Data Analysis for School Improvement within Coupled Local School Systems : Which Data and with what Purposes?

From a new institutional theoretical perspective, this article explores school actors’ sense making linked to data-based decision making (DBDM) policy in general and processes of data analysis in particular. The study revealed how actors’ interpretation of and response to DBDM requirements pointed to strong and weak couplings between and within the local school system’s different organizational levels. While teachers primarily emphasized informal, daily analyses, the LEA and principals placed importance on formal, district and school-based analyses. In the same way teachers to a greater extent think that too much resources is spent on collecting and analyzing data rather than on innovation and school improvement