In this paper, we will present preliminary findings from a qualitative interview study that sheds light on the experiences and perceptions of school leaders who are implementing a design-based school improvement approach in schools serving disadvantaged communities (SSDC). This study is part of a larger school improvement and research initiative involving a total of 200 SSDCs all over Germany.
We have been conducting an in-depth three-year workshop with leaders from 21 SSDCs since fall 2022. Following a design-based approach, the leaders learnt how to identify specific interventions, test them in practice, evaluate, and, if necessary, adjust them. Additionally, the workshop offers impulses from contemporary education research, and leaders reflect on the schools' development process at a peer level in professional learning communities.
Schools serving disadvantaged communities often face numerous challenges that hinder students' educational success. These challenges encompass a wide range of factors, such as a shortage of (trained) teachers, high staff turnover, limited learning time, lack of basic materials, or a culture of low expectations (e.g., Muijs et al., 2004; Darling-Hammond, 2014). Consequently, it is not surprising that SSDC are often identified as requiring improvement (Klein, Young & Böse, 2021).
To effectively address these multifaceted issues, it is crucial to adopt an approach that not only ca-ters to the unique needs of SSDC (Harris & Chapman, 2004; Hopkins et al., 2014) but also enables them to collectively address these issues on an ongoing basis, thereby enhancing their organizational capacity for improvement (e.g., Marks & Louis, 1999; Hopkins & Reynolds, 2001).
In contrast to school improvement approaches that prioritize standardized solutions and overlook the unique contexts and needs of individual schools, the design-based approach (Mintrop, 2016) aims to leverage the collective expertise of school-based stakeholders (e.g., school leaders, teachers, students). It encourages them to become active agents in transforming their schools, engaging in a collaborative and iterative process that fosters innovative problem-solving and promotes data-based reflection.
The goal of the paper is to analyze the processes of change and development initiated by the design workshop, both within schools and in terms of leaders' competences. To achieve this, we employ a longitudinal qualitative research design. We are conducting problem-centered interviews with school leaders who have actively embraced the design-based school improvement approach, as well as analyzing artifacts such as worksheets containing root causes of behavioral patterns or driver diagrams.
The interviews aim to provide insights into the implementation process of the design-based approach, the challenges encountered, and the perceived impact on continuous school improvement. To achieve this, the interviews will be conducted at three different time points, transcribed, and systematically analyzed following the procedure of Qualitative Content Analysis (Mayring, 2022).
The preliminary results of the interview study suggest that the design-based approach is a novel method for addressing school issues for the majority of school leaders. However, it appears that they have varying degrees of success in implementing the approach within their schools.
The study's findings contribute to the growing but limited knowledge on design-based school improvement in socially disadvantaged areas.
