expenditures that schools may be reluctant to provide in climates of academic accountability and economic austerity. The present demonstration project used a behaviorally based gamification approach to develop an intervention designed to increase FV consumption while minimizing material and labor costs to the school. During the intervention, the school (N = 180 students in grades K-8) played a cooperative game in which school-level goals were met by consuming higher-than-normal amounts of either fruit or vegetables (alternating-treatments experimental design). School-level consumption was quantified using a weight-based waste measure in the cafeteria. Over a period of 13 school days, fruit consumption increased by 66% and vegetable consumption by 44% above baseline levels. Use of an alternating-treatment time-series design with differential levels of FV consumption on days when fruit or vegetable was targeted for improvement supported the role of the intervention in these overall consumption increases. In post-intervention surveys, teachers rated the intervention as practical in the classroom and enjoyed by their students. Parent surveys revealed that children were more willing to try new FV at home and increased their consumption of FV following the intervention. These findings suggest that a behaviorally based gamification approach may prove practically useful in addressing concerns about poor dietary decision-making by children in schools. PMID:24718587
Gamification of dietary decision-making in an elementary-school cafeteria.
Jones, Brooke A; Madden, Gregory J; Wengreen, Heidi J; Aguilar, Sheryl S; Desjardins, E Anne
2014-01-01
Despite the known health benefits of doing so, most US children do not consume enough fruits and vegetables (FV). School-based interventions can be effective in increasing FV consumption, but the most effective of these require that schools allocate their time, effort, and financial resources to implementing the program: expenditures that schools may be reluctant to provide in climates of academic accountability and economic austerity. The present demonstration project used a behaviorally based gamification approach to develop an intervention designed to increase FV consumption while minimizing material and labor costs to the school. During the intervention, the school (N = 180 students in grades K-8) played a cooperative game in which school-level goals were met by consuming higher-than-normal amounts of either fruit or vegetables (alternating-treatments experimental design). School-level consumption was quantified using a weight-based waste measure in the cafeteria. Over a period of 13 school days, fruit consumption increased by 66% and vegetable consumption by 44% above baseline levels. Use of an alternating-treatment time-series design with differential levels of FV consumption on days when fruit or vegetable was targeted for improvement supported the role of the intervention in these overall consumption increases. In post-intervention surveys, teachers rated the intervention as practical in the classroom and enjoyed by their students. Parent surveys revealed that children were more willing to try new FV at home and increased their consumption of FV following the intervention. These findings suggest that a behaviorally based gamification approach may prove practically useful in addressing concerns about poor dietary decision-making by children in schools.
2009-10-01
FACILITATING DECISION MAKING, RE-USE AND COLLABORATION: A KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT APPROACH FOR SYSTEM SELF- AWARENESS Shelley P. Gallup, Douglas J... Information Systems Experimentation (DISE) Group Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA 93943 Keywords: Program self- awareness , decision making...decision makers express in obtaining constant awareness of what is going on in their domains of decision making because information that is needed
Competence skills help deter smoking among inner city adolescents.
Epstein, J A; Griffin, K W; Botvin, G J
2000-03-01
To test whether higher levels of general competence are linked to more frequent use of refusal assertiveness that is in turn related to less subsequent smoking among inner city adolescents. Longitudinal study conducted during three year middle school or junior high school period. A sample of 1459 students attending 22 middle (ages 11-14 years) and junior high (ages 12-15 years) schools in New York City participated. Students completed surveys at baseline, one year follow up, and two year follow up. The students self reported smoking, decision making skills, personal efficacy, and refusal assertiveness. Teams of three to five data collectors administered the questionnaire following a standardised protocol. These data were collected in school during a regular 40 minute class period. Based on the tested structural equation model, decision making and personal efficacy (that is, general competence) predicted higher refusal assertiveness and this greater assertiveness predicted less smoking at the two year follow up. The tested model had a good fit and was parsimonious and consistent with theory. Adolescent smoking prevention programmes often teach refusal skills in order to help youth resist peer pressure to smoke. The present findings suggest that teaching general competence skills as well may help to reduce smoking because youth with better personal efficacy and decision making skills are better able to implement smoking refusal strategies.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Crone, Eveline A.; van der Molen, Maurits W.
2007-01-01
Age differences in decision making indicate that children fail to anticipate outcomes of their decisions. Using heart rate and skin conductance analyses, we tested whether developmental changes in decision making are associated with (a) a failure to process outcomes of decisions, or (b) a failure to anticipate future outcomes of decisions.…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Cranston, Jerome A.; Kusanovich, Kristin A.
2013-01-01
This article considers the implications and effectiveness of a performing arts-based pedagogy in the professional development of school leaders. It reports on the findings from a study that exposed educational leaders to methods of dramatic analysis as a means of reflecting on the ethical dilemmas found in personnel management. Through the dynamic…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Agbakoba, Mary Olivia
2017-01-01
Catholic School principals play an important role in the development of students' spiritual, social, and academic wellbeing. Consequently, in order to improve students' spiritual, social, and academic skill, it is vital to study the perceived leadership styles and decision-making of Catholic School Principals. Research questions include: "Is…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Mosheti, Paul Alan
2013-01-01
The Problem: Two major national educational challenges in Botswana are to retain teachers and recruit more. Both retention and recruitment efforts often involve issues of teacher decision-making, teacher job satisfaction, and how these correlate with commitment to the school organization. Little was known about Botswana teachers' views on these…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hariri, Hasan; Monypenny, Richard; Prideaux, Murray
2016-01-01
School leadership is seen as important for both schools and for government and private policy-makers. The relationships between teacher-perceived principal leadership styles, teacher-perceived principal decision-making styles and teacher-perceived job satisfaction in schools in Lampung Province, Indonesia were examined. Data were collected by…
Schools and Data: The Educator's Guide for Using Data To Improve Decision Making.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Creighton, Theodore B.
This book focuses on the relevance of statistics in the day-to-day lives of principals and teachers. The step-by-step guide to using existing school data can help school leaders make more appropriate and effective decisions. The information is presented with easy-to-follow instructions, illustrations, and pertinent examples. The chapters are: (1)…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Marsh, Julie A.; McCombs, Jennifer Sloan; Martorell, Francisco
2010-01-01
This article examines the convergence of two popular school improvement policies: instructional coaching and data-driven decision making (DDDM). Drawing on a mixed methods study of a statewide reading coach program in Florida middle schools, the article examines how coaches support DDDM and how this support relates to student and teacher outcomes.…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Thompson, Debra A.
2010-01-01
This study explored how the educational governance team, composed of the superintendent and school board, can, in their collaborative efforts and decision-making processes, influence school district climate and impact student achievement. Though in form and function, school boards have not changed much in their almost 200 years of existence,…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Bademo, Yismaw; Tefera, Bekalu Ferede
2016-01-01
This study was conducted to assess the desired and actual levels of teachers' participation in decision-making process in Ethiopian secondary schools. For this, the study employed a cross-sectional survey design collecting data from sampled secondary school teachers (n = 258) found in Assosa Zone, Benishangual Gumuz Regional state, Ethiopia.…
Post-decision consolidation in large group decision-making.
Bäck, Emma A; Esaiasson, Peter; Gilljam, Mikael; Svenson, Ola; Lindholm, Torun
2011-08-01
Decision-makers tend to change the psychological attractiveness of decision alternatives in favor of their own preferred alternative after the decision is made. In two experiments, the present research examined whether such decision consolidation occurs also among individual group members in a large group decision-making situation. High-school students were presented with a decision scenario on an important issue in their school. The final decision was made by in-group authority, out-group authority or by majority after a ballot voting. Results showed that individual members of large groups changed the attractiveness of their preferred alternative from a pre- to a post-decision phase, that these consolidation effects increased when decisions were made by in-group members, and when participants identified strongly with their school. Implications of the findings for understanding of group behavior and subgroup relations are discussed. © 2011 The Authors. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology © 2011 The Scandinavian Psychological Associations.
Steps to Promote Open and Authentic Dialogue between Teachers and School Management
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Klein, Joseph
2017-01-01
Purpose: School principals must determine educational policies and make information-based decisions. Teachers have authentic information that they do not transmit in full to the principals. A theoretical model was tested that explains the factors behind this disconnection in communication. Design: Four hundred and forty-five teachers completed…
The High School Student as Worker/Consumer: A Workbook.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
New York City Board of Education, Brooklyn, NY. Div. of Curriculum and Instruction.
This workbook provides information and exercises to help high school students become educated consumers and prepare them for consumer responsibilities in the world of work. It is intended to help them develop an alert consumer outlook by sharpening mathematics and communication skills and helping them make decisions based on a sense of the value…
An Examination of the Factors Affecting Stakeholder's Assessment of School Decentralization.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Jenni, Roger W.; Mauriel, John J.
Factors that influence the perceptions held by school site council members and others about the quality of site-based management (SBM) are examined in this study. Specifically, the relationships among a group's assessment of SBM, perceived level of influence on council decision making, perceived level of support from other groups, and perceived…
Navigating Your Way through the Research Jungle
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Bauer, Scott; Brazer, David
2012-01-01
These days, information overload seems to be the normal state of existence. School leaders are inundated with descriptions of best practices and programs that work. They are exhorted to use evidence in all facets of decision-making and to employ research-based strategies to improve schools. Of course, research findings are seldom definitive, and…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Pascanean, Ludmila
2014-01-01
The Open Government Partnership is an international initiative, committing governments to its principles of transparency. This article examines how it can advance the topic of freedom of educational choice, as it emphasizes the importance of parents' involvement in the decision-making process at the school level. The article is based on the case…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Decker, Erwin A.; And Others
The pros and cons of decentralization of decision-making authority to the school-site level as a public school management technique are intended to serve as an informational summary for the members of the California State Board of Education, and as a resource for school district governing boards and district administrators to use to determine the…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Oztemel, Kemal
2013-01-01
The goal of this study was to examine the emotional and personality-related career decision-making difficulties of high school students in Turkish culture, using the model proposed by Saka and Gati. A sample of 523 high school students filled out the Turkish version of the Emotional and Personality-Related Aspects of Career Decision-Making…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Gilljam, Mikael; Esaiasson, Peter; Lindholm, Torun
2010-01-01
This article tests whether the form of decision-making used in school environments affects pupils' views on the legitimacy of the decisions made, and of the decision-making procedure. Building on political science theory on democratic decision-making, it compares pupils' reactions towards decisions made by pupil councils, by pupils via referendum,…
The Design of an IEP Decision Aid: A Tool for Diverse Parents of Children with Autism
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Schuttler, Jessica Oeth
2012-01-01
Decision-making is a universal process that occurs constantly in life. Parent participation in educational decision-making is recognized as important by special education law, by special education and school psychology literature (Christenson & Sheridan, 2001; IDEIA, 2004;). Partnership in decision-making is especially important for parents of…
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Kajiyama, Kosei
2016-04-01
Hiroshima University High School (HUHS) has devised and carried out overseas exchange programs on ESD issues for 7 years. These programs have been carried out as a part of a government-aided project called SSH (Super Science High School) *1. To start with, we had cooperative study program with a school in Germany in 2009, and next year with a school in Korea, and then gradually have expanded the cooperative schools. Since 2013, we have worked with schools in four countries; Korea, Thailand, Czech and Germany. Science lesson modules here refers to an assembly of a set of lessons, newly developed and improved for the project. These modules characteristically require the students to make decisions by themselves on given problems. In the course of the decision making, students learn what kind of data or facts should be presented as evidence and how they can make their decisions known to others. Among several modules we have designed, the one introduced here deals with the use of solar energy, which we carried out with a school in Korea in 2014-2015. It also includes lessons of the fuel cells using energy from hydrogen gas generated by solar cells. It aims to develop global human resources through carefully planned activities. First, the students of both schools make mixed groups and conduct experiments in physics, chemistry or biology on a given problem related to solar energy. Then they discuss in groups using data obtained from the experiments and through the Internet as evidence. After the thorough discussion, each group gives a presentation on their decision. The analysis of the presentations and the questionnaire to the students revealed the following points: 1) Students have come to have multidimensional perspectives on the utilization of solar energy. 2) Students have come to combine the results of different experiments when making decisions. 3) Students have developed flexible attitudes toward other cultures. 4) Students have developed communication skills in English. *1 SSH: Since 2002, the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) have designated schools that focus their education on science and math as Super Science High Schools and our school has been designated as one of SSH schools since 2003
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Molinatti, Gregoire; Girault, Yves; Hammond, Constance
2010-01-01
The present study analyzes decision-making and argumentation by high school students in a debate situation on a socioscientific issue, the use of embryonic stem cells in research and therapy. We tested the influence on the debates of two different contexts. Adolescent students at the high school level in the same grade (mean age 16.4 years) from…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Murillo, Leo
2017-01-01
The purpose of this causal comparative study is to determine whether the assistant principal decision-making process and their years of experience influence the advanced diploma rates in high schools on Long Island, New York. The subjects for this study were 75 assistant principals in Long Island high schools during 2016. Assistant principals'…
Teachers' Grading Decision Making: Multiple Influencing Factors and Methods
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Cheng, Liying; Sun, Youyi
2015-01-01
This study investigated Chinese secondary school English language teachers' grading decision making, focusing on the factors they considered and types of assessment they used for grading. A questionnaire was issued to 350 secondary school English language teachers in China. Descriptive analyses of the questionnaire data showed that these teachers…
The Value of Participatory Decision-Making: A Collaborative Approach.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Richardson, M. D.; And Others
This study investigated the practicality and feasibility of the public school administrator permitting those concerned, faculty, students, parents and interested citizens, to participate in the decision making process of the local school. An added purpose was to find applicable and effective ways the principal could support meaningful…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Slotnik, William J.; And Others
Methods for encouraging community involvement and training community volunteers for decision making positions in community schools are described. The functions of community schools are to provide a broad diversity of learning opportunities and to involve citizens in assessing community needs, evaluating services, and advocating…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Catacutan, Maria Rosario G.; de Guzman, Allan B.
2015-01-01
Ethical decision-making in school administration has received considerable attention in educational leadership literature. However, most research has focused on principals working in secondary school settings while studies that explore ethical reasoning processes of academic deans have been significantly few. This qualitative study aims to…
Teachers' Roles in Shared Decision-Making in a Pakistani Community School
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Salim, Zainab
2016-01-01
Over the past two decades, teacher participation in school decision-making has emerged as a significant theme in education reforms, gaining the attention of researchers and practitioners across different education contexts both in developed and developing countries (Lee & Nie, 2014). A supportive and participatory culture typically does not…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Cravens, Xiu Chen; Goldring, Ellen B.; Porter, Andrew C.; Polikoff, Morgan S.; Murphy, Joseph; Elliott, Stephen N.
2013-01-01
Purpose: Performance evaluation informs professional development and helps school personnel improve student learning. Although psychometric literature indicates that a rational, sound, and coherent standard-setting process adds to the credibility of an assessment, few studies have empirically examined the decision-making process. This article…
Culturally Responsive Teaching and Decision Making in Schools
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Wairia, Charles
2017-01-01
The purpose of this qualitative exploratory case study was to explore how teachers and administrators are culturally responsive in their teaching and decision-making in a school district in eastern United States. This study was guided by two concepts; culturally responsive teaching and culturally responsive pedagogy. The researcher conducted…
Examining One High School's Restructuring Efforts within "Garbage Can" Decision Making Theory.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Shindler, John V.
A study examined decision making within one large urban high school's restructuring efforts, using an emergent qualitative case-study design. Data, collected over a 2-year period, included formal and informal interviews, participant and nonparticipant observations, surveys, and documents. Results of data analysis supported matching the…
Justice in and through Education? Students' Participation in Decision-Making
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Rönnlund, Maria
2014-01-01
Drawing on one year of ethnographic work in three Swedish lower secondary schools, this article problematizes students' participation in decision-making in everyday school life in the perspective of social justice. In order to extend the traditional liberal understanding of justice and include also relational, procedurial, social and cultural…
Using Data to Advance Learning Outcomes in Schools
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
VanDerHeyden, Amanda; Harvey, Mark
2013-01-01
This article describes the emergence and influence of evidence-based practice and data-based decision making in educational systems. Increasingly, educators and consumers want to know that resources allocated to educational efforts yield strong effects for all learners. This trend is reflected by the widespread influence of evidence-based practice…
Despite Best Intentions: A Critical Analysis of Social Justice Leadership and Decision Making
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
DeMatthews, David E.; Mungal, Angus Shiva; Carrola, Paul A.
2015-01-01
The purpose of this article is to explore the relationship between social justice leadership and organizational decision making in order to make recommendations for how principals can make more socially just decisions in difficult school contexts. This article begins with a discussion of social justice leadership, facets and theories associated…
Guide for Planning K-6 Physical Education Programs.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
New York State Education Dept., Albany. Bureau of Elementary Curriculum Development.
This program planning guide for physical education in New York State Schools, grades K-6, is based on making the student fully aware of cultural, vocational, and aesthetic opportunities so the student can make constructive life decisions. The stated program goals are (a) mastery of communication and reasoning skills; (b) ability to sustain…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Data Quality Campaign, 2014
2014-01-01
Local school board members need to be able to access and use high-quality data to make good decisions. Often this data is collected and stored locally, but information that is publicly reported by the state can provide additional value. Most state public reporting is designed to serve information needs, and are geared toward compliance with state…
Busy yet Passive: (Non-)Decision-Making in School Governing Bodies
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Young, Helen
2017-01-01
School governing bodies in England have considerable powers and duties, and their formal role positions them as decision-makers. This article draws on qualitative research in the governing bodies of four maintained schools. Using deliberative democracy as a sensitising concept, the article considers some processes by which decisions are made (or…
Toward a System of Total Quality Management: Applying the Deming Approach to the Education Setting.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
McLeod, Willis B.; And Others
1992-01-01
Recently, the Petersburg (Virginia) Public Schools have moved away from a highly centralized organizational structure to a Total Quality Management system featuring shared decision making and school-based management practices. The district was guided by Deming's philosophy that all stakeholders should be involved in defining the level of products…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Tsantis, Linda; Castellani, John
2001-01-01
This article explores how knowledge-discovery applications can empower educators with the information they need to provide anticipatory guidance for teaching and learning, forecast school and district needs, and find critical markers for making the best program decisions for children and youth with disabilities. Data mining for schools is…
Time on Text and Science Achievement for High School Biology Students
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Wyss, Vanessa L.; Dolenc, Nathan; Kong, Xiaoqing; Tai, Robert H.
2013-01-01
The conflict between the amount of material to be addressed in high school science classes, the need to prepare students for standardized tests, and the amount of time available forces science educators to make difficult pedagogical decisions on a daily basis. Hands-on and inquiry-based learning offer students more authentic learning experiences…
Learning Systematically from Experience through a Research-to-Practice Pipeline in Chicago
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Fine, Wendy; Lansing, Jiffy; Bacon, Marshaun
2018-01-01
The Becoming A Man (BAM) program is a school-based group counseling and mentoring program run by Youth Guidance (YG), a community organization that serves children in Chicago schools who are at risk. BAM guides young men to learn, internalize, and practice social cognitive skills, make responsible decisions for their future, and become positive…
Field Test of an Epidemiology Curriculum for Middle School Students
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kaelin, Mark A.; Huebner, Wendy W.; Nicolich, Mark J.; Kimbrough, Maudellyn L.
2007-01-01
The purpose of this study was to test the effectiveness of a middle school epidemiology curriculum called Detectives in the Classroom. The curriculum presents epidemiology as the science of public health, using health-related issues that capture the interest of young students and help prepare them to make evidence-based health-related decisions.…
Combining the Best of Two Worlds: A Conceptual Proposal for Evidence-Informed School Improvement
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Brown, Chris; Schildkamp, Kim; Hubers, Mireille D.
2017-01-01
Background: Data-based decision-making (DBDM) and research-informed teaching practice (RITP) are key to teacher and school improvement. Currently, however, DBDM and RITP represent two distinct approaches to developing evidence-informed practice (EIP) and do not correspond to the all-encompassing notion of EIP envisaged by many academics and…
Promoting Maintenance and Generalization through Cognitive Decision Making Training
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Fore, Cecil, III; Riser, Susan E.
2005-01-01
This article investigates issues in the areas of work outcomes, self-determination, career decision-making skills, person centered planning, and transitional planning for students with disabilities. In particular, training in cognitive decision-making is suggested for students with mild disabilities. Educators and schools are charged with…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Cummings, Kelli D.; Stoolmiller, Michael L.; Baker, Scott K.; Fien, Hank; Kame'enui, Edward J.
2015-01-01
We present a method for data-based decision making at the school level using student achievement data. We demonstrate the potential of a national assessment database [i.e., the University of Oregon DIBELS Data System (DDS)] to provide comparative levels of school-level data on average student achievement gains. Through the DDS as a data source,…
Enhancing Decision-Making in STSE Education by Inducing Reflection and Self-Regulated Learning
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Gresch, Helge; Hasselhorn, Marcus; Bögeholz, Susanne
2017-02-01
Thoughtful decision-making to resolve socioscientific issues is central to science, technology, society, and environment (STSE) education. One approach for attaining this goal involves fostering students' decision-making processes. Thus, the present study explores whether the application of decision-making strategies, combined with reflections on the decision-making processes of others, enhances decision-making competence. In addition, this study examines whether this process is supported by elements of self-regulated learning, i.e., self-reflection regarding one's own performance and the setting of goals for subsequent tasks. A computer-based training program which involves the resolution of socioscientific issues related to sustainable development was developed in two versions: with and without elements of self-regulated learning. Its effects on decision-making competence were analyzed using a pre test-post test follow-up control-group design ( N = 242 high school students). Decision-making competence was assessed using an open-ended questionnaire that focused on three facets: consideration of advantages and disadvantages, metadecision aspects, and reflection on the decision-making processes of others. The findings suggest that students in both training groups incorporated aspects of metadecision into their statements more often than students in the control group. Furthermore, both training groups were more successful in reflecting on the decision-making processes of others. The students who received additional training in self-regulated learning showed greater benefits in terms of metadecision aspects and reflection, and these effects remained significant two months later. Overall, our findings demonstrate that the application of decision-making strategies, combined with reflections on the decision-making process and elements of self-regulated learning, is a fruitful approach in STSE education.
Swift and Smart Decision Making: Heuristics that Work
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hoy, Wayne K.; Tarter, C. J.
2010-01-01
Purpose: The aim of this paper is to examine the research literature on decision making and identify and develop a set of heuristics that work for school decision makers. Design/methodology/approach: This analysis is a synthesis of the research on decision-making heuristics that work. Findings: A set of nine rules for swift and smart decision…
Does Evidence Matter? How Middle School Students Make Decisions about Socioscientific Issues
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Emery, Katherine Beth
2013-01-01
People worldwide are faced with making decisions daily. While many decisions are quick (e.g., what clothes to wear), others, such as those about environmental issues (e.g., overfishing), require more thought and have less immediate outcomes. How one makes such decisions depends on how one interprets, evaluates, and uses evidence. The central…
DECISION-MAKING IN THE SCHOOLS: AN OUTSIDER’S VIEW,
DECISION MAKING , EDUCATION), (*EDUCATION, MANAGEMENT PLANNING AND CONTROL), (*MANAGEMENT PLANNING AND CONTROL, EDUCATION), BUDGETS, MANAGEMENT ENGINEERING, PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT, STUDENTS, LEARNING, OPTIMIZATION
Awofisayo, A; Ibbotson, S; Smith, G E; Janmohamed, K; Mohamed, H; Olowokure, B
2013-07-01
School closure as a social distancing measure was used in some countries during the initial phases of the influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 pandemic. The objective of this paper is to describe the use of a risk-based approach to public health interventions for schools during the 'containment phase' of the pandemic and to describe lessons learnt. The development of a framework for risk assessment and decision-making to determine school closures in the West Midlands, England, during the 'containment phase' of influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 pandemic is described. Using the framework developed during the 'containment phase', assessments were conducted for 344 educational institutions who reported confirmed cases or 'particularly high absenteeism'. Of these, 209 (60%) had confirmed cases and 65 were closed, mainly for public health or operational reasons. Schools were closed on an individual basis, during the most intense period of the pandemic and for an average period of six days (maximum 11 days). The risk-based approach evolved as experience and knowledge of influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 pandemic virus increased, however some decisions were difficult to communicate to parents, schools and stakeholders particularly when the number of schools affected escalated and the pandemic response phases changed. The management of school closures is an 'uncertain art'. Numerous challenges and lessons were identified in attempting, during the containment phase of the influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 pandemic, to ensure consistency and transparency in an increasingly complex process. The overall approach described could be further developed to improve decision-making for infectious diseases in schools. Copyright © 2013 The Royal Society for Public Health. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
The Call for Data-Driven Decision Making in the Midwest's Schools: NCREL's Response.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Cromey, Allison; van der Ploeg, Arie; Masini, Blase
This report describes the efforts of the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory (NCREL) during the last several years to respond to direct requests from educational stakeholders to help integrate data into their decision-making processes related to school improvement. In some cases, NCREL cooperated in the development of educational…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Menashy, Francine
2017-01-01
This study investigates collective decision making within a multistakeholder partnership through a case study of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE). Analyzed through the theoretical framework of sociological institutionalism, this study applies the issue of private schooling as a lens to understand policy-related decision making between…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Emery, Katherine; Harlow, Danielle; Whitmer, Ali; Gaines, Steven
2017-01-01
This study investigates how middle school students make hypothetical purchasing, consuming, and voting decisions about environmental and science-related issues--a key component of environmental literacy. Fifty-three female students were given a packet containing multiple excerpts of information from conflicting positions from stakeholders and…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Argon, Joe, Ed.; Spoor, Dana L.; Cox, Susan M.; Brown, Andrew; Ray, Jennifer
1998-01-01
Presents a series of articles that examine decision making in school construction and renovation projects. Topics include preparing for a construction project, purchasing windows that provide protection at a reasonable cost, choosing the best flooring and carpeting, and dealing with deregulation. An industry roundtable discussion on project…
Comparing the Financial Literacy of Public School, Christian School, and Homeschooled Students
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Wright, Tricia
2016-01-01
The 2008 recession underscored public concern that financial illiteracy has costs that are not limited to the individual who makes poor financial decisions. Considering that college students with limited financial experience are making legally binding decisions, this study explored the personal finance literacy and behavior of Christian college…
Principals' Decision Making in Discipline Policy Implementation: The Lutheran Schools' Perspective
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Brandon, Katherine J.
2013-01-01
This quantitative study examines the relationship of philosophical beliefs of administrators of Lutheran schools and the influence of those beliefs on discipline decision-making styles, job satisfaction, and other factors. The study patterns the survey work from William Perry (1999) and other theorists regarding philosophy and ethics. A…
Software Enabling School Improvement through Analysis of Student Data. Report Number 67
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Wayman, Jeffrey C.; Stringfield, Sam; Yakimowski, Mary
2004-01-01
The No Child Left Behind legislation has drawn increased attention to student data. Data are most useful in educational decision-making when the purpose extends beyond vertical accountability and toward school- and classroom-level decision-making that enhances the experience and achievement of students. This necessarily involves getting practical…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Nara, Jun
2010-01-01
This research explores how chief cabin crew members of major airlines made their decisions on-the-spot when they had unexpected problems. This research also presents some insights that may improve personnel training programs for future stewardesses and stewards based on the investigation of their decision-making styles. The theoretical framework…
Pedagogical Decision Making through the Lens of Teacher Preparation Program
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Prachagool, Veena; Nuangchalerm, Prasart; Subramaniam, Ganakumaran; Dostal, Jirí
2016-01-01
Pedagogical decision making is very important for professional teachers, it concerns belief, self-efficacy, and actions that teachers expose to classroom. This paper employed theoretical lens and education policy in Thailand to examine the preservice teachers' views about pedagogical decision making. Discussion helps school mentors understand…
Shared Decision Making with Collective Bargaining.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Steimel, Eric L.
This paper examines the changing role of school leaders, in light of the current trend toward participative decision making. Executive Order 12871 mandates the formation of a partnership between unions and management, which will result in teachers playing an active role in decision making. Leaders, particularly leaders of Department of Defense…
The Body as Evidence: Helping Clients Identify Decision-Making Roadblocks
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Synard, Jacqueline T.
2009-01-01
Grad school or Europe for a year? A highly motivated, fourth-year liberal arts student makes her decision but still has doubts. What roles do emotion and a client's personal history play in career counselling? The case study utilizes experiential process to uncover decision-making roadblocks.
A role of decision-making competency in science learning utilizing a social valuation framework
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Katsuo, Akihito
2005-11-01
The role of decision-making in learning performance has been an occasional topic in the research literature in science education, but rarely has it been a central issue in the field. Nonetheless, recent studies regarding the topic in several fields other than education, such as cognitive neuroscience and social choice theory, indicate the fundamental importance(s) of the topic. This study focuses on a possible role of decision-making in science learning. Initially the study was designed to probe the decision-making ability of elementary school children with a modified version of the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT). The experiment involved six Montessori 3rd and 4th grade students as the experimental group and eight public school 3rd and 4th grade students as the control group. The result of the modified IGT revealed a tendency in choice trajectories favoring children at the Montessori school. However, the probabilistic value went below the statistically significant level set by the U test. A further study focused on the impact of better decision-making ability revealed in the first experiment on performances with a science learning module that emphasized collective reasoning. The instruction was based on a set of worksheets with multiple choices on which students were asked to make predictions with and to provide supportive arguments regarding outcomes of experiments introduced in the worksheet. Then the whole class was involved with a real experiment to see which choice was correct. The findings in the study indicated that the Montessori students often obtained higher scores than non-Montessori students in making decision with a tendency of consistency in terms of their choices of the alternatives on the worksheets. The findings of the experiments were supported by a correlational analysis that was performed at the end of study. Although no statistically significant correlations were found, there was a tendency for positively associative shifts between the scores of the modified IGT and the scores for the performances on the science module for the Montessori students.
Planning Protective Action Decision-Making: Evacuate or Shelter-in-Place
DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)
Sorensen, J.H.
Appropriate protective action recommendations or decisions (PARs/PADs) are needed to achieve maximum protection of a population at risk. The factors that affect protective action decisions are complex but fairly well documented. Protective action decisions take into account population distributions, projected or actual exposure to a chemical substance, availability of adequate shelters, evacuation time estimates, and other relevant factors. To choose in-place sheltering, there should be a reasonable assurance that the movement of people beyond their residence, workplace, or school will endanger the health and safety of the public more so than allowing them to remain in place. The decision tomore » evacuate the public should be based on the reasonable assurance that the movement of people to an area outside of an affected area is in the best interest of their health and safety, and is of minimal risk to them. In reality, an evacuation decision is also a resource-dependent decision. The availability of transportation and other resources, including shelters, may factor heavily in the protective action decision-making process. All strategies to protect the health and safety of the public from a release of hazardous chemicals are explicitly considered during emergency decision making. Each institutional facility (such as hospitals, schools, day care centers, correctional facilities, assisted living facilities or nursing homes) in the community should be considered separately to determine what special protective actions may be necessary. Deciding whether to evacuate or to shelter-in-place is one of the most important questions facing local emergency planners responding to a toxic chemical release. That such a complex decision with such important potential consequences must be made with such urgency places tremendous responsibility on the planners and officials involved. Researchers have devoted considerable attention to the evacuation/shelter-in-place protection decision. While several decision aids have been developed, no single approach has achieved widespread acceptance based on validity, utility, and effectiveness (Ujihara 1989, Mannan and Kilpatrick 2000). In the absence of an agreed-upon methodology for making this decision, the best strategy for local emergency planners and officials is a thorough understanding of all the components affecting the decision. This paper summarizes what is currently known about the evacuation/shelter-in-place protection decision and points to available literature that more thoroughly explores the individual components of the decision. The next section summarizes the major issues in protective action decision process. This is followed by a discussion of all the factors that may bear on the protective action decision process. The final section address how to make a protective action decision.« less
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Bermani, Michelle Ines
2017-01-01
In this quantitative and qualitative mixed study, the researcher focused on a range of factors that drive principals' decision making and examined the variables that affect principals' decision-making. The study assessed the extent to which principals' leadership and decision-making processes exert influence on the operations of inclusion…
[School readiness and community mobilization: study retrospective in a Montreal area].
Laurin, Isabelle; Bilodeau, Angèle; Chartrand, Sébastien
2012-02-22
This article presents a modelling of the collective decision-making process by which a community-based population-level intervention transformed the organization of early childhood services in a Montréal community from 2001 to 2006. Multisectoral players from a childhood/family issue table. The chosen territory is one of the most multi-ethnic and poorest neighbourhoods of Montréal. The intervention being examined is Understanding the Early Years (UEY), a Canada-wide initiative aiming to strengthen communities' capacity to use quality information to support the thought process relating to the organization of early childhood services. Twelve Canadian regions took part, including Montréal. The time chart for the collective decision-making process presents the events that significantly influenced the procedure: establishment of an intersectoral working committee, production of a portrait of the neighbourhood, think tank, development and implementation of the Passage maison-école [home-to-school] and Femmes-Relais [relay women] projects, retreats, and inclusion of school readiness as a priority focus area in the neighbourhood's three-year action plan. Also presented are the contextual factors that influenced decision making: the neighbourhood's cooperation and coordination history, the researcher's involvement, financial support and shared leadership. The benefits of UEY-Montréal in this territory extended beyond 2006. With respect to current priorities for action in early childhood, this territory is a good example of mobilization for school readiness.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Burns, W. R. Travis; DiPaola, Michael F.
2013-01-01
Emerging research suggests that teachers' perceptions of fairness with respect to interactions with school administrators, decision-making processes, and decision outcomes can contribute greatly to understanding effective schools. This study of Virginia public high schools used correlational analysis to measure the strength of the relationships…
Decisions, Decisions, Decisions: Using Data to Make Instructional Decisions for Struggling Readers
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Filderman, Marissa J.; Toste, Jessica R.
2018-01-01
Reading proficiency is fundamental to school success. However, up to 50% of students with reading disabilities are not making adequate progress. Students who demonstrate persistent and severe reading difficulties require increasingly intensive instruction individualized to meet their instructional needs Individualizing instruction with…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Major, Marci L.
2010-01-01
The purpose of this study was to examine and understand the decision making process for keeping or cutting music programs in one selected public school district. Berkley School District, in the Detroit suburb of Berkley, Michigan, has not made extreme cuts to the music program in over ten years, nor have they specifically targeted their music…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Major, Marci L.
2013-01-01
This study was designed to examine the decision-making process for keeping or cutting the music program in one selected public school district. Lekbery School District, in the Detroit suburb of Lekbery, Michigan, had not made extreme cuts to the music program in over 10 years, nor had it specifically targeted the music program when budgets cuts…
From Empiricism to Total Quality Management in Greek Education
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Karavasilis, Ioannis; Samoladas, Ioannis; Nedos, Apostolos
Nowadays the education system in Greece moves towards democratization and decentralization. School unit is the cell and the base of the education system. Principal's role is highly demanding, multi-dimensional, and a critical determinant of school performance and effectiveness. The paper proposes an effective organizational plan of school units in Primary Education based on basic administration processes and Total Quality Management. Using theory of emotional intelligence and Blake-Mouton's grid it emphasizes the impact of Principal's leadership on democratizing the school unit, on creating a safe and secure environment and positive school climate and motivating teachers committee to participate in the decision making process.
Particle physics for primary schools—enthusing future physicists
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Pavlidou, M.; Lazzeroni, C.
2016-09-01
In recent years, the realisation that children make decisions and choices about subjects they like in primary school, became widely understood. For this reason academic establishments focus some of their public engagement activities towards the younger ages. Taking advantage of Professor Lazzeroni’s long-standing experience in particle physics research, during the last academic year we designed and trialled a particle physics workshop for primary schools. The workshop allows young children (ages 8-11) to learn the world of fundamental particles, use creative design to make particle models. The workshop has already been trialled in many primary schools, receiving very positive evaluation. The initial resources were reviewed and improved, based on the feedback received from school teachers and communicators.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Leuchter, Miriam; Saalbach, Henrik; Hardy, Ilonca
2014-01-01
Research on learning and instruction of science has shown that learning environments applied in preschool and primary school rarely makes use of structured learning materials in problem-based environments although these are decisive quality features for promoting conceptual change and scientific reasoning within early science learning. We thus…
A Haiku Suite: The Importance of Music Making in the Lives of Secondary School Students
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Prendergast, Monica; Gouzouasis, Peter; Leggo, Carl; Irwin, Rita L.
2009-01-01
This study offers an arts-based a/r/tographic inquiry using poetic transcription and representation of interviews conducted with a co-educational group of 14 students in a West Vancouver, British Columbia secondary school rhythm and blues band class. The decision to translate and analyse the interview transcripts into the Japanese poetry form of…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
McGrath, Dianne; Murphy, Daniel
2016-01-01
This paper reports on a project which is designed to increase the participation of high school students in accounting work experience placements. The focus of the paper is on an Australian-based project which overcomes the identified barriers to offering high school accounting work experience placements with a resultant increase in the number and…
Living, working, and going to school near roadways has been associated with a number of adverse health effects, including asthma exacerbation, cardiovascular impairment, and respiratory symptoms. In the United States, 30% - 45% of urban populations live or work in the near-road e...
A Design-Based Approach to Fostering Understanding of Global Climate Change
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Svihla, Vanessa; Linn, Marcia C.
2012-01-01
To prepare students to make informed decisions and gain coherent understanding about global climate change, we tested and refined a middle school inquiry unit that featured interactive visualizations. Based on evidence from student pre-test responses, we increased emphasis on energy transfer and transformation. The first iteration improved…
The Principal and the Pear Tree.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hoyle, John R.
1991-01-01
School principals are in a difficult environment filled with stress and plagued by weak support. Most principals are unprepared for site-based decision making. University professors must take the initiative to use the emerging knowledge base and develop professional studies degree and staff development programs to prepare principals. (24…
The Adolescent Smoking and Health Project.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Sutherland, Mary; And Others
This project was designed to specifically apply a health planning management system to a school based health education risk reduction program. Additionally, the Adolescent Smoking and Alcohol Project assisted youth in making informed decisions about the use/abuse of alcohol and cigarettes. Program components included a related knowledge base;…
Accountability Policies and Teacher Decision Making: Barriers to the Use of Data to Improve Practice
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Ingram, Debra; Louis, Karen Seashore; Schroeder, Roger G.
2004-01-01
One assumption underlying accountability policies is that results from standardized tests and other sources will be used to make decisions about school and classroom practice. We explore this assumption using data from a longitudinal study of nine high schools nominated as leading practitioners of Continuous Improvement (CI) practices. We use the…
Wrestling the Devil in the Details: An Early Look at Restructuring in California
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Scott, Caitlin
2006-01-01
To learn more about district and school decision making for No Child Left Behind (NCLB) restructuring, the Center on Education Policy (CEP) turned to California, a state with a substantial number of schools in restructuring and several state and regional supports for making decisions about restructuring. In the summer and fall of 2005, CEP…
School to Work Transitions in Europe: Choice and Constraints
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Cuconato, Morena
2017-01-01
Starting from the assumption that school to work transitions constitute not only the end goal but also an integral part of educational trajectories, this article reconstructs the narratives of the decision-making processes of young people at the end of lower secondary education, namely the ways in which decision-making is referred to, the temporal…
Beyond the Bureaucratic Model: A Study of Power and Autonomy in Educational Decision-Making
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hanson, Mark
1976-01-01
This paper argues that there are at least two decision-making systems in the school: (1) the first reflects mainly school-wide affairs and lends itself to rational, centrally controlled procedures that restrict behaviors to conform with well-programmed events; and (2) the second reflects mainly classroom affairs and requires flexibility and…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Sawyer, Richard
2013-01-01
Correlational evidence suggests that high school GPA is better than admission test scores in predicting first-year college GPA, although test scores have incremental predictive validity. The usefulness of a selection variable in making admission decisions depends in part on its predictive validity, but also on institutions' selectivity and…
Decision Making Process and Declining Enrollments in Northern New England
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
St. Cyr, Robert
2017-01-01
This research was conducted as a qualitative comparative case study of two Northern New England school districts that were in the process of responding to declining enrollments. The purpose of the study was to explore decision-making through the lens of declining enrollments. An award winning rural school in an affluent town with high performing…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Palte, Suzanne C.
2014-01-01
The State of Michigan, as of 2012-2013, requires school districts to enroll students in full day kindergarten to receive full funding. This study investigated the decision-making process that was used by public school districts to determine kindergarten programs in their district. Specifically, how did administrators and staff members use the…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Farina, Andrea J.
2013-01-01
This explanatory mixed-method study explored the dropout phenomenon from an ecological perspective identifying the school organizational (academics, activities, structure) and social relationship (teachers, peers) factors that most significantly influence students' decisions to leave school prior to graduation at a rural high school in south…
Participatory Governance in Secondary Schools: The Students' Viewpoint in Eastern Region of Kenya
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Mulwa, David M.; Kimosop, Maurice K.; Kasivu, Gedion M.
2015-01-01
The purpose of the study was to determine the students' view on participatory school governance in secondary schools of the Eastern region, Kenya. Participatory school governance implies the involvement of stakeholders in the decision making process in schools. The objectives of the study were to identify the key decision makers in selected…
Gender and Values: What Is the Impact on Decision Making?
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Crow, Stephen M.; And Others
1991-01-01
Linkages among gender, decision making, and values related to moral development and equity/equality are studied for 54 graduate and 186 undergraduate business school students (48 percent females) attending a Southern urban university. Results illustrate gender-related differences in value systems, weights of decision issues, and decisions. Future…
Information Dominance: Informations Role in Influencing Decision Making
2014-03-01
AND DATES COVERED Master’s Thesis 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE INFORMATION DOMINANCE : INFORMATION’S ROLE IN INFLUENCING DECISION MAKING 5. FUNDING...unlimited INFORMATION DOMINANCE : INFORMATION’S ROLE IN INFLUENCING DECISION MAKING Geoffrey C. Gaines Lieutenant, United States Navy B.S...NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA THESIS Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited INFORMATION
How Do Children Share Information in Groups?
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Gummerum, Michaela; Leman, Patrick J.; Hollins, Tara S.
2014-01-01
Group decision making should be particularly beneficial when group members share unique information, because then a group can make a better decision than each group member alone. This study examined how elementary-school children share unique information during group decision making. Seventy-nine groups of 3 same-sex and same-age 7- and 9-year-old…
Teaching Empathy and Ethical Decision Making in Business Schools
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Baker, Diane F.
2017-01-01
Researchers in behavioral ethics seek to understand how individuals respond to the ethical dilemmas in their lives. In any given situation, multiple social and psychological variables interact to influence ethical decision making. The purpose of this article is to explore how one such variable, empathy, affects the ethical decision-making process…
Principals' Perceptions of Community and Staff Involvement in Shared Decision Making.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Brown, David W.; And Others
1996-01-01
Survey of 217 Maine principals revealed that respondents perceived their staff as moderately to highly involved in decision making, viewed the community as informed but not actively involved in decision making, and desired greater involvement from staff and parents. Principal gender and school level did not affect desired levels of involvement.…
Development of Moral Emotions and Decision-Making from Childhood to Young Adulthood
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hasegawa, Mari
2016-01-01
This study investigated the development of moral decision-making and moral emotion attributions in antisocial behavior and peer relationship dilemma scenarios. Participants were 540 school- and college-aged students, who were asked to explain their moral decision-making, subsequent emotions, and reasoning in regard to the scenarios. We combined…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Gutierez, Sally B.
2015-01-01
Scientific literacy has been focused on the construction of students' knowledge to use appropriate and meaningful concepts, critically think, and make balanced, well-informed decisions relevant to their lives. This study presents the effects of integrating socio-scientific issues to enhance the bioethical decision-making skills of biology…
Development of a Core Curriculum Framework in Cariology for U.S. Dental Schools.
Fontana, Margherita; Guzmán-Armstrong, Sandra; Schenkel, Andrew B; Allen, Kennneth L; Featherstone, John; Goolsby, Susie; Kanjirath, Preetha; Kolker, Justine; Martignon, Stefania; Pitts, Nigel; Schulte, Andreas; Slayton, Rebecca L; Young, Douglas; Wolff, Mark
2016-06-01
Maintenance of health and preservation of tooth structure through risk-based prevention and patient-centered, evidence-based disease management, reassessed at regular intervals over time, are the cornerstones of present-day caries management. Yet management of caries based on risk assessment that goes beyond restorative care has not had a strong place in curriculum development and competency assessment in U.S. dental schools. The aim of this study was to develop a competency-based core cariology curriculum framework for use in U.S. dental schools. The Section on Cariology of the American Dental Education Association (ADEA) organized a one-day consensus workshop, followed by a meeting program, to adapt the European Core Cariology Curriculum to the needs of U.S. dental education. Participants in the workshop were 73 faculty members from 35 U.S., three Canadian, and four international dental schools. Representatives from all 65 U.S. dental schools were then invited to review and provide feedback on a draft document. A recommended competency statement on caries management was also developed: "Upon graduation, a dentist must be competent in evidence-based detection, diagnosis, risk assessment, prevention, and nonsurgical and surgical management of dental caries, both at the individual and community levels, and be able to reassess the outcomes of interventions over time." This competency statement supports a curriculum framework built around five domains: 1) knowledge base; 2) risk assessment, diagnosis, and synthesis; 3) treatment decision making: preventive strategies and nonsurgical management; 4) treatment decision making: surgical therapy; and 5) evidence-based cariology in clinical and public health practice. Each domain includes objectives and learning outcomes.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hart, Walter H.
2018-01-01
Given the critical impact of their decisions and of the community's perception of their performance, it is reasonable that school superintendents would seek to understand the factors that influence their decisions and the processes used to make them. The researcher in this study used a qualitative approach, interviewing 13 school superintendents…
2011-01-01
Background School closure was employed as a non-pharmaceutical intervention against pandemic 2009 H1N1, particularly during the first wave. More than 700 schools in the United States were closed. However, closure decisions reflected significant variation in rationales, decision triggers, and authority for closure. This variability presents the opportunity for improved efficiency and decision-making. Methods We identified media reports relating to school closure as a response to 2009 H1N1 by monitoring high-profile sources and searching Lexis-Nexis and Google news alerts, and reviewed reports for key themes. News stories were supplemented by observing conference calls and meetings with health department and school officials, and by discussions with decision-makers and community members. Results There was significant variation in the stated goal of closure decision, including limiting community spread of the virus, protecting particularly vulnerable students, and responding to staff shortages or student absenteeism. Because the goal of closure is relevant to its timing, nature, and duration, unclear rationales for closure can challenge its effectiveness. There was also significant variation in the decision-making authority to close schools in different jurisdictions, which, in some instances, was reflected in open disagreement between school and public health officials. Finally, decision-makers did not appear to expect the level of scientific uncertainty encountered early in the pandemic, and they often expressed significant frustration over changing CDC guidance. Conclusions The use of school closure as a public health response to epidemic disease can be improved by ensuring that officials clarify the goals of closure and tailor closure decisions to those goals. Additionally, authority to close schools should be clarified in advance, and decision-makers should expect to encounter uncertainty disease emergencies unfold and plan accordingly. PMID:21284865
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Watson, Curtis L.
2010-01-01
This report details an ongoing investigation of the decision-making processes of a group of secondary school students in south-eastern Australia undertaking information search tasks. The study is situated in the field of information seeking and use, and, more broadly, in decision making. Research questions focus on students' decisions about the…
Does Evidence Matter? How Middle School Students Make Decisions About Socioscientific Issues
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Emery, Katherine Beth
People worldwide are faced with making decisions daily. While many decisions are quick (e.g., what clothes to wear), others, such as those about environmental issues (e.g., overfishing), require more thought and have less immediate outcomes. How one makes such decisions depends on how one interprets, evaluates, and uses evidence. The central objective of this thesis was to investigate environmental science literacy in general, and specifically, to understand how evidence and other factors impact decision-making. I conducted three main studies: First, I provide an example of how decision-making practices affect environmental systems and services through a descriptive case study of Atlantic bluefin tuna overfishing. I reviewed the scientific, historical and cultural factors contributing to a paradox of marine preservation in the Mediterranean and highlighted the need for education and informed decision-making about such social and ecological issues. This study motivated me to investigate how people make decisions about environmental issues. Second, I interviewed middle school students to understand how they describe and evaluate evidence hypothetically and in practice about environmental issues---a key component of environmental literacy. Students discussed how they would evaluate evidence and then were then given a packet containing multiple excerpts of information from conflicting stakeholders about an environmental issue and asked how they would make voting or purchasing decisions about these issues. Findings showed that students' ideas about evaluating evidence (e.g., by scientific and non-scientific criteria) match their practices in part. This study was unique in that it investigated how students evaluate evidence that (1) contradicts other evidence and (2), conflicts with the student's prior positions. Finally, I investigated whether middle school students used evidence when making decisions about socioscientific issues. I hypothesized that holding a strong opinion would decrease the likelihood of changing decisions when presented with additional information. Findings indicated that most students do not change their stance after reading additional evidence. Students were more likely to change their decisions about issues that they cared least about than about issues that they cared most about. Implications for science teaching and learning are discussed.
Integrating Information & Communications Technologies into the Classroom
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Tomei, Lawrence, Ed.
2007-01-01
"Integrating Information & Communications Technologies Into the Classroom" examines topics critical to business, computer science, and information technology education, such as: school improvement and reform, standards-based technology education programs, data-driven decision making, and strategic technology education planning. This book also…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Lapides, Joseph
Factors influencing decision making are reviewed, and strategies which a school psychologist can use to increase parent involvement in decisions about their handicapped children are delineated. It is explained that four types of interventions are effective in promoting parental involvement: decision counseling, the balance sheet schema to help…
Effective Decision Making: Developing Ownership for Improved School Culture.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Herman, Jerry J.; Herman, Janice L.
This book discusses ways to involve students, employees, programs, and activities in school decisions. The book stresses the belief that decisions made by a group of stakeholders are more efficacious than are solitary decisions. Each of the eight chapters addresses a specific topic, and each ends with a summary and a list of exercises. Chapter 1…
Teaching science for public understanding: Developing decision-making abilities
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Siegel, Marcelle A.
One of the most important challenges educators have is teaching students how to make decisions about complex issues. In this study, methods designed to enhance students' decision-making skills and attitudes were investigated. An issue-oriented science curriculum was partly replaced with activities designed by the experimenter. The first objective of the study was to examine the effects of an instructional method to increase students' use of relevant scientific evidence in their decisions. The second goal of the research was to test whether the instructional activities could promote students' beliefs that science is relevant to them, because attitudes have been shown to affect students' performance and persistence (Schommer, 1994). Third, the study was designed to determine whether the instructional activities would affect students' beliefs that their intelligence is not fixed but can grow; this question is based on Dweck and Leggett's (1988) definition of two orientations toward intelligence---entity theorists and incremental theorists (Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Dweck & Henderson, 1989). Two urban high-school classrooms participated in this study. Tenth graders examined scientific materials about current issues involving technology and society. Instructional materials on decision making were prepared for one class of students to enhance their regular issue-oriented course, Science and Sustainability. A computer program, called Convince Me (Schank, Ranney & Hoadley, 1996), provided scaffolding for making an evidence-based decision. The experimental group's activities also included pen-and-paper lessons on decision making and the effect of experience on the structure of the brain. The control class continued to engage in Science and Sustainability decision-making activities during the time the experimental class completed the treatment. The control group did not show significant improvement on decision-making tasks, and the experimental group showed marginally significant gains (p = .06) according to the Rasch analysis. A measure of students' understanding of coherent argumentation was correlated with higher decision posttest scores. Over time, both classes significantly regarded science as being more relevant to everyday life. Students' attitudes about ability showed insignificant changes.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Dawson, George G.
This manual provides secondary school teachers with ideas for relating economics to student needs, interests, and experiences. The tentative syllabus "Economics and Economic Decision Making," designed for 12th grade social studies by the New York State Education Department in 1987, is used as a guide. Motivational activities for the 18…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Ogutu, Joel Peter; Odera, Peter; Maragia, Samuel N.
2017-01-01
The most common constrain to career progression among youth in Kenya is the inability to make informed career decisions. Majority of high school students suffer from excitement for attaining university degree self-actualization rather than taking up career that enhances development of talents and skills that are job market driven. This study aimed…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Mager, Ursula; Nowak, Peter
2012-01-01
This article reviews empirical research on the effects of student participation in school decision-making processes. Out of 3102 searched citations, a total of 32 publications met the inclusion criteria. The qualitative analyses employed in this review yielded a typology of student participation, a categorisation of the diverse effects of student…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Umoren, Grace
2007-01-01
The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of Science-Technology-Society (STS) curriculum on students' scientific literacy, problem solving and decision making. Four hundred and eighty (480) Senior Secondary two science and non-science students were randomly selected from intact classes in six secondary schools in Calabar Municipality of…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Florida State Univ., Tallahassee.
This handbook is designed to assist schools in carrying out the following goals of the Fair Play program: to strengthen and expand students' female or male self-concepts, to increase their decision-making skills, and to increase their academic achievement by changing their stereotypic attitude toward particular content areas. The Fair Play program…
Creating a System for Data-Driven Decision-Making: Applying the Principal-Agent Framework
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Wohlstetter, Priscilla; Datnow, Amanda; Park, Vicki
2008-01-01
The purpose of this article is to improve our understanding of data-driven decision-making strategies that are initiated at the district or system level. We apply principal-agent theory to the analysis of qualitative data gathered in a case study of 4 urban school systems. Our findings suggest educators at the school level need not only systemic…
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Gresch, Helge; Bögeholz, Susanne
2013-04-01
Students are faced with a multitude of decisions as consumers and in societal debates. Because of the scarcity of resources, the destruction of ecosystems and social injustice in a globalized world, it is vital that students are able to identify non-sustainable courses of action when involved in decision-making. The application of decision-making strategies is one approach to enhancing the quality of decisions. Options that do not meet ecological, social or economic standards should be excluded using non-compensatory strategies whereas other tasks may require a complete trade-off of all the evidence, following a compensatory approach. To enhance decision-making competence, a computer-based intervention study was conducted that focused on the use of decision-making strategies. While the results of the summative evaluation are reported by Gresch et al. (International Journal of Science Education, 2011), in-depth analyses of process-related data collected during the information processing are presented in this paper to reveal insights into the mechanisms of the intervention. The quality of high school students' ( n = 120) metadecision skills when selecting a decision-making strategy was investigated using qualitative content analyses combined with inferential statistics. The results reveal that the students offered elaborate reflections on the sustainability of options. However, the characteristics that were declared non-sustainable differed among the students because societal norms and personal values were intertwined. One implication for education for sustainable development is that students are capable of reflecting on decision-making tasks and on corresponding favorable decision-making strategies at a metadecision level. From these results, we offer suggestions for improving learning environments and constructing test instruments for decision-making competence.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Perez, J. Carola; Cumsille, Patricio
2012-01-01
The study analyzes the way in which adolescents' temperamental characteristics interact with parental control to shape adolescent decision making development. A sample of high-school Chilean adolescents (N = 391) answered a self-report questionnaire that included measures of behavioral autonomy (the extent to which adolescents make decisions in…
The Fairy Godmother--and Her Warts: Making the Dream of Evidence-Based Policy Come True
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Weiss, Carol H.; Murphy-Graham, Erin; Petrosino, Anthony; Gandhi, Allison G.
2008-01-01
Evaluators sometimes wish for a Fairy Godmother who would make decision makers pay attention to evaluation findings when choosing programs to implement. The U.S. Department of Education came close to creating such a Fairy Godmother when it required school districts to choose drug abuse prevention programs only if their effectiveness was supported…
School Boards as Policy-Makers.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Coleman, Peter
Decision-making in general and policy decisions in particular are the prime responsibility of school boards because policies are control mechanisms by which trustees assert local control. Policy decisions differ from others in their concern with values and purposes and the legitimization of the organization to society at large. Additionally, they…
Vocational Decision-Making Interview. Administration Manual.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Czerlinsky, Thomas; McCray, Paul M.
This guide is intended to assist rehabilitation counselors, school guidance personnel, and others involved in administering and interpreting the results of the Vocational Decision-Making Interview (VDMI). (The VDMI is a structured interview instrument that was developed to facilitate the assessment of an individual's vocational decision-making…
2012-05-17
theories work together to explain learning in aviation—behavioral learning theory , cognitive learning theory , constructivism, experiential ...solve problems, and make decisions. Experiential learning theory incorporates both behavioral and cognitive theories .104 This theory harnesses the...34Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Flight School XXI," 7. 106 David A. Kolb , Experiential Learning : Experience as the Source of
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Henke, Karen Greenwood
2005-01-01
With the passage of "No Child Left Behind" in 2001, schools are expected to provide a standards-based curriculum for students to attain math and reading proficiency and demonstrate progress each year. "NCLB" requires more frequent student testing with publicly reported results in an effort to close the achievement gap and to inform parents,…
Decision Making Perspectives of Young Children (K-5).
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Rogers, Linda J.; McDonald, Linda L.
1999-01-01
Applies Blumer's theory of symbolic interactionism to explore how normal children make meaning of their decision making world, both of their own acts and the labyrinthine world adults structure for them. Schema/narratives on friendship, sports, adults, and school reveal knowledge making strategies defined by immediate experiences and a capacity to…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Dotger, Benjamin H.
2011-01-01
School leaders make countless decisions but do not receive adequate preparation for communicating their decisions to parents, students, and teachers. Building on the need to prepare school leaders for a variety of complex professional situations, this article introduces the medical education pedagogy of standardized patients to the field of school…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Jung, Jae Yup; McCormick, John; Gregory, Gary; Barnett, Kerry
2011-01-01
The purpose of this study was to investigate the roles of culture and motivation in the occupational decisions of senior high school students attending private schools. A theoretical framework guided the study. A questionnaire was administered to 492 Grade 11 students attending a stratified random sample of six independent (private) schools…
The Role of the School Principal in Comparative Perspectives.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Geering, Adrian D.
Decentralized school systems make the principal's role more complex in the U.S. than in Australia's highly centralized system. Principals are pivotal to school success in both countries. A principal sets a school's climate, affecting decision-making, communications, educational innovations, and teacher morale, while performing formal tasks…
Managing School-Based Curriculum Innovations: A Hong Kong Case Study
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Law, Edmond H. F.; Wan, Sally W. Y.; Galton, Maurice; Lee, John C. K.
2010-01-01
This study was originally designed to explore the impact of a distributed approach to developing curriculum leadership among schoolteachers. Previous papers have focused on reporting evidence of teacher learning in the process of engaging teachers in various types of curriculum decision-making in an innovation project based on interview data. This…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Puddy, Richard W.; Boles, Richard E.; Dreyer, Meredith L.; Maikranz, Julie; Roberts, Michael C.; Vernberg, Eric M.
2008-01-01
We illustrate the use of formative and summative assessment in evaluating a therapeutic classroom program for children with serious emotional disturbances. Information was analyzed based on data gathered for clinical decision-making during treatment (formative assessment) and measurement of outcomes at discharge (summative assessment) from a…
Understanding How Principals Use Data Dashboards to Inform Systemic School Improvement
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Marker, Kathryn Christner
2016-01-01
Because data access may be perceived by principals as overwhelming or irrelevant rather than helpful (Wayman, Spikes, & Volonnino, 2013), data access does not guarantee effective data use. The data-based decision making literature has largely focused on teacher use of data, considering less often data-based organizational improvements for the…
Principal Selection Decisions Made by Teachers: The Influence of Principal Candidate Experience
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Winter, Paul A.; Jaeger, Mary Grace
2004-01-01
Public school teachers (N = 189) role-played as members of school councils making principal selection decisions by rating simulated candidates for principal vacancies. The independent variables were principal candidate job experience, candidate person characteristics, and teacher school level. The dependent variable was teacher rating of the job…
Understanding decisions Latino students make regarding persistence in the science and math pipeline
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Munro, Janet Lynn
This qualitative study focused on the knowledge and perceptions of Latino high school students, as well those of their parents and school personnel, at a southwestern, suburban high school regarding persistence in the math/science pipeline. In the context of the unique school and community setting these students experience, the decision-making process was examined with particular focus on characterizing the relationships that influence the process. While the theoretical framework that informs this study was that of social capital, its primary purpose was to inform the school's processes and policy in support of increased Latino participation in the math and science pipeline. Since course selection may be the most powerful factor affecting school achievement and college-preparedness, and since course selection is influenced by school policy, school personnel, students, parents, and teachers alike, it is important to understand the beliefs and perceptions that characterize the relationships among them. The qualitative research design involved a phenomenological study of nine Latino students, their parents, their teachers and counselors, and certain support personnel from the high school. The school's and community's environment in support of academic intensity served as context for the portrait that developed. Given rapidly changing demographics that bring more and more Latino students to suburban high schools, the persistent achievement gap experienced by Latino students, and the growing dependence of the world economy on a citizenry versed in the math- and science-related fields, a deeper understanding of the decision-making processes Latino 12 students experience can inform school policy as educators struggle to influence those decisions. This study revealed a striking lack of knowledge concerning the college-entrance ramifications of continued course work in math and science beyond that required for graduation, relationships among peers, parents, and school personnel that were markedly lacking in influence over the decision a student makes to continue, or not, course work beyond that required for graduation, and a general dismissal of the value of math- and science-related careers. Also lacking was any evidence of social capital within parental networks that reflected intergenerational closure.
Competence skills help deter smoking among inner city adolescents
Epstein, J.; Griffin, K.; Botvin, G.
2000-01-01
OBJECTIVE—To test whether higher levels of general competence are linked to more frequent use of refusal assertiveness that is in turn related to less subsequent smoking among inner city adolescents. METHODS—Longitudinal study conducted during three year middle school or junior high school period. A sample of 1459 students attending 22 middle (ages 11-14 years) and junior high (ages 12-15 years) schools in New York City participated. Students completed surveys at baseline, one year follow up, and two year follow up. The students self reported smoking, decision making skills, personal efficacy, and refusal assertiveness. Teams of three to five data collectors administered the questionnaire following a standardised protocol. These data were collected in school during a regular 40 minute class period. RESULTS—Based on the tested structural equation model, decision making and personal efficacy (that is, general competence) predicted higher refusal assertiveness and this greater assertiveness predicted less smoking at the two year follow up. The tested model had a good fit and was parsimonious and consistent with theory. CONCLUSIONS—Adolescent smoking prevention programmes often teach refusal skills in order to help youth resist peer pressure to smoke. The present findings suggest that teaching general competence skills as well may help to reduce smoking because youth with better personal efficacy and decision making skills are better able to implement smoking refusal strategies. Keywords: adolescent smoking; competence skills; refusal assertiveness; peer pressure PMID:10691756
La Vincente, S F; Mielnik, D; Jenkins, K; Bingwor, F; Volavola, L; Marshall, H; Druavesi, P; Russell, F M; Lokuge, K; Mulholland, E K
2015-12-18
In 2008 Fiji implemented a nationwide Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine campaign targeting all girls aged 9-12 years through the existing school-based immunisation program. Parents of vaccine-eligible girls were asked to provide written consent for vaccination. The purpose of this study was to describe parents' knowledge, experiences and satisfaction with the campaign, the extent to which information needs for vaccine decision-making were met, and what factors were associated with vaccine consent. Following vaccine introduction, a cross-sectional telephone survey was conducted with parents of vaccine-eligible girls from randomly selected schools, stratified by educational district. Factors related to vaccine consent were explored using Generalised Estimating Equations. There were 560 vaccine-eligible girls attending the participating 19 schools at the time of the campaign. Among these, 313 parents could be contacted, with 293 agreeing to participate (93.6%). Almost 80% of participants reported having consented to HPV vaccination (230/293, 78.5%). Reported knowledge of cervical cancer and HPV prior to the campaign was very low. Most respondents reported that they were satisfied with their access to information to make an informed decision about HPV vaccination (196/293, 66.9%). and this was very strongly associated with provision of consent. Despite their young age, the vaccine-eligible girls were often involved in the discussion and decision-making. Most consenting parents were satisfied with the campaign and their decision to vaccinate, with almost 90% indicating they would consent to future HPV vaccination. However, negative media reports about the vaccine campaign created confusion and concern. Local health staff were cited as a trusted source of information to guide decision-making. Just over half of the participants who withheld consent cited vaccine safety fears as the primary reason (23/44, 52.3%). This is the first reported experience of HPV introduction in a Pacific Island nation. In a challenging environment with limited community knowledge of HPV and cervical cancer, media controversy and a short lead-time for community education, Fiji has implemented an HPV vaccine campaign that was largely acceptable to the community and achieved a high level of participation. Community sensitisation and education is critical and should include a focus on the local health workforce and the vaccine target group.
Teaching medical students about fair distribution of healthcare resources.
Leget, C; Hoedemaekers, R
2007-12-01
Healthcare package decisions are complex. Different judgements about effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and disease burden influence the decision-making process. Moreover, different concepts of justice generate different ideas about fair distribution of healthcare resources. This paper presents a decision model that is used in medical school in order to familiarise medical students with the different concepts of justice and the ethical dimension of making concrete choices. The model is based on the four-stage decision model developed in the Netherlands by the Dunning Committee and the discussion that followed its presentation in 1991. Having to deal with 10 medical services, students working with the model learn to discern and integrate four different ideas of distributive justice that are integrated in a flow chart: libertarian, communitarian, egalitarian and utilitarian.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Wilson, Sharise Mavis
2010-01-01
The purpose of this project was to explore the decision-making approach and types of data that school psychologists use in determining special education classification. There were three research objectives: (a) to investigate the types of conditions and measures needed to test the use of the representativeness heuristic and assessment data, (b) to…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Shen, Jianping; Xia, Jiangang
2012-01-01
Is the power relationship between public school teachers and principals a win-win situation or a zero-sum game? By applying hierarchical linear modeling to the 1999-2000 nationally representative Schools and Staffing Survey data, we found that both the win-win and zero-sum-game theories had empirical evidence. The decision-making areas…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Polka, Walter; Litchka, Peter; Mete, Rosina; Ayaga, Augustine
2016-01-01
The authors of the article outline a historical review of Catholic education and student enrollment in North America and a recent perspective of Catholic school principals' decision-making and problem-solving preferences. The purpose of this article is to provide the reader with an understanding of events which impacted the evolution of Catholic…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Freeman, Pamela; And Others
Researchers looked at participation in decision-making as perceived by 2,056 teachers, principals, central office personnel, and superintendents in Tennessee. They also looked at both satisfaction in relation to six decision categories and attitudes toward unionization. Teachers' self-perceptions of participation in policy decision-making…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Pflum, Glenn D.; Brown, Robert D.
This study investigated information needs and use by groups in decision-making processes. Problem contexts were varied by conflict, quality, and time conditions and presented to 89 graduate level education students who simulated school board members making decisions about educational programs. The research hypotheses were: (1) there are no…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
El Hassan, Karma; Mouganie, Zeina
2014-01-01
This study investigated the effect of the Social Decision-Making Skills Curriculum (SDSC) on the emotional intelligence and the prosocial behaviors of primary students in Grades 1-3, in a private school in Lebanon. Students were trained in social problem-solving and social decision-making skills through the implementation of the SDSC. Participants…
The Role of Personal Ethical Checking in Courageous School Leadership
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Buskey, Frederick C.; Pitts, Eric M.
2013-01-01
When school leaders make calculated decisions to deviate from hierarchical or cultural directives and norms, they may be viewed as mavericks or brigands. This paper details a process of ethical checking to help differentiate ethical decisions from more arbitrary or self-serving decisions. The paper examines conflicts inherent in many professional…
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Blue, Levon Ellen; O'Brien, Mia; Makar, Katie
2017-08-01
From an early age, children are faced with financial dilemmas and are expected to make effective financial decisions about money. In this paper, we explore the classroom practices that may enable a compassionate approach to financial literacy education. We observed an inquiry-based mathematics lesson in a Year 4 primary school classroom. The financial maths task asked students to decide on the best fundraising option for the school. We used the theory of practice architectures to analyse the interactions in the classroom in order to understand what may have enabled and constrained classroom practices. We found that classroom practices such as engaging with peers through positive and collaborative learning opportunities, making ethical, social and mathematical connections of the task, and considering the impact of financial decisions on others may enable a compassionate approach to financial literacy education.
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Blue, Levon Ellen; O'Brien, Mia; Makar, Katie
2018-06-01
From an early age, children are faced with financial dilemmas and are expected to make effective financial decisions about money. In this paper, we explore the classroom practices that may enable a compassionate approach to financial literacy education. We observed an inquiry-based mathematics lesson in a Year 4 primary school classroom. The financial maths task asked students to decide on the best fundraising option for the school. We used the theory of practice architectures to analyse the interactions in the classroom in order to understand what may have enabled and constrained classroom practices. We found that classroom practices such as engaging with peers through positive and collaborative learning opportunities, making ethical, social and mathematical connections of the task, and considering the impact of financial decisions on others may enable a compassionate approach to financial literacy education.
Shared Decisions & Technology-Assisted Learning
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Jacobs, Mary
2005-01-01
In this short article, the author discusses how Henderson Middle School in Jackson, Georgia used shared decision making to improve student achievement through the use of laptop computers. With effective use of technology and shared decision making, administrators at Henderson believe that they can continue to achieve Adequate Yearly Progress under…
Expert-novice differences in cognitive and execution skills during tennis competition.
Del Villar, Fernando; García González, Luis; Iglesias, Damián; Perla Moreno, M; Cervelló, Eduardo M
2007-04-01
This study deals with decision and execution behavior of tennis players during competition. The study is based on the expert-novice paradigm and aims to identify differences between both groups in the decision-making and execution variables in serve and shot actions in tennis. Six expert players (elite Spanish tennis players) and six novice players (grade school tennis players) took part in this study. To carry out this study, the observation protocol defined by McPherson and Thomas in 1989, in which control, decision-making and execution variables were included, was used, where it was applied to the performance of the tennis player in a real match situation. In the analysis, significant differences between experts and novices in decision-making and execution variables are found wherein it can be observed that experts display a greater ability to make the appropriate decisions, selecting the most tactical responses to put pressure on the opponent. Expert tennis players were also able to carry out forceful executions to their opponent with greater efficiency, making the opponent's response to a large extent more difficult. These findings are in accordance with those of McPherson and colleagues.
Tough Questions for Tough Times
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Parrett, William; Budge, Kathleen
2009-01-01
Six high-performing/high-poverty schools provide insights into what it takes to make a dramatic turnaround. School leaders had to make tough calls--and many of those decisions were about how to use resources. The budget in a high-performing, high-poverty school is a moral document, reflective of the school's beliefs about the conditions necessary…
The Data Base and Decision Making in Public Schools.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hedges, William D.
1984-01-01
Describes generic types of databases--file management systems, relational database management systems, and network/hierarchical database management systems--with their respective strengths and weaknesses; discusses factors to be considered in determining whether a database is desirable; and provides evaluative criteria for use in choosing…
Managerial Accounting in Library and Information Science Education.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hayes, Robert M.
1983-01-01
Explores meaning of managerial accounting in libraries and discusses instructional program for students of library and information science based on experience in School of Library and Information Science at University of California, Los Angeles. Management decision making (budgeting, performance evaluation, overhead, resource allocation,…
Responsibility-Centered Management: A 10-Year Nursing Assessment.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
McBride, Angela Barron; Neiman, Sandra; Johnson, James
2000-01-01
Describes the implementation of responsibility-centered management, a decentralized model giving deans responsibility for expanding and using resources, at Indiana University's nursing school. Discusses how it led to creation of an information-rich environment, strategic decision making, and a performance-based reward structure. (SK)
Basic Information About the School Siting Guidelines
EPA's voluntary school siting guidelines provide recommendations for local school districts and community members on how to evaluate environmental factors to make the best possible school siting decisions.
Improved Decision Making for School Organization. What and What for
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Myers, Donald A.; Sinclair, Robert
1973-01-01
A framework of 13 decision criteria to give educators help in comparing the relative merits of different forms of school organization. The methods of school organization judged to be in widespread use and defined in the article are (1) the self-contained classroom, team teaching, departmentalization, modular scheduling, differentiated staffing,…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Cenkseven-Onder, Fulya; Kirdok, Oguzhan; Isik, Erkan
2010-01-01
Introduction: The purpose of this research was to investigate career decision among high school students regarding to their parenting styles (authoritative, authoritarian, indulgent, and neglectful) and parental attachment levels. Method: With this purpose, 382 (200 females; 182 males) Turkish high school students aged 14-18 completed Career…
Censorship in the Schools: The Responsibilities of Courts, Boards, and Administrators.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Epley, B. Glen; Moore, Kay M.
1985-01-01
Censorship in the schools is on the rise, and court decisions in critical cases have not clarified guidelines for protecting student rights. In the face of this storm school officials must be prepared to make decisions that foster serious, contemplative thinking and analysis, irrespective of pressure group actions. (MD)
Decision-Making Skills for Middle School Students.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Bergmann, Sherrel; Rudman, Gerald J.
Early adolescence is a time when students require adult assistance to become accurate and effective decision makers and problem solvers. Because of the fragmented nature of society, the family structure, and the schooling process, schools need to establish a nonthreatening environment in which students can discuss the issues related to growing up.…
Learning together for effective collaboration in school-based occupational therapy practice.
Villeneuve, Michelle A; Shulha, Lyn M
2012-12-01
School-based occupational therapy (SBOT) practice takes place within a complex system that includes service recipients, service providers, and program decision makers across health and education sectors. Despite the promotion of collaborative consultation at a policy level, there is little practical guidance about how to coordinate multi-agency service and interprofessional collaboration among these stakeholders. This paper reports on a process used to engage program administrators in an examination of SBOT collaborative consultation practice in one region of Ontario to provide an evidence-informed foundation for decision making about implementation of these services. Within an appreciative inquiry framework (Cooperrider, Whitney, & Stavros, 2008), Developmental Work Research methods (Engeström, 2000) were used to facilitate shared learning for improved SBOT collaborative consultation. Program administrators participated alongside program providers and service recipients in a series of facilitated workshops to develop principles that will guide future planning and decision making about the delivery of SBOT services. Facilitated discussion among stakeholders led to the articulation of 12 principles for effective collaborative practice. Program administrators used their shared understanding to propose a new model for delivering SBOT services. Horizontal and vertical learning across agency and professional boundaries led to the development of powerful solutions for program improvement.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Ceja, Rafael, Jr.
2012-01-01
The enactment of the NCLB Act of 2001 and its legislative mandates for accountability testing throughout the nation brought to the forefront the issue of data-driven decision making. This emphasis on improving education has been spurred due to the alleged failure of the public school system. As a result, the role of administrators has evolved to…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Sobolewski-McMahon, Lauren M.
2017-01-01
The purpose of this study was to examine the influences of various facets of middle school mathematics teachers' practical rationality on their instructional decision making as they plan to enact the Common Core State Standards for Mathematical Practice, CCSS-MP1 (perseverance in problem solving) and CCSS-MP3 (communicating and critiquing). The…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Mpofu, Elias; Hallfors, Denise Dion; Mutepfa, Magen Mhaka; Dune, Tinashe Moira
2014-01-01
This study examined the messages perceived by adolescent girls with orphanhood to influence their sexual decision making. Participants were 125 students (mean age = 14.7 years), 54% of whom attended church schools in a rural district of eastern Zimbabwe. We collected and analyzed data using concept mapping, a mixed method approach that enabled the…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Harrison, Kathy; Taysum, Alison; McNamara, Gerry; O'Hara, Joe
2016-01-01
The Education Act (1998) is a key policy document in Irish education, emphasising the rights, roles and responsibilities of key stakeholders, including parents, teachers and pupils in schools. Since 1998 the Department of Education and Skills (DES) has stressed the need to introduce an increased role for teachers and pupils in decision-making. It…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Tedeschi, Delores M.
2016-01-01
The purpose of this study was to determine whether a teacher's decision to make a behavioral office referral varies with the race and gender of the student and teacher. The participants in the study were middle school teachers in a suburban/urban school district. The participants involved in the study completed an online self-report instrument…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Skinner, Desiree A.; Kritsonis, William Allan
2006-01-01
"Values, purposes, and understandings are fragile achievements and give way all too readily to attitudes of futility, frustration, and doubt" (Kritsonis, 2007, pg. 7). Ethical decision-making is one way for school leaders to contribute to improving education. Effecting change is the duty of school principals; this may often come in making…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Mahedero, Pilar; Calderón, Antonio; Arias-Estero, José Luis; Hastie, Peter A.; Guarino, Anthony J.
2015-01-01
The purpose of the paper was to examine the effects of student skill level on knowledge, decision making, skill execution and game performance in a mini-volleyball Sport Education season. Forty-eight secondary school students from two classes participated in a 12 lesson season. Knowledge, decision-making and skill execution (components of game…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Llosa, Lorena
2007-01-01
The use of standards-based classroom assessments to test English learners' language proficiency is increasingly prevalent in the United States and many other countries. In a large urban school district in California, for example, a classroom assessment is used to make high-stakes decisions about English learners' progress from one level to the…
Ethical Leadership and Moral Literacy: Incorporating Ethical Dilemmas in a Case-Based Pedagogy
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Jenlink, Patrick M.; Jenlink, Karen Embry
2015-01-01
In this paper the authors examine an ethical dilemma approach to case-based pedagogy for leadership preparation, which was used in a doctoral studies program. Specifically, the authors argue that preparing educational leaders for the ethical dilemmas and moral decision-making that define schools requires assessing current programs and pedagogical…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Goldman, Juliette D. G.; Collier-Harris, Christine A.
2012-01-01
Globally, adolescents aged 12-15 years are making sexual and reproductive decisions of profound significance for their future, often based on misguided, inadequate or dangerously wrong information. Very few countries provide evidential and comprehensive education about puberty, sexuality, and reproductive health and safety to children and young…
Response to Intervention in Canada: Definitions, the Evidence Base, and Future Directions
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
McIntosh, Kent; MacKay, Leslie D.; Andreou, Theresa; Brown, Jacqueline A.; Mathews, Susanna; Gietz, Carmen; Bennett, Joanna L.
2011-01-01
Based on challenges with the traditional model of school psychology, response to intervention (RTI) has been advanced as a model of special education eligibility decision making and service delivery that may address the drawbacks of the traditional models of assessment and result in improved outcomes for students. In this article, the RTI model is…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), 2012
2012-01-01
Great leaders make great schools. The most successful school leaders create a school climate of high achievement and continuous improvement, give teachers a voice in decision-making, use data to drive curriculum and instruction, and assure students and parents that everyone at the school is focusing on student success. They know what is going on…
Timol, Furzana; Vawda, Mohammed Yacoob; Bhana, Arvin; Moolman, Benita; Makoae, Mokhantso; Swartz, Sharlene
2016-01-01
Abstract Background: Peer-education programmes aim to bring about attitudinal and behavioural changes in their target audience. In the South African educational context, peer education is a favoured approach in dealing with issues such as HIV and AIDS, sexual decision-making and substance misuse. Given the reliance on peer-education programmes in the educational system, it is important to establish how well they are working. This study aims to assess the effect of an extensive, structured, time-limited, curriculum-based, peer-led educational programme on first-year high school learners in public schools in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. Method: The curriculum called ‘Listen Up’ addresses issues such as supporting peers, sexual decision-making, healthy relationships, HIV risk, alcohol misuse and unwanted pregnancy in seven structured sessions. The programme targeted adolescents in Grade 8 growing up in what are considered to be risky environments in public schools in the Western Cape during 2012 and 2013. The intervention was evaluated based on 10 scales sourced from published literature related to the outcome indicators of future orientation, sensation-seeking, self-efficacy in sexual relations, HIV transmission knowledge, HIV prevention knowledge, HIV attitudes, sexual attitudes, decision-making, healthy relationships and social support. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse demographic and community characteristics and analyses of variance were used to detect differences between groups. The surveys were administered to a total of 7709 learners across three waves of the study in 27 peer intervention schools and eight control schools. Results: Immediately post intervention, statistically significant differences were noted for the intervention schools when compared to their baseline levels on measures of future orientation, self-efficacy in sexual relations, knowledge regarding HIV transmission, knowledge regarding HIV prevention and knowledge in terms of healthy relationships. Comparing baseline values with results collected between five and seven months post intervention, statistically significant results were noted for self-efficacy in sexual relations and knowledge regarding HIV transmission. Conclusion: The findings of this study suggest that peer-education can improve adolescents’ self-efficacy in sexual relations as well as knowledge regarding the transmission of HIV and therefore can contribute to the prevention of HIV transmission among adolescents. PMID:27892820
Timol, Furzana; Vawda, Mohammed Yacoob; Bhana, Arvin; Moolman, Benita; Makoae, Mokhantso; Swartz, Sharlene
2016-12-01
Peer-education programmes aim to bring about attitudinal and behavioural changes in their target audience. In the South African educational context, peer education is a favoured approach in dealing with issues such as HIV and AIDS, sexual decision-making and substance misuse. Given the reliance on peer-education programmes in the educational system, it is important to establish how well they are working. This study aims to assess the effect of an extensive, structured, time-limited, curriculum-based, peer-led educational programme on first-year high school learners in public schools in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. The curriculum called 'Listen Up' addresses issues such as supporting peers, sexual decision-making, healthy relationships, HIV risk, alcohol misuse and unwanted pregnancy in seven structured sessions. The programme targeted adolescents in Grade 8 growing up in what are considered to be risky environments in public schools in the Western Cape during 2012 and 2013. The intervention was evaluated based on 10 scales sourced from published literature related to the outcome indicators of future orientation, sensation-seeking, self-efficacy in sexual relations, HIV transmission knowledge, HIV prevention knowledge, HIV attitudes, sexual attitudes, decision-making, healthy relationships and social support. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse demographic and community characteristics and analyses of variance were used to detect differences between groups. The surveys were administered to a total of 7709 learners across three waves of the study in 27 peer intervention schools and eight control schools. Immediately post intervention, statistically significant differences were noted for the intervention schools when compared to their baseline levels on measures of future orientation, self-efficacy in sexual relations, knowledge regarding HIV transmission, knowledge regarding HIV prevention and knowledge in terms of healthy relationships. Comparing baseline values with results collected between five and seven months post intervention, statistically significant results were noted for self-efficacy in sexual relations and knowledge regarding HIV transmission. The findings of this study suggest that peer-education can improve adolescents' self-efficacy in sexual relations as well as knowledge regarding the transmission of HIV and therefore can contribute to the prevention of HIV transmission among adolescents.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hale, Norman; Lindelow, John
Chapter 12 in a volume on school leadership, this chapter cites the work of several authorities concerning problem-solving or decision-making techniques based on the belief that group problem-solving effort is preferable to individual effort. The first technique, force-field analysis, is described as a means of dissecting complex problems into…
Technology Trends: Buying a Computer.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Strot, Melody; Benno, Mark
1997-01-01
Provides guidelines for buying computers for parents of gifted children. Steps for making decisions include deciding who will use the computer, deciding its purposes and what software packages will be used, determining current and future needs, setting a budget, and reviewing needs with salespersons and school-based technology specialists. (CR)
The Gender-Mediated Impact of a Career Development Intervention
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Cassie, Diana V. W.; Chen, Charles P.
2012-01-01
This study examined the differential impact of an educational intervention on high school students' career maturity based on gender. Dimensions of career maturity investigated include congruence, career certainty, career indecision, career decision-making self-efficacy and career exploration. Females were found to increase significantly in…
Six Online Periodical Databases: A Librarian's View.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Willems, Harry
1999-01-01
Compares the following World Wide Web-based periodical databases, focusing on their usefulness in K-12 school libraries: EBSCO, Electric Library, Facts on File, SIRS, Wilson, and UMI. Search interfaces, display options, help screens, printing, home access, copyright restrictions, database administration, and making a decision are discussed. A…
Two Dimensions of an Inquiry Stance toward Student-Learning Data
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Nelson, Tamara Holmlund; Slavit, David; Deuel, Angie
2012-01-01
Background/Context: Schools and districts are increasingly emphasizing evidence-based decision making as a means for improving teaching and learning. In response, professional development efforts have shifted toward situated, sustained activities that involve groups of teachers in reflective inquiry about student learning data, instructional…
Teacher Participation in Curriculum and Pedagogical Decisions: Insights into Curriculum Leadership
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Ho, Dora Choi Wa
2010-01-01
In recent years, teacher participation in school decision making has become an important topic for discussion in the field of early childhood education in Hong Kong. The purpose of this article is to discuss the theoretical significance, difficulties and issues of greater teacher participation in curriculum and pedagogical decision making in local…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Sansosti, Jenine M.; Sansosti, Frank J.
2012-01-01
General education placements are believed to offer numerous benefits for students with high-functioning autism spectrum disorders (HFASDs), yet decisions about including students with HFASDs remain controversial. This article presents data from a qualitative analysis of definitions and decision making considerations for a school district with a…
Unraveling the Role of Curriculum in Teacher Decision Making
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Siuty, Molly Baustien; Leko, Melinda M.; Knackstedt, Kimberly M.
2018-01-01
Teachers make numerous decisions each day, yet processes undergirding these decisions are elusive and have not been the subject of many in-depth investigations within special education. The purpose of this qualitative investigation, therefore, was to complete a micro-level analysis of the influence of curriculum on 11 middle school teachers'…
Who Makes It to Secondary School? Determinants of Transition to Secondary Schools in Rural India
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Siddhu, Gaurav
2011-01-01
Despite considerable progress made, a significant proportion of children continue to drop out before reaching secondary school in India. This study investigates factors influencing parental decision-making with regard to children's secondary schooling in the context of a rural area of Uttar Pradesh. The study finds that cost, distance to the…
Making DATA Work: A Process for Conducting Action Research
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Young, Anita; Kaffenberger, Carol
2013-01-01
This conceptual model introduces a process to help school counselors use data to drive decision making and offers examples to implement the process. A step-by-step process is offered to help school counselors and school counselor supervisors address educational issues, close achievement gaps, and demonstrate program effectiveness. To illustrate…
Is Shared Leadership Right for Your School District?
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Poff, Joni C.; Parks, David J.
2010-01-01
Despite the lack of evidence supporting the direct effects of shared leadership on student achievement, there is evidence that shared leadership may have very positive effects on school culture variables that, in turn, affect student achievement. These indirect effects are sufficient to make shared decision making a worthwhile school reform…
French, Rebecca S; Cowan, Frances M; Wellings, Kaye; Dowie, Jack
2014-04-01
My Contraception Tool (MCT) applies the principles of multi-criteria decision analysis to the choice of contraceptive method. Its purpose is to make the decision-making process transparent to the user and to suggest a method to them based on their own preferences. The contraceptive option that emerges as optimal from the analysis takes account of the probability of a range of outcomes and the relative weight ascribed to them by the user. The development of MCT was a collaborative project between London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Brook, FPA and Maldaba Ltd. MCT is available online via the Brook and FPA websites. In this article we describe MCT's development and how it works. Further work is needed to assess the impact it has on decision quality and contraceptive behaviour.
A Statistical Analysis of Data Used in Critical Decision Making by Secondary School Personnel.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Dunn, Charleta J.; Kowitz, Gerald T.
Guidance decisions depend on the validity of standardized tests and teacher judgment records as measures of student achievement. To test this validity, a sample of 400 high school juniors, randomly selected from two large Gulf Coas t area schools, were administered the Iowa Tests of Educational Development. The nine subtest scores and each…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Wanat, Carolyn L.
2010-01-01
This case study examined parent groups' involvement in school activities and their participation in decision making. Research questions included the following: (1) What is the nature of parent groups in schools? (2) What activities and issues gain parent groups' attention and participation? (3) How do parent groups communicate concerns about…
Charting Success: Data Use and Student Achievement in Urban Schools
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Faria, Ann-Marie; Heppen, Jessica; Li, Yibing; Stachel, Suzanne; Jones, Wehmah; Sawyer, Katherine; Thomsen, Kerri; Kutner, Melissa; Miser, David; Lewis, Sharon; Casserly, Michael; Simon, Candace; Uzzell, Renata; Corcoran, Amanda; Palacios, Moses
2012-01-01
In recent years, interest has spiked in data-driven decision making in education--that is, using various types of student data to inform decisions in schools and classrooms. In October 2008, the Council of the Great City Schools and American Institutes for Research (AIR) launched a project funded by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that focused…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Boyle, Michael J.; Hernandez, Claudia M.
2016-01-01
Catholic school principals typically serve as the prime decision-makers in admission and enrollment issues. A key factor in this decision-making can be the principals' perceptions and attitudes about servicing students with disabilities within a Catholic school context. The purpose of the present study is to investigate the attitudes and…
School Mapping and Geospatial Analysis of the Schools in Jasra Development Block of India
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Agrawal, S.; Gupta, R. D.
2016-06-01
GIS is a collection of tools and techniques that works on the geospatial data and is used in the analysis and decision making. Education is an inherent part of any civil society. Proper educational facilities generate the high quality human resource for any nation. Therefore, government needs an efficient system that can help in analysing the current state of education and its progress. Government also needs a system that can support in decision making and policy framing. GIS can serve the mentioned requirements not only for government but also for the general public. In order to meet the standards of human development, it is necessary for the government and decision makers to have a close watch on the existing education policy and its implementation condition. School mapping plays an important role in this aspect. School mapping consists of building the geospatial database of schools that supports in the infrastructure development, policy analysis and decision making. The present research work is an attempt for supporting Right to Education (RTE) and Sarv Sikha Abhiyaan (SSA) programmes run by Government of India through the use of GIS. School mapping of the study area is performed which is followed by the geospatial analysis. This research work will help in assessing the present status of educational infrastructure in Jasra block of Allahabad district, India.
Involving youth in program decision-making: how common and what might it do for youth?
Akiva, Thomas; Cortina, Kai S; Smith, Charles
2014-11-01
The strategy of sharing program decision-making with youth in youth programs, a specific form of youth-adult partnership, is widely recommended in practitioner literature; however, empirical study is relatively limited. We investigated the prevalence and correlates of youth program decision-making practices (e.g., asking youth to help decide what activities are offered), using single-level and multilevel methods with a cross-sectional dataset of 979 youth attending 63 multipurpose after-school programs (average age of youth = 11.4, 53 % female). The prevalence of such practices was relatively high, particularly for forms that involved low power sharing such as involving youth in selecting the activities a program offers. Hierarchical linear modeling revealed positive associations between youth program decision-making practices and youth motivation to attend programs. We also found positive correlations between decision-making practices and youth problem-solving efficacy, expression efficacy, and empathy. Significant interactions with age suggest that correlations with problem solving and empathy are more pronounced for older youth. Overall, the findings suggest that involving youth in program decision-making is a promising strategy for promoting youth motivation and skill building, and in some cases this is particularly the case for older (high school-age) youth.
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Purohit, Kiran Dilip
Secondary science teachers make many daily decisions in the enactment of curriculum. Although curriculum materials are widely available to address science content, practices, and skills, the consideration that goes into deciding how and whether to use such materials is complicated by teachers' beliefs about science, their understandings of school-level accountability and testing measures, and their perspectives on the adolescent students they teach. This study addresses the need to understand how teachers consider multiple forces in their enactment of science curriculum. The purpose of this study was to explore the ways that discourses around accountability, science, and science education emerge in the narratives around teachers' decision-making in secondary science classrooms. Using a case study approach, I worked at two school sites with two pairs of science teachers. We established criteria for critical incidents together, then teachers identified critical decision-making moments in their classrooms. We analyzed those incidents together using a consultancy protocol, allowing teachers to focus their thinking on reframing the incidents and imagining other possible outcomes. Using post-structuralist rhizomatics, I assembled analyses of teachers' discussions of the critical incidents in the form of dramatization--scenes and monologues. I then developed two major interpretive strands. First, I connected teachers' sense of having "no time" to blocs of affect tied to larger discourses of national security, teacher accountability, and the joy of scientific discovery. Second, I demonstrated how teachers' concern in following logical pathways and sequences in science relates to the imposition of accountability measures that echo the outcomes-driven logic of the learning sciences. Across both interpretations, I found accountability to be complex, multidirectional, and unpredictable in how it works on and through teachers as they make decisions. Research in this area has important practical implications in the fields of professional development, curriculum development, and school change. As more states (including New York) adopt standards derived from the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), the importance of privileging teachers' investment and critical decision-making in the process of new curriculum development is vital. I suggest that tools like video-based coaching and consultancy protocol discussions support this kind of thoughtful curricular change.
Mallon, William T
2006-06-01
To explore three questions surrounding the financial management of research centers and institutes at U.S. medical schools: How do medical schools allocate institutional funds to centers and institutes? How and by whom are those decisions made? What are the implications of these decision-making models on the future of the academic biomedical research enterprise? Using a qualitative research design, the author and associates interviewed over 150 faculty members and administrators at six medical schools and their parent universities in 2004. Interview data were transcribed, coded, and analyzed using a grounded theory approach. This methodology generated rich descriptions and explanations of the six medical schools, which can produce extrapolations to, but not necessarily generalizable findings to, other institutions and settings. An examination of four dimensions of financial decision-making-funding timing, process, structure, and culture-produces two essential models of how medical schools approach the financial management of research centers. In the first, a "charity" model, center directors make hat-in-hand appeals directly to the dean, the result of which may depend on individual negotiation skills and personal relationships. In the second, a "planned-giving" model, the process for obtaining and renewing funds is institutionalized, agreed upon, and monitored. The ways in which deans, administrators, department chairs, and center directors attend to, decide upon, and carry out financial decisions can influence how people throughout the medical school think about interdisciplinary and collaborative activities marshalled though centers and institutes.
Personalized Education in Southside School
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Spaulding, Robert L.
1970-01-01
This article is based on remarks presented at the annual convention of the National Society for Programmed Instruction, Sheraton Park Hotel, Wash., D.C., Apr 10, 1969. Urges personalized (not just individualized) instruction, in which relevancy is achieved by having the students themselves participate in decision making and daily programming. (MH)
Life Management Skills, 8230. Home Economics Education.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Loudoun County Public Schools, Leesburg, VA.
The middle school home economics curriculum on Life Management Skills I (eighth grade) meets the needs of the early adolescent. It is based upon three major concepts: (1) basic skills; (2) self-knowledge/understanding/decision making; and (3) independence/interdependence. Emphasis on the basic skills of reading, writing, communicating, using…
Shared Decision-Making and the Limits of Democratization: A Case Study of Site-Based Reform.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Radnofsky, Mary L.; Spielmann, Guy
This paper presents findings of an ethnographic study of a school district's Staff Development, Supervision, and Evaluation Program (SDSEP). Data were gathered through interviews, observations, participant observation, analysis of kinesics and proxemics, semiotic analysis of discourse, unobtrusive measures, and analysis of official documents. The…
Applying Neurodevelopmental Theory to School-Based Drug Misuse Prevention during Adolescence
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Riggs, Nathaniel R.; Black, David S.; Ritt-Olson, Anamara
2014-01-01
Adolescence is characterized by incredible development in the prefrontal cortex of the brain, which is responsible for behavioral and emotional self-regulation, and higher order cognitive decision-making skills (that is, executive function). Typically late prefrontal cortical development and its integration with limbic areas of the brain…
The Tensions between Shared Governance and Advancing Educational Equity
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Castagno, Angelina E.; Hausman, Charles
2017-01-01
This article examines the relationship between shared governance and one school district's (in)ability to advance educational equity. Specifically, we consider the district's policies, discourse, and practice around equity within the context of site-based management and shared decision making. We suggest that if equity is indeed a major district…
Action Research as Instructional Supervision: Suggestions for Principals
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Glanz, Jeffrey
2005-01-01
Supervision based on collaboration, participative decision making, and reflective practice is the hallmark of a viable school improvement program that is designed to promote teaching and learning. Action research has gradually emerged as an important form of instructional supervision to engage teachers in reflective practice about their teaching…
Making Informed Decisions: Management Issues Influencing Computers in the Classroom.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Strickland, James
A number of noninstructional factors appear to determine the extent to which computers make a difference in writing instruction. Once computers have been purchased and installed, it is generally school administrators who make management decisions, often from an uninformed pedagogical orientation. Issues such as what hardware and software to buy,…
Teacher and Lay Participation in Local Curriculum Change Considerations.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Schaffarzick, Jon
This study examines the roles of teachers and citizens in decision-making related to curriculum planning and change. Interviews were conducted with persons involved in curriculum decision-making in 34 school districts in order to ascertain how they determined whether or not to make elementary-level curriculum changes. The rational and political…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Torley, Marilyn
2011-01-01
The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate how school administrators respond during a crisis. Relevant research pertaining to crisis decision-making will be presented, focusing on the three steps of crisis decision theory (a) assessing the severity of the negative event (b) determining response options, and (c) evaluating response…
Linking Rights with Lives: The Micropolitics of Educational Decision Making in Urban Mexico
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Blasco, Maribel
2009-01-01
This article uses life course theory and family bargaining theory to explore how decisions over schooling are negotiated in poorer Mexican families for whom compulsory basic education is a luxury. It explores educational decision making by conceptualizing education in terms of the way it meshes with other social relations and institutions across…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Davison, Chris
2004-01-01
A growing concern in teacher-based assessment, particularly in assessing English language development in high-stakes contexts, is our inadequate understanding of the means by which teachers make assessment decisions. This article adopts a sociocultural approach to report on the background and findings of a comparative study of ESL teachers'…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Johansen, Katrina A.
2016-01-01
Technology has become an unavoidable part of a teachers' academic experience. In this technological world of evolving electronic devices, knowledge of how teachers perceive the value of web-based content and chosen devices as a medium for teaching and learning is imperative when making curriculum decisions. This study explored teachers'…
Leaving Homelessness Behind: Housing Decisions among Families Exiting Shelter1
Fisher, Benjamin W.; Mayberry, Lindsay; Shinn, Marybeth; Khadduri, Jill
2014-01-01
Because homelessness assistance programs are designed to help families, it is important for policymakers and practitioners to understand how families experiencing homelessness make housing decisions, particularly when they decide not to use available services. This study explores those decisions using in-depth qualitative interviews with 80 families recruited in shelters across four sites approximately six months after they were assigned to one of four conditions (permanent housing subsidies, project-based transitional housing, community-based rapid re-housing, and usual care). Familiar neighborhoods near children’s schools, transportation, family and friends, and stability were important to families across conditions. Program restrictions on eligibility constrained family choices. Subsidized housing was the most desired intervention and families leased up at higher rates than in other studies of poor families. Respondents were least comfortable in and most likely to leave transitional housing. Uncertainty associated with community-based rapid re-housing generated considerable anxiety. Across interventions, many families had to make unhappy compromises, often leading to further moves. Policy recommendations are offered. PMID:25258503
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Basaran, Mehmet; Özalp, Gülümser; Kalender, Ilker; Alacaci, Cengiz
2015-01-01
One important function of school mathematics curriculum is to prepare high school students with the knowledge and skills needed for university education. Identifying them empirically will help making sound decisions about the contents of high school mathematics curriculum. It will also help students to make informed choices in course selection at…
Khemka, Ishita; Hickson, Linda; Mallory, Sarah B
2016-07-01
This study was designed to assess the impact of a decision-making curriculum (PEER-DM) on the social peer relationship knowledge and self-protective decision-making skills of adolescents with disabilities in hypothetical situations involving negative peer pressure. A randomized design was used to assign students with disabilities from self-contained special education classes to an intervention group (n = 22) or a wait-list control group (n = 20). ANCOVA analyses, using pretest scores as covariates, indicated that students who were trained on PEER-DM had significantly higher effective decision-making action and correct risk perception scores, relative to participants in the control group. This study provides supporting evidence that PEER-DM is a promising intervention for students with disabilities, including those with identified autism spectrum disorders, during transition years to help them develop a better understanding of positive and negative peer relationships and learn systematic decision-making skills for improved handling of social situations in the school and community, especially situations involving negative peer pressure. The study adds credence to using systematic, strategy-based decision making interventions designed to address the cognitive, emotional and motivational processes underlying adolescent decision making in sensitive interpersonal situations involving peer pressure. The study points to the lack of preparedness to handle situations of negative peer pressure as a serious social and health risk for adolescents with disabilities that deserves urgent and concerted attention in transition services programming. Implications for future curriculum-development efforts and replication of treatment findings are discussed. Future research examining disability-specific patterns of decision-making in peer situations and comparisons with typically developing populations is recommended.
Some Results of Weak Anticipative Concept Applied in Simulation Based Decision Support in Enterprise
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Kljajić, Miroljub; Kofjač, Davorin; Kljajić Borštnar, Mirjana; Škraba, Andrej
2010-11-01
The simulation models are used as for decision support and learning in enterprises and in schools. Tree cases of successful applications demonstrate usefulness of weak anticipative information. Job shop scheduling production with makespan criterion presents a real case customized flexible furniture production optimization. The genetic algorithm for job shop scheduling optimization is presented. Simulation based inventory control for products with stochastic lead time and demand describes inventory optimization for products with stochastic lead time and demand. Dynamic programming and fuzzy control algorithms reduce the total cost without producing stock-outs in most cases. Values of decision making information based on simulation were discussed too. All two cases will be discussed from optimization, modeling and learning point of view.
Marrying Citizens and Educators in Decision Making
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Leighninger, Matt
2005-01-01
The growing attraction between citizens and educators can form the basis of a fruitful school-community relationship. This new way of connecting, in which large numbers of people meet regularly to talk about school issues and find solutions, goes far beyond blue-ribbon commissions and school-business partnerships. To make the marriage last,…
DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)
Green, Mary Wilson
The purpose of this report is to provide school administrators with the ability to determine their security system requirements, so they can make informed decisions when working with vendors and others to improve their security posture. This is accomplished by (1) explaining a systems-based approach to defining the objectives and needs of the system, and (2), providing information on the ability of common components (sensors, cameras, metal detectors, etc) to achieve those objectives, in an effectively integrated system.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Brotman, Jennie S.; Mensah, Felicia Moore
2013-01-01
Studies across fields such as science education, health education, health behavior, and curriculum studies identify a persistent gap between the aims of the school curriculum and its impact on students' thinking and acting about the real-life decisions that affect their lives. The present study presents a different story from this predominant…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Sabatino, Anthony; Huchting, Karen; Dell'Olio, Franca
2013-01-01
This research study investigated the decision-making process utilized by three elementary schools in adopting the 200-day calendar initiative in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. The schools in the study represented three distinct sets of demographics focusing primarily on high, middle, and low socioeconomic characteristics, as reported by the…
Charting Success: Data Use and Student Achievement in Urban Schools. Executive Summary
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Faria, Ann-Marie; Heppen, Jessica; Li, Yibing; Stachel, Suzanne; Jones, Wehmah; Sawyer, Katherine; Thomsen, Kerri; Kutner, Melissa; Miser, David; Lewis, Sharon; Casserly, Michael; Simon, Candace; Uzzell, Renata; Corcoran, Amanda; Palacios, Moses
2012-01-01
In recent years, interest has spiked in data-driven decision making in education--that is, using various types of student data to inform decisions in schools and classrooms. In October 2008, the Council of the Great City Schools and American Institutes for Research (AIR) launched a project funded by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that focused…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Cullen, John B.; Perrewe, Pamela L.
1981-01-01
Used factors identified in the literature as predictors of centralization/decentralization as potential discriminating variables among several decision making configurations in university affiliated professional schools. The model developed from multiple discriminant analysis had reasonable success in classifying correctly only the decentralized…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kennedy, Mike
2000-01-01
Discusses the importance of knowing the type of climate a school is likely to endure as a decision element for selecting a school roofing system. The influence of extreme temperature shifts, wind, and excessive heat in the decision making process are discussed as are ways of improving maintenance and monitoring practices. (GR)
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Mawdsley, Ralph D.; Visser, P. J. Hans; Permuth, Steven B.
2006-01-01
The opportunity for and expectation of parents' involvement in the education of their children is a staple of the American educational system. The absence of parent participation in their children's education has been decried by educators as a contributing factor to a range of problems in schools, from poor academic performance to disciplinary…
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Short, Barbara J.
2003-06-01
The qualitative research project explored the perceptions of three new secondary education physics teachers. The content question stated: How do beliefs and other factors such as prior experience influence the decision-making of new teachers during their first year teaching experience? Specific questions includes: (1) What do first year teachers identify as their beliefs about teaching and learning? (2) How do first year teachers arrive at decisions about their instruction, materials, lessons, assessment, and student achievement? (3) How does decision-making occur in the learning environment from their perspective? (4) How do first year teachers solve problems? (5) To what extent do first year teachers actively think about what they do? The participants and their university professor were interviewed. Data was collected, transcribed, and coded using grounded theory techniques to conclude: (1) Belief systems take time to develop using filters. (2) Beliefs and perceptions help to fill gaps between knowledge. Gestalts change beliefs. (3) Modeling is a powerful technique influencing decision-making and beliefs over time. (4) Nurturing and preparation build confidence fostered at the university and public school. (5) New teachers' personalities, dispositions, and self-understandings effect filtering of perceptions, influencing behaviors in the learning environment. (6) Knowledge gained through experience, instruction, and reflection by the teacher enhances student learning. (7) Problem solving is learned and personality-based, helping to determine success. (8) Too many constraints to a novice cause limitations in his/her ability to be an effective teacher. (9) Early acceptance into a new environment helps to increase a sense of belonging leading to performance. (10) Positive attitudes towards students affect relationships with students in the classroom. (11) Backgrounds, personalities, and environments affect beliefs and decision-making. (12) New teachers focus more on their actions than on their students' learning. Implications are made for university pre-service instruction and public schools new teacher support systems.
The Structural Consequences of Big Data-Driven Education.
Zeide, Elana
2017-06-01
Educators and commenters who evaluate big data-driven learning environments focus on specific questions: whether automated education platforms improve learning outcomes, invade student privacy, and promote equality. This article puts aside separate unresolved-and perhaps unresolvable-issues regarding the concrete effects of specific technologies. It instead examines how big data-driven tools alter the structure of schools' pedagogical decision-making, and, in doing so, change fundamental aspects of America's education enterprise. Technological mediation and data-driven decision-making have a particularly significant impact in learning environments because the education process primarily consists of dynamic information exchange. In this overview, I highlight three significant structural shifts that accompany school reliance on data-driven instructional platforms that perform core school functions: teaching, assessment, and credentialing. First, virtual learning environments create information technology infrastructures featuring constant data collection, continuous algorithmic assessment, and possibly infinite record retention. This undermines the traditional intellectual privacy and safety of classrooms. Second, these systems displace pedagogical decision-making from educators serving public interests to private, often for-profit, technology providers. They constrain teachers' academic autonomy, obscure student evaluation, and reduce parents' and students' ability to participate or challenge education decision-making. Third, big data-driven tools define what "counts" as education by mapping the concepts, creating the content, determining the metrics, and setting desired learning outcomes of instruction. These shifts cede important decision-making to private entities without public scrutiny or pedagogical examination. In contrast to the public and heated debates that accompany textbook choices, schools often adopt education technologies ad hoc. Given education's crucial impact on individual and collective success, educators and policymakers must consider the implications of data-driven education proactively and explicitly.
Teaching medical students about fair distribution of healthcare resources
Leget, C; Hoedemaekers, R
2007-01-01
Healthcare package decisions are complex. Different judgements about effectiveness, cost‐effectiveness and disease burden influence the decision‐making process. Moreover, different concepts of justice generate different ideas about fair distribution of healthcare resources. This paper presents a decision model that is used in medical school in order to familiarise medical students with the different concepts of justice and the ethical dimension of making concrete choices. The model is based on the four‐stage decision model developed in the Netherlands by the Dunning Committee and the discussion that followed its presentation in 1991. Having to deal with 10 medical services, students working with the model learn to discern and integrate four different ideas of distributive justice that are integrated in a flow chart: libertarian, communitarian, egalitarian and utilitarian. PMID:18055907
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Müller-Hansen, Finn; Schlüter, Maja; Mäs, Michael; Donges, Jonathan F.; Kolb, Jakob J.; Thonicke, Kirsten; Heitzig, Jobst
2017-11-01
Today, humans have a critical impact on the Earth system and vice versa, which can generate complex feedback processes between social and ecological dynamics. Integrating human behavior into formal Earth system models (ESMs), however, requires crucial modeling assumptions about actors and their goals, behavioral options, and decision rules, as well as modeling decisions regarding human social interactions and the aggregation of individuals' behavior. Here, we review existing modeling approaches and techniques from various disciplines and schools of thought dealing with human behavior at different levels of decision making. We demonstrate modelers' often vast degrees of freedom but also seek to make modelers aware of the often crucial consequences of seemingly innocent modeling assumptions. After discussing which socioeconomic units are potentially important for ESMs, we compare models of individual decision making that correspond to alternative behavioral theories and that make diverse modeling assumptions about individuals' preferences, beliefs, decision rules, and foresight. We review approaches to model social interaction, covering game theoretic frameworks, models of social influence, and network models. Finally, we discuss approaches to studying how the behavior of individuals, groups, and organizations can aggregate to complex collective phenomena, discussing agent-based, statistical, and representative-agent modeling and economic macro-dynamics. We illustrate the main ingredients of modeling techniques with examples from land-use dynamics as one of the main drivers of environmental change bridging local to global scales.
Reduction in Force: A Legal Update.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Beckham, Joseph C.
Courts have been reluctant to interfere with the decision-making authority of local school boards. However, a reduction-in-force (RIF) decision can be legally challenged by a discharged employee with evidence that the school board has either: (1) acted arbitrarily or capriciously, (2) failed to comply with procedural mandates, or (3) utilized…
Equity and Discrimination among Children: Schooling Decisions in Rural Nepal.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Ashby, Jacqueline A.
1985-01-01
Interviews and survey questionnaires were used to collect--from 302 randomly selected farm households in the Kahvre Palanchowk District in eastern Nepal--information regarding how families make decisions about schooling for children. The findings suggest that sociocultural and economic factors cause parents to discriminate among children according…
School Principals' Decision-Making Behaviour in the Management of Innovation.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
McGeown, Vincent
1979-01-01
A rating scale operationalized a model for the adoption and implementation of educational innovation. Phases were designated: creating a climate for change; analyzing antecedent conditions; generating alternatives; initiating change adoption; implementing change; and evaluating change outcomes. Principals' decision-making behavior was the best…
Situating School District Resource Decision Making in Policy Context
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Spain, Angeline K.
2016-01-01
Decentralization and deregulation policies assume that local educational leaders make better resource decisions than state policy makers do. Conceptual models drawn from organizational theory, however, offer competing predictions about how district central office administrators are likely to leverage their professional expertise in devolved…
Ethical Decision-Making Accounting Competencies: Practitioners' Perspectives
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Meador, Gwendolyn Parrish
2017-01-01
Recent accounting and corporate scandals call into question the ethicality of accounting practice, likewise accounting graduates. Advances in ethical accounting education are not emphasized in today's business schools leaving accounting graduates lacking necessary ethical accounting competencies to make ethical accounting decisions (Abend, 2013;…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Frick, William C.
2009-01-01
Purpose: This research seeks to explore the inevitable internal struggle experienced by school leaders when making ethically-informed judgments. The study acquired principals' intimate reflections about professional decision making in response to personal versus organizational and/or professional value discrepancy as identified in the ethic of the…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hoerr, Thomas R.
2006-01-01
It is not easy being a principal. The principal's job is not just set the vision for a school, but also to make sure that everyone embraces that vision and works to make it a reality. In the process, principals will be occasionally be seen as "enforcers." Principals must make hard decisions, and virtually no decision is appreciated by everyone.…
A nursing student's reflective account of decision-making in a school nursing setting.
Squirrell, Bethaney; Hunt, Jane
2018-05-11
Reflection is integral to professional revalidation and enhancing nursing practice; it is an art and a science to be learned. Learning the art of reflection begins as a student in clinical placement settings. Drawing on a reflective model, this article presents an account of one second-year children's nursing student's experiences in a community-based placement with a school nursing team. A school nurse appointment was reflected on where advice was offered to a 13-year-old student with sleep difficulties, low affect and lethargy, which included avoiding caffeinated drinks, reducing use of a laptop and mobile phone before going to sleep, and establishing a regular bedtime routine. Providing nursing care to this young person enabled the nursing student to improve their decision-making skills, become more self-aware, increase their confidence when communicating with a patient and reinforce the importance of applying theory to practice. ©2018 RCN Publishing Company Ltd. All rights reserved. Not to be copied, transmitted or recorded in any way, in whole or part, without prior permission of the publishers.
On the Money: High School Mathematics Activities to Build Financial Literacy
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Peters, Susan A.; Bay-Williams, Jennifer M.; Martinie, Sherri L.
2016-01-01
As high school students make more and more important decisions, their need for financial literacy increases significantly. To succeed in life, they need both an understanding of financial issues and the math skills to make financially sound choices. With all the requirements and standards to be met in high schools today, how can teachers find room…
Crossing into Uncharted Territory: Developing Thoughtful, Ethical School Administrators
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Surface, Jeanne L.
2009-01-01
In this distrustful, unstable, and ethically polarized era, there is a need to prepare school administrators to resolve a myriad of moral dilemmas. As professors of school administration, how can we make sure that our future leaders have the capacity to make thoughtful, ethical decisions? How do we prepare these leaders to develop, foster and lead…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Jones, Bruce Anthony
2005-01-01
This article is about policy decision making and racial politics in the St. Louis, Missouri, school district. From a research standpoint, traditional policymaking models are inadequate for explaining the evolution of school reform events in St. Louis over the past year. Teachers, principals, school staff, and parents perceive themselves to be…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Yamada, Shoko
2014-01-01
A School Management Committee (SMC) is an administrative tool adopted in many developing countries to decentralise administrative and financial responsibilities at school level, while involving local people in decision-making and making education more responsive to demands. I question the assumption linking administrative decentralisation and…
NASSP Curriculum Report, Vol. 7, No. 1. Education for Citizenship.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Larkin, Brian; Pannwitt, Barbara
This issue examines the trend of citizenship education in the public schools. Four basic approaches are described. The content approach is based on the belief that knowledge gained from certain courses will aid students in rational decision making and in being responsible citizens. It emphasizes law-related education, political science, and…
Online Career Guidance: Does Knowledge Equate to Power for High School Students?
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Galliott, Natal'ya
2017-01-01
The provision of online career information and guidance is becoming more popular among career counselling practitioners and policy makers targeting the postschool transitions of youth. Internet-based career exploration and guidance systems provide convenience and economy to both individuals confronted with career decision making as well as those…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Lima, Marcos; Koehler, Matthew J.; Spiro, Rand J.
2004-01-01
In this article, we discuss how the Harvard Method of case study, Interactive Communication Technologies, and Cognitive Flexibility Theory may contribute to case-based learning about business decision-making. In particular, we are interested in designing learning environments that foster critical thinking, creativity, and reasoning that entertains…
Experiences of Teacher Evaluation Systems on High School Physical Education Programs
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Phillips, Sharon R.; Mercier, Kevin; Doolittle, Sarah
2017-01-01
Primary objective: Teacher evaluation is being revamped by policy-makers. The marginalized status of physical education has protected this subject area from reform for many decades, but in our current era of system-wide, data-based decision-making, physical education is no longer immune. Standardized and local testing, together with structured…
Instructional Strategies Designed to Develop Trust and Team Building Skills in School Leaders
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Freeman, Virgil
2006-01-01
This paper will provide readers with insight into "Team Building and Decision-Making" curriculum methods and strategies utilized in leadership for our administrators. The content is based on "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable" by Lencioni (2002). The writer is working on developing a unique cascade of…
The Principal and "The Prince": Machiavelli and School Leadership.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
English, Fenwick W.
1992-01-01
Because most people will resist law and reason (government), power must be rendered in someone else's name to make ruling palatable. Executives, including principals, represent the law. To enforce a given law, executives must often exceed their base of authority to act decisively--despite recent rhetoric about staff empowerment and site-based…
The Development and Field Testing of Evaluation Workshop I: An Orientation.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Klein, Stephen P.; Nadeau, Marc-Andre
The general purpose of an evaluation workshop is to orient school and state department of education personnel to the basic principles, procedures, and problems associated with evaluating educational programs and to the kinds of information an evaluation can provide for educational decision making. The workshop studied is based on the general…
Changing Methods and Mindsets: Lessons from Innovate NYC
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hodas, Steven
2016-01-01
As schools and classrooms explore technology-based, student-centered, personalized approaches to teaching and learning, their efforts to innovate can be hamstrung by archaic district operating systems that do not allow them to take advantage of new technologies, to work with smaller startup companies, or to quickly make and implement decisions.…
An Organic View of Students' Want Formation: Pragmatic Rationality, Habitus and Reflexivity
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Daoud, Adel; Puaca, Goran
2011-01-01
Based on interviews with and questionnaires completed by upper secondary school pupils (n = 27) from academic and vocational programmes, respectively, the present paper focuses on some of the social and individual conditions that precede the individual decision-making process in education transitions. The paper shows that an organic view of…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Zehr, Mary Ann
2006-01-01
This article presents a school-based summer camp called the Get FIT program. Students in Eagle Pass, Texas, go to summer camp to learn how to eat better, play harder, and make smarter decisions about their health. This article also presents an experience of an eleven-year-old child who was once "real fat." The child improved his eating…
Young Children Use Graphs to Build Mathematical Reasoning
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Larson, Mark J.; Whitin, David J.
2010-01-01
Mathematical, scientific, and technological knowledge is critical for people in a 21st Century world that is dependent upon a global interconnectedness and a knowledge-based economy. This is the kind of knowledge that will power innovations and drive decision making in the years ahead. Schools are therefore being called upon to devise a…