Educational leadership as best practice in highly effective schools in the Autonomous Region of the Basque County (Spain)

Abstract

This study presents part of a research project currently underway which aims to characterise the best practices of highly effective schools in the Autonomous Region of the Basque Country (Spain). Multilevel statistical modelling and hierarchical linear models were used to select 32 highly effective schools, with highly effective being taken to mean any school with higher-than-expected student results after adjusting for the effect of contextual factors. Subsequently, qualitative techniques were used to record the perceptions of the management teams, educational advisors and inspectors of the selected schools regarding the practices in place in their organisations. This paper presents the results obtained in relation to leadership. These results indicate that leadership comprises a number of different competences that are manifested to different extents in the different schools, although a set of elements was identified as being common to the majority, namely: positive leadership in the school management, a clearly defined mission shared by all professionals, a positive attitude to training and lifelong learning, the ability to foster the commitment and motivation of the teaching staff in relation to a common school project, support for teaching and learning processes, attention paid to questions of peaceful and harmonious coexistence and well-organised coordination.

Análisis de las expectativas de los centros de Bachillerato de alta y baja eficacia escolar. Percepción de la Inspección Educativa

“…Para abordar el análisis de la eficacia y de la mejora, es frecuente el uso de diseños mixtos, pues integra las ventajas de los métodos cuantitativos y las de los métodos cualitativos (Teddlie & Sammons, 2010); además se considera un enfoque apropia-do para la identificación de factores de eficacia en centros escolares de rendimiento extremo (Creemers, Kyriakides & Antoniou, 2013;Intxausti, Joaristi & Lizasoain, 2016). Creswell & Plano-Clark (2011), definen cuatro tipos de diseños mixtos: el diseño de triangulación, el diseño imbricado, el diseño explicativo, y el diseño exploratorio.…”

“…El uso de pruebas estandarizadas como base para los estudios de mejora de la eficacia escolar es bastante común (Bryk, 2010;Intxausti et al, 2016;Hernández-Castilla et al, 2014). En las etapas de primaria y secundaria, las evaluaciones de PISA, TIMSS o la Evaluación Diagnóstica, sirven de referencia para el análisis y evaluación de los centros escolares.…”

La Formación Permanente Del Profesorado en Centros Educativos De Alta Eficacia

“…Aunque sin olvidar que la misma está siempre vinculada a buenas prácti-cas en otros ámbitos tales como el liderazgo (Intxausti, Joaristi y Lizasoain, 2015), la adecuada gestión de los recursos humanos, la organización y aprovechamiento de los tiempos, la coordinación interna y externa, el cuidado por generar y mantener un adecuado clima y convivencia, una relación fluida con las familias (Azpillaga, Intxausti y Joaristi, 2014); y en el ámbi-to más estrictamente instructivo, el uso de metodologías innovadoras basadas en el enfoque de competencias, la atención a la diversidad y las prácticas de refuerzo, el seguimiento atento del alumnado y la evaluación sistemáti-ca, frecuente y formativa (Lizasoain y Angulo, 2014).…”

What is Published in Impact Journals on School Effectiveness? A Systematic Review of Research Results and Methods

“…Although contextual and personal factors associated with the pupils influenced performance, there are school characteristics that influenced academic outcomes (Azpillaga et al, 2014;Intxausti et al, 2016Intxausti et al, , 2017Joaristi et al, 2014;Lizasoain et al, 2016). In addition, learning opportunities would explain 37% of the inequalities associated with ESCS (Schmidt et al, 2015) so those schools that are more effective will be able to reduce the inequality gap in the students (Valenzuela et al, 2016).…”

“…Schools can be optimised by knowing the variables at the school level that differentiate effective schools (Martínez-Abad et al, 2017;Rutledge, Cohen-Vogel, Osborne-Lampkin & Roberts, 2015). To detect the educational patterns that characterise high and low efficiency schools, some authors start from diagnostic evaluations to identify high or low residue centres (Azpillaga et al, 2014;Intxausti, Etxeberria & Bartau, 2017;Intxausti, Joaristi & Lizasoain, 2016;Joaristi, Lizasoain & Azpillaga;Lizasoain, Bereziartua & Bartau;. In a first phase, by means of multilevel hierarchical models and taking as a reference the residual gain or the growth of scores, a classification of the centres according to the level of school efficiency achieved over the years is carried out.…”