Theory of action accounts of problem-solving: How a Japanese school communicates student incidents to parents

Hannah, Darren; Sinnema, Claire; Robinson, Viviane

doi:10.1177/0892020618783809

Cited by 9 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 20 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Intervention 2 leaders had the same access to the questionnaire tool, but were also taught to diagnose and understand their theory-in-use for CPS conversations. Theories of action describe links between behaviour, (actions/inactions), beliefs, and motivations that explain the behaviour, and the intended and unintended consequences of the behaviour (Argyris & Schön, 1974;Hannah, Sinnema, & Robinson 2019Robinson, 2014Robinson, , 2018Sinnema, Hannah, Finnerty & Daly, 2021). The causes of many complex problems lie in leaders'/teachers' theories of action, and consequently, improvement efforts are compromised if there is little or no engagement with them (Argyris & Schön, 1974;Cavanagh et al, 2014;Mintrop & Zumpe, 2019;Robinson, 2018;Robinson et al, 2020).…”

Section: The Design Of the Interventionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Addressing inequity and underachievement: Intervening to improve middle leaders’problem-solving conversations

et al. 2022

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Reducing inequity is the moral imperative confronting today’s educational leaders. Central to reducing inequity is leaders’ ability to solve the school-based problems that contribute to it, while building the positive and trusting professional relationships required for teachers to commit to the hard work of improvement. A theory of collaborative problem-solving informed our intervention designed to improve the effectiveness of leaders’ behaviour as they worked with their teachers to accelerate the reading achievement of students yet to reach age-related standards. A concurrent mixed methods design was used to evaluate the impact of the intervention by analysing transcripts of interviews and leader-teacher conversations and student reading achievement data. Leaders’ effectiveness in their conversations improved significantly as did the reading outcomes of their target students. Our findings suggest that even short interventions grounded in strong theory with appropriate learning opportunities can affect a positive change in leadership behaviour and student outcomes.

show abstract

Section: The Design Of the Interventionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Addressing inequity and underachievement: Intervening to improve middle leaders’problem-solving conversations

et al. 2022

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Second, my research goal was to provide implications for improving faculty evaluation practices, and PBM is a proven methodology for improving educational practices (e.g., Donald, 2013;Eastham, 2017;Finnerty, 2020;Meyer & Slater-Brown, 2020;Nock, 2017;Slater-Brown, 2016). Though most PBM studies are in New Zealand, using PBM to understand and improve educational practice in an Asian context or among Asian participants is promising (Hannah et al, 2019;Robinson & Lai, 1999;Svay, 2017). PBM allowed me to examine holistic and long-term problem solutions to higher education faculty evaluation in an Asian nation like Vietnam.…”

Section: Pbmmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The first methodological contribution is about PBM and how it can be applied. Most PBM research examines educational issues in Western, or developed, countries such as New Zealand or Australia (Donald, 2013;Eastham, 2017;Finnerty, 2020;Hannah et al, 2019;Lalwani, 2019;Meyer & Slater-Brown, 2020;Nock, 2017;Slater-Brown, 2016). A few PBM studies in other contexts have explored the copying habits of Chinese students (Robinson & Lai, 1999), the curriculum design in Cambodian universities (Svay, 2017), and the Japanese leaders solving student incidents (Hannah et al, 2019).…”

Section: Contributions Of the Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Most PBM research examines educational issues in Western, or developed, countries such as New Zealand or Australia (Donald, 2013;Eastham, 2017;Finnerty, 2020;Hannah et al, 2019;Lalwani, 2019;Meyer & Slater-Brown, 2020;Nock, 2017;Slater-Brown, 2016). A few PBM studies in other contexts have explored the copying habits of Chinese students (Robinson & Lai, 1999), the curriculum design in Cambodian universities (Svay, 2017), and the Japanese leaders solving student incidents (Hannah et al, 2019). Also, except for studies by Svay (2017) and Robinson and Lai (1999), most previous PBM studies have been in general education (i.e., primary and secondary schools).…”

Section: Contributions Of the Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Faculty evaluation in higher education: a theory-of-action case study in Vietnam

Nguyen¹

2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The study has two key implications. First, it suggests the improvement of faculty evaluation policymaking and implementation by revising several existing constraints and by adding some cultural and individual constraints to the current theories of action. The faculty evaluation problems could be solved by improving the quality of evaluation processes and data, reconceptualising SET and voting evaluation, and treating faculty members’ underperformance as a collective problem. Second, the study suggests a framework to predict the likely success of future intervention on faculty evaluation. For instance, faculty evaluation for learning and improvement will be more feasible if policymakers and implementers prioritise transformational purposes and make joint efforts to foster dialogues and collaboration among individuals and groups. My study also highlights the need to understand faculty evaluation, and possibly other higher education practices in Vietnam, in religious contexts and from individual participants’ spiritual values or philosophical backgrounds. The study implications are applicable to Vietnamese higher education and potentially to other educational settings with similar characteristics.

show abstract

“…The three values in Fig. 2 are based on the theories and practice of interpersonal and organizational effectiveness developed by Argyris and Schön (1974, 1978, 1996 and applied more recently in a range of educational leadership research contexts (Hannah et al, 2018;Patuawa et al, 2021;Sinnema et al, 2021a). We have drawn on the work of Argyris and Schön because their theories explain the dilemma many leaders experience between the two components of problem solving effectiveness and indicate how that dilemma can be avoided or resolved.…”

Section: The Role Of Values In Problem-solving Conversationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Educational leaders’ problem-solving for educational improvement: Belief validity testing in conversations

et al. 2021

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Educational leaders’ effectiveness in solving problems is vital to school and system-level efforts to address macrosystem problems of educational inequity and social injustice. Leaders’ problem-solving conversation attempts are typically influenced by three types of beliefs—beliefs about the nature of the problem, about what causes it, and about how to solve it. Effective problem solving demands testing the validity of these beliefs—the focus of our investigation. We analyzed 43 conversations between leaders and staff about equity related problems including teaching effectiveness. We first determined the types of beliefs held and the validity testing behaviors employed drawing on fine-grained coding frameworks. The quantification of these allowed us to use cross tabs and chi-square tests of independence to explore the relationship between leaders’ use of validity testing behaviors (those identified as more routine or more robust, and those relating to both advocacy and inquiry) and belief type. Leaders tended to avoid discussion of problem causes, advocate more than inquire, bypass disagreements, and rarely explore logic between solutions and problem causes. There was a significant relationship between belief type and the likelihood that leaders will test the validity of those beliefs—beliefs about problem causes were the least likely to be tested. The patterns found here are likely to impact whether micro and mesosystem problems, and ultimately exo and macrosystem problems, are solved. Capability building in belief validity testing is vital for leadership professional learning to ensure curriculum, social justice and equity policy aspirations are realized in practice.

show abstract

Theory of action accounts of problem-solving: How a Japanese school communicates student incidents to parents

Cited by 9 publications

References 20 publications

Addressing inequity and underachievement: Intervening to improve middle leaders’problem-solving conversations

Addressing inequity and underachievement: Intervening to improve middle leaders’problem-solving conversations

Faculty evaluation in higher education: a theory-of-action case study in Vietnam

Educational leaders’ problem-solving for educational improvement: Belief validity testing in conversations

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About