Teacher Data Use In Performance Based Accountability Cultures in Hong Kong Primary Schools (TDUS-HK)

Dr La Londe, Priya Goel   (Principal Investigator (PI))

36

2019-06-30

149160

Teacher Data Use In Performance Based Accountability Cultures in Hong Kong Primary Schools (TDUS-HK)

accountability, data use, performance-based accountability, school culture, school leadership, teacher quality

Education: Policy & Administration

201903159004

Seed Fund for Basic Research for New Staff

2018

On-going

Countries around the world are using principles of standardization, incentivism, autonomy, accountability, and competition in response to acute pressures to reform education policy (Sahlberg, 2011). Policymakers are mobilizing these ideologies through Performance Based Accountability (PBA). PBA schemes deploy standardized performance measures alongside sanctions, incentives, autonomy, and expanded market competition under the premise that bonuses and punitive consequences inspire optimal performance. PBA policies are framing national-level reform of education systems and school-level policy and planning at unprecedented scales. Standout policies include: frequent and high-stakes standardized testing, performance appraisal, and performance-based compensation and sanctions for individuals (e.g., teachers, principals) and entire schools. Proponents of PBA in education policy maintain that these strategies improve student learning, professional learning, and educational systems and markets. PBA is gaining global traction despite existing scholarship that shows inconclusive, and sometimes bleak, results. Standardized tests narrow curriculum and instruction to tested knowledge within tested subjects; override professional culture and development; and reformulate school aims around politicized notions of what knowledge is worthwhile, what to teach, and how to teach (Lingard, Rezai-Rashti, & Martino, 2017). Performance-pay experimental studies show mixed results on student achievement and teaching, with most studies showing no impact. Case study and survey data show performance-pay (i.e., merit pay) has negative or no impact on professional culture, organizational change, and motivation (Goldhaber, Dearmond, & Deburgomaster, 2011). The project builds on the burgeoning body of literature that examines examines teachers’ uses of student performance data as a key dimension of PBA (Firestone & Gonzalez, 2007). This study aims to understand what PBA culture and leadership mean for how teachers see themselves and their practice? Four key questions guide this study: What are the characteristics of PBA culture? What are the characteristics of PBA leadership? How does PBA shape teachers’ professional identity? How do teachers use student performance data in their teaching? To investigate these questions, I will administer the Teacher Data User Survey (TDUS), a comprehensive survey instrument to be administered in upper primary grades (e.g., grades 3-5) in subsidized schools in Hong Kong. Media, policymakers, and influential intermediary organisations, such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, praise Hong Kong’s high performance in comparative international assessments and claim that exemplary achievement outcomes are due in part to Hong Kong’s use of PBA (OECD, 2011). However, little is known about how data use and PBA work in Hong Kong’s classrooms and to what extent PBA is behind Hong Kong’s success. This study fills key gaps in existing PBA and teacher data use policy enactment research through methodological approach. Econometric studies typically exclude ""hard to measure"" contextual variables (e.g., school climate, professional learning quality, teacher motivation) that are essential to understanding the character and consequences of PBA policies. Focused primarily on achievement variables and teacher outcomes (e.g., attendance, retention), econometric studies leave researchers and policymakers with little understanding of how data use influences teaching and school culture. Existing qualitative studies of PBA implementation in schools and school districts offer rich portraits of PBA micro-level processes and outcomes, but these studies often discuss policy costs and benefits that are unique to a particular school(s) and are not generalizable. Finally, implementation studies ascribe to a mechanical, top-down understanding of policy, suggesting it is superficially placed upon rather than molded by schools and communities. This mixed methods study focuses squarely on the nexus of teacher data use, accountability culture, leadership, and teaching outcomes. This study also builds on new and important findings in the research on teacher data use. Research finds that performance data alters not how teachers teach but what they teach and how they organize students’ learning opportunities (Goertz, Nabors Oláh & Riggan, 2009). In accountability cultures, student performance data are used to hold teachers and principals accountable for student improvement and proficiency. In contrast, in organizational learning cultures, data are used to improve the essence of learning and teaching (Firestone & Gonzalez, 2007). Accordingly, teaching decisions differ in these data use cultures. Matchmaking decisions prevail in accountability cultures, where students are sorted and receive instruction consistent with performance tracks. In contrast, organizational learning culture is more closely aligned with investigation decisions that involve self-reflection; identification of barriers to student learning; and modifications to curriculum, instruction, and learning environment (Evans, La Londe, Gannon-Slater, Crenshaw, Teasdale, Greene, & Schwandt, 2018). Deep inquiry among teachers and leaders’ support in attending to tensions between accountability and organizational learning mandates (Gannon-Slater, La Londe, Crenshaw, Evans, Greene, & Schwandt, 2017) are central to data use that leads to instructional improvement. This mixed methods study examines teachers’ uses of student performance data in order to illuminate the teaching consequences of PBA, a policy effect that is underexamined. In turn, this research interrogates how PBA policies like teacher data use contribute to the ""endemic tension"" in teaching between ""figuring things out"" and ""getting things done"" (Horn & Judith, 2010, p. 208).