Quality and Usefulness of Data: Investigating the Discrepancies in Pakistani Public School Data and Implications for the Way Forward

Abstract

The quality school data contributes to reliable decision making in the school education system. The data provided by different organizations should be consistent, valid and complement each other to establish its quality and usefulness. The present study purports to explore the discrepancies among the different data sources that have implications for improving the quality and usefulness of school data. The available school data from various sources of school education was used followed by an explanation through semi-structured interviews with the teachers employing an explanatory mixed methods design. The results revealed that there were substantial discrepancies among varying school data sources that did not reflect the ‘real’ work efficiency of the schools and the school authorities excessively rely on such data for significant decision-making. This leads to a risk of bringing meaningless reforms in the school education system. These discrepancies found in the school data sources have implications for improving the existing practices of data collection and a performance appraisal mechanism in schools.

A Qualitative Analysis of the Support and Conflicts of the Novice-Expert School Teachers

“…It is a threat to the smooth running of the teachinglearning process if not managed carefully. However, if it is managed carefully, it will lead toward an effective teaching-learning process, and these results also support the findings of the current study, which also reflected that conflicts management is very important for an effective teaching-learning process (Savolainen et al, 2020;Scholten & Sprenger, 2020;Waheed et al, 2020). Most researchers reflected that expert and novice teachers should have enough knowledge to resolve these conflicts that occur during the interaction between the expert and novice teachers.…”

Newly Inducted and Experienced Teachers' Working Relationships: What can they learn from each other?

“…Mutual learning between newly inducted and experienced teachers has been a very attractive topic to be researched. It is due to the importance of mutual learning in the school rather than the learning itself (Gilani et al, 2020: Hassan et al, 2019Lazarova et al, 2012;Waheed et al 2020). It is learning between the experienced and newly inducted teachers in the school formally or informally.…”