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Impact of school inspections on improvement of schools—describing assumptions on causal mechanisms in six European countries

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Abstract

School inspection is used by most European education systems as a major instrument for controlling and promoting the quality of schools. Surprisingly, there is little research knowledge about how school inspections drive the improvement of schools and which types of approaches are most effective and cause the least unintended consequences. The study presented in this paper uses interviews with inspection officials and a document analysis to reconstruct the “program theories” (i.e. the assumptions on causal mechanisms, linking school inspections to their intended outcomes of improved teaching and learning) of Inspectorates of Education in six European countries. The results section of the paper starts with a summary of the commonalities and differences of these six national inspection models with respect to standards and thresholds used, to types of feedback and reporting, and to the sanctions, rewards and interventions applied to motivate schools to improve. Next, the intermediate processes through which these inspection models are expected to promote good education (e.g. through actions of stakeholders) are explained. In the concluding section, these assumptions are critically discussed in the light of research knowledge.

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Notes

  1. Austria is represented in this study by the regional education authority of the province of Styria which uses some room for maneuver in the Austrian centralist education legislation for developing a specific type of “team inspection”.

  2. Data collection was carried out by a team of researchers, including (in addition to the authors of this paper) Peter Tymms, Karen Jones, Jan-Eric Gustafsson, Eva Myrberg, Gerry Conyngham, David Kemethofer and David Greger.

  3. http://www.onderwijsinspectie.nl/binaries/content/assets/Actueel_publicaties/2009/ICALT.pdf

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, WC1H 0AL, London, UK

    M. C. M. Ehren

  2. Johannes Kepler Universität Linz, 4040, Linz-Auhof Österreich, Austria

    H. Altrichter

  3. Dublin City University, School of Education Studies, Dublin 9, Ireland

    G. McNamara & J. O’Hara

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  1. M. C. M. Ehren
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  2. H. Altrichter
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  3. G. McNamara
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  4. J. O’Hara
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Table 4 Summary of program theories of Inspectorates of Education in six European countries
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Ehren, M.C.M., Altrichter, H., McNamara, G. et al. Impact of school inspections on improvement of schools—describing assumptions on causal mechanisms in six European countries. Educ Asse Eval Acc 25, 3–43 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11092-012-9156-4

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