Educational Partnerships

**185**

**Chapter 11**

**Abstract**

tices are discussed.

**1. Introduction**

School-University Partnership

for Evidence-Driven School

*Kätlin Vanari, Kairit Tammets and Eve Eisenschmidt*

It has been acknowledged that evidence-driven practices may lead schools to improved instructional practices, student learning, or organizational improvement; still the evidence is underused by the teachers or school leaders. This study focuses on analyzing how to strengthen the evidence-driven school improvement in school-university partnership programs. Five schools learnt over a period of one school year in collaboration with the university coaches how to collect evidence in classroom and organizational level for improvement process. The results of our study illustrate profiles of the schools based on the usage of data-informed evidence, research-based evidence, or both to make decisions in the instructional and organizational level. Enablers and barriers of data use from the perspective of organizational, user, and data characteristics to implement evidence-driven prac-

**Keywords:** data-informed evidence, research-based evidence, evidence-driven

The Estonian Lifelong Learning Strategy 2020 [1] aims to implement a learning and teaching approach that supports each learner's individual and social development, learning skills, creativity, and entrepreneurship in the work of all levels and types of education. To achieve this demanding goal, new teaching practices should be developed in collaboration between universities and schools. This also means that every school should focus on their students' individual needs—instead of implementing already existing approaches, new solutions should be created or modified to fit into local context. When adapting new teaching and learning methods, important questions arise: what is the impact of these approaches and

In this new situation, schools continuously develop their practices, analyze the needs of teachers', and find ways for their professional development. Hansen and Wasson [2] have pointed out that there is a need to change teachers' professional development format—instead of traditional participation in training courses, teachers should be supported in developing and improving their existing practice through teacher inquiry. Nowadays, capacity building, inquiry-oriented practice, and data-driven decisions are considered as central themes of educational

school improvement, school-university partnership

what other factors are influencing the outcomes.

Improvement in Estonia

#### **Chapter 11**

## School-University Partnership for Evidence-Driven School Improvement in Estonia

*Kätlin Vanari, Kairit Tammets and Eve Eisenschmidt*

#### **Abstract**

It has been acknowledged that evidence-driven practices may lead schools to improved instructional practices, student learning, or organizational improvement; still the evidence is underused by the teachers or school leaders. This study focuses on analyzing how to strengthen the evidence-driven school improvement in school-university partnership programs. Five schools learnt over a period of one school year in collaboration with the university coaches how to collect evidence in classroom and organizational level for improvement process. The results of our study illustrate profiles of the schools based on the usage of data-informed evidence, research-based evidence, or both to make decisions in the instructional and organizational level. Enablers and barriers of data use from the perspective of organizational, user, and data characteristics to implement evidence-driven practices are discussed.

**Keywords:** data-informed evidence, research-based evidence, evidence-driven school improvement, school-university partnership

#### **1. Introduction**

The Estonian Lifelong Learning Strategy 2020 [1] aims to implement a learning and teaching approach that supports each learner's individual and social development, learning skills, creativity, and entrepreneurship in the work of all levels and types of education. To achieve this demanding goal, new teaching practices should be developed in collaboration between universities and schools. This also means that every school should focus on their students' individual needs—instead of implementing already existing approaches, new solutions should be created or modified to fit into local context. When adapting new teaching and learning methods, important questions arise: what is the impact of these approaches and what other factors are influencing the outcomes.

In this new situation, schools continuously develop their practices, analyze the needs of teachers', and find ways for their professional development. Hansen and Wasson [2] have pointed out that there is a need to change teachers' professional development format—instead of traditional participation in training courses, teachers should be supported in developing and improving their existing practice through teacher inquiry. Nowadays, capacity building, inquiry-oriented practice, and data-driven decisions are considered as central themes of educational

improvement [3, 4]. Concepts like practitioner research and teacher inquiry have been widely used for several decades—yet schools still face difficulties in using evidence for school improvement processes [1].

In the age of big data, it is difficult to imagine any educational improvement that does not include data as a key pillar [6]. Developing evidence-driven school improvement processes through school-university collaboration is one option for helping schools work with evidence. Therefore, school-university joint programs are initiated and the Future School Program was launched in Estonia. The aim of the Future School Program is to support whole-school innovation and sustainable improvement of teaching practices by enhancing the teaching and learning culture through school-university co-creation of new methodologies and implementation of evidence-driven innovation.

In this chapter, we analyze how to strengthen the evidence-driven school improvement in school-university partnership program. Following questions are discussed:


#### **2. Evidence-driven school improvement: theoretical underpinnings**

Nowadays, educational innovation is not only the "business" of scholars practitioners are actively involved and discussions about educational improvements revolve around the importance of evidence and data. Different authors use distinct terminology [7] evidence-informed education [8], evidence-informed practices [9], evidence-based practice [10], evidence-based education [11, 12], data-based decision-making [13, 14], data-informed practice [15], data-driven decision-making [16, 17], data-based decision-making [18], data use [7, 19–21] and practice-informed evidence [22]. The main idea behind these concepts seems to be concurrent; however, the use of different terms is not incidental. One of the broadest explanation has been given by Davies [23], who sees evidence-based education as a set of principles and practices, which can alter the way people think about education, the way they go about educational policy and practice, and the basis upon which they make professional judgments and deploy their expertise—but it is not the provider of readymade solutions to the demands of modern education. In the following sections, we compare and analyze how different concepts supplement each other and how the evidence-based improvement can be identified for the schools.

To start with, we need to unravel the concepts of evidence as they are widely used. Evidence is a kind of information, which points to the truth or validity of a claim and is the joint starting point for all authors; opinions differ on how truth or validity is achieved. It is assumed that the main source of evidence practitioners should consider when making decisions in social science research, namely experimental research and randomized controlled trials [10, 11, 24]. The idea that research can make a major contribution to improving practice stems from the assumption that it is systematic and rigorous and provides explicit evidence, which can be assessed objectively [10]. It can be concluded that one sub-concept of evidence-based education concentrates on implementation of research results, especially implementation of these teaching techniques and methods, which have

**187**

*School-University Partnership for Evidence-Driven School Improvement in Estonia*

reliable research results say how to implement new teaching practices.

concept of evidence-driven school improvement as a data informed.

data for improving instruction can enhance student achievement [13].

according to the conclusions made from the evidence.

Evidence-based education operates at two levels. First is to utilize existing evidence from worldwide research and literature on education and associated subjects [23]. This gives a broader base for professional knowledge-in action [15]. The second level is to establish sound evidence where existing evidence is lacking or of questionable, uncertain, or weak in nature [23]. It requires acquiring, using, critiquing, and creating the evidence base by the lived experience of observing and assessing students in particular contexts on a regular basis [15]. This type of professional knowledge relies on multiple values, tacit judgment, local knowledge, and skill; research usually cannot supply what the notion of evidence-based practice demands of it—specific and highly reliable answers to questions about what works and what does not [10]. In this case, the basis for innovating instruction is the data what the context offers. The data about the students, their background, their previous achievements, as well as teaching processes, and school organizational existence

The definition of data is broad. The focus is on raw data that must be organized, filtered, and analyzed to become information, then combined with stakeholder understanding and expertise to become actionable knowledge. The data not only enclose student test results, but also any other form of structurally collected qualitative or quantitative data on the functioning of the school, such as outcomes, inputs, processes, and perceptions [13, 25]. In short, data are the information that is collected and represent some aspect of schools [26]. If the evidence incorporates the question and the answer, the data comprehend only the question and the potential of the answer. The evidence incorporates the interpretive and evaluative elements, which are missing from the data. In conclusion, we distinguish the second sub-

In addition to the data-informed and research-based dimensions of evidence, the distinction of the outcomes can be identified [7]. The expected outcomes of the evidence usage describe the goals for which the evidence is used, more specifically, the aspect of the school culture which is expected to be improved and changed

Discussions of evidence-based or evidence-informed practice refer to teachers, their classroom activities, and interactions with students [7, 9]. The data and evidence use are implemented with the goal of improving instruction. The quality of teachers' instruction is an important influence on student achievement, and using

Data and evidence can also be used to inform decision-making in school management and leadership levels. This process is often called data-based or data-driven decision-making [13, 16]. Data-driven decision-making is the purposeful process of selecting, gathering, and analyzing relevant data to define school problems, develop alternatives, estimate outcomes of the alternatives, and choose the preferred alternative [16]. Data do not objectively guide decisions on their own—but people do. To

been found to have a positive effect on students' assessment results. In the following, we distinguish this sub-concept as a research-based school development. Research-based evidence as a source for school development and teachers' professional development has been criticized from different aspects. The disapproval of research-based evidence has been argued with the nature of research, its generalizability, and objectivity. It is recognized that professional judgments cannot be made without taking into consideration the value-based foundation of education [11]. However, research findings merely inform practitioners about what the general outcomes are of different kinds of decisions [24], and there are a variety of formal and informal sources of information that also contribute to the decisionmaking process [10, 24]. Schools and teachers cannot wait until the valid and

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89513*

is wide and the potential of this data is unused.

#### *School-University Partnership for Evidence-Driven School Improvement in Estonia DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89513*

been found to have a positive effect on students' assessment results. In the following, we distinguish this sub-concept as a research-based school development.

Research-based evidence as a source for school development and teachers' professional development has been criticized from different aspects. The disapproval of research-based evidence has been argued with the nature of research, its generalizability, and objectivity. It is recognized that professional judgments cannot be made without taking into consideration the value-based foundation of education [11]. However, research findings merely inform practitioners about what the general outcomes are of different kinds of decisions [24], and there are a variety of formal and informal sources of information that also contribute to the decisionmaking process [10, 24]. Schools and teachers cannot wait until the valid and reliable research results say how to implement new teaching practices.

Evidence-based education operates at two levels. First is to utilize existing evidence from worldwide research and literature on education and associated subjects [23]. This gives a broader base for professional knowledge-in action [15]. The second level is to establish sound evidence where existing evidence is lacking or of questionable, uncertain, or weak in nature [23]. It requires acquiring, using, critiquing, and creating the evidence base by the lived experience of observing and assessing students in particular contexts on a regular basis [15]. This type of professional knowledge relies on multiple values, tacit judgment, local knowledge, and skill; research usually cannot supply what the notion of evidence-based practice demands of it—specific and highly reliable answers to questions about what works and what does not [10]. In this case, the basis for innovating instruction is the data what the context offers. The data about the students, their background, their previous achievements, as well as teaching processes, and school organizational existence is wide and the potential of this data is unused.

The definition of data is broad. The focus is on raw data that must be organized, filtered, and analyzed to become information, then combined with stakeholder understanding and expertise to become actionable knowledge. The data not only enclose student test results, but also any other form of structurally collected qualitative or quantitative data on the functioning of the school, such as outcomes, inputs, processes, and perceptions [13, 25]. In short, data are the information that is collected and represent some aspect of schools [26]. If the evidence incorporates the question and the answer, the data comprehend only the question and the potential of the answer. The evidence incorporates the interpretive and evaluative elements, which are missing from the data. In conclusion, we distinguish the second subconcept of evidence-driven school improvement as a data informed.

In addition to the data-informed and research-based dimensions of evidence, the distinction of the outcomes can be identified [7]. The expected outcomes of the evidence usage describe the goals for which the evidence is used, more specifically, the aspect of the school culture which is expected to be improved and changed according to the conclusions made from the evidence.

Discussions of evidence-based or evidence-informed practice refer to teachers, their classroom activities, and interactions with students [7, 9]. The data and evidence use are implemented with the goal of improving instruction. The quality of teachers' instruction is an important influence on student achievement, and using data for improving instruction can enhance student achievement [13].

Data and evidence can also be used to inform decision-making in school management and leadership levels. This process is often called data-based or data-driven decision-making [13, 16]. Data-driven decision-making is the purposeful process of selecting, gathering, and analyzing relevant data to define school problems, develop alternatives, estimate outcomes of the alternatives, and choose the preferred alternative [16]. Data do not objectively guide decisions on their own—but people do. To

*Pedagogy in Basic and Higher Education - Current Developments and Challenges*

evidence for school improvement processes [1].

of evidence-driven innovation.

ment can be identified for the schools.

discussed:

programs?

program?

improvement [3, 4]. Concepts like practitioner research and teacher inquiry have been widely used for several decades—yet schools still face difficulties in using

In the age of big data, it is difficult to imagine any educational improvement that does not include data as a key pillar [6]. Developing evidence-driven school improvement processes through school-university collaboration is one option for helping schools work with evidence. Therefore, school-university joint programs are initiated and the Future School Program was launched in Estonia. The aim of the Future School Program is to support whole-school innovation and sustainable improvement of teaching practices by enhancing the teaching and learning culture through school-university co-creation of new methodologies and implementation

In this chapter, we analyze how to strengthen the evidence-driven school improvement in school-university partnership program. Following questions are

• How evidence-driven school improvement is actualized in school development

• What are the enablers and barriers of using evidences in school development

**2. Evidence-driven school improvement: theoretical underpinnings**

Nowadays, educational innovation is not only the "business" of scholars practitioners are actively involved and discussions about educational improvements revolve around the importance of evidence and data. Different authors use distinct terminology [7] evidence-informed education [8], evidence-informed practices [9], evidence-based practice [10], evidence-based education [11, 12], data-based decision-making [13, 14], data-informed practice [15], data-driven decision-making [16, 17], data-based decision-making [18], data use [7, 19–21] and practice-informed evidence [22]. The main idea behind these concepts seems to be concurrent; however, the use of different terms is not incidental. One of the broadest explanation has been given by Davies [23], who sees evidence-based education as a set of principles and practices, which can alter the way people think about education, the way they go about educational policy and practice, and the basis upon which they make professional judgments and deploy their expertise—but it is not the provider of readymade solutions to the demands of modern education. In the following sections, we compare and analyze how different concepts supplement each other and how the evidence-based improve-

To start with, we need to unravel the concepts of evidence as they are widely used. Evidence is a kind of information, which points to the truth or validity of a claim and is the joint starting point for all authors; opinions differ on how truth or validity is achieved. It is assumed that the main source of evidence practitioners should consider when making decisions in social science research, namely experimental research and randomized controlled trials [10, 11, 24]. The idea that research can make a major contribution to improving practice stems from the assumption that it is systematic and rigorous and provides explicit evidence, which can be assessed objectively [10]. It can be concluded that one sub-concept of evidence-based education concentrates on implementation of research results, especially implementation of these teaching techniques and methods, which have

**186**

do so, they select particular pieces of data to negotiate arguments about the nature of problems as well as the potential solutions [14]. The use of data is not only a matter of new competencies and skills, it is more about the new culture to arise. Good things do not happen thanks to data—it should be supported by data-informed leaders. Leaders should take the responsibility to evaluate what types of data are useful and for what purposes [17]. Organizational practices have an important role in affecting the way that people in organizations think and work, so it is possible to shift patterns of practice by creating organizational supports and incentives that give greater prominence to the consideration of research findings and their implications [8]. In such a case, the data and evidence can be used for school development purposes and it refers to schools using data to improve themselves; for instance, student satisfaction surveys and exam results can be used to evaluate the extent to which the school is achieving its goals [13]. The processes of decision-making and interpretation happen in parallel; this way, there is potentially a higher coherence among the data, the decision, contextual factors, as well as the risk of misinterpretation or biased interpretation.

In conclusion, we have identified two dimensions of the concept of evidencedriven school improvement (**Figure 1**). One of the dimensions is the input dimension, which refers to different inputs of the evidence: the evidence can be data informed or research based. The data-informed evidence can appear from assessment results, characteristics of teaching staff, national or school surveys, etc. The research-based evidence can be the result of some experimental study or qualitative study on teachers' behavioral patterns. The second dimension characterizes the output of evidence: whether the evidence is influencing decisions made for school development, incorporating the organizational aspects like the structures, communication, or decisions made for the improvement of instruction by the teacher, usually in the interaction with the student and used educational method.

Studies of data use have analyzed the factors influencing evidence-driven school improvement, and based on the synthesis of recent studies [13], it can be concluded that these factors are organizational characteristics, user characteristics, and data

**189**

*School-University Partnership for Evidence-Driven School Improvement in Estonia*

characteristics. Organizational factors include the shared vision and clear norms for data usage, encouragement by the school leader, possible expert support, time, and conditions provided for collaboration between teachers. Data use depends on the user characteristics of teachers. In order to use data, teachers need to have the knowledge and skills needed to analyze and interpret different forms of data; they need to understand the quality criteria for data use and data-use concepts; and they need skills to diagnose student-learning needs and adjust instruction accordingly. Data characteristics are identified as access to student relevant data, and the usability and high quality of data. It is important to note that these factors can be enablers or barriers depending on the goal of the data use. The study [13] shows that data use for school development is influenced by organizational and data characteristics, but data use for improving teaching and learning is influenced by organizational and

Additionally, the evidence-driven school improvement implemented in school-

university partnerships is influenced by the character of the relationship. The partnership can be as two types of relationships between schools and universities: one type of partnership can be labeled as transactional and refers to a relationship, which is driven by individual purposes—in this case, the organizations remain unchanged; the second type is transformational partnership, where the parties come together to pursue a common purpose and create the possibility of growth and change through mutual interaction as they apply their resources to address complex problems [27]. Studies [7, 17, 25, 28] investigating strategies of school-university partnerships for supporting evidence-driven school improvement have identified four key domains: (1) human support, (2) leadership, (3) technology support, and

One possibility to offer human support is to use coaches. In order for coaching on data use to be effective, teachers needed to believe that the coach possesses strong interpersonal skills, content, and pedagogical knowledge that would be useful for them to learn. Facilitation of coaches includes assessing teachers' needs, modeling how to interpret and act upon data, and observing teachers while they attempt to engage in the data-use process. Another possibility is to support professional development, but from previous studies, it is evident that the structured training in how to use data is not common in schools. A third approach to human support is networking with a university: either the researcher guides the process of data analysis and brings a theoretical framework to the practice or relies primarily

Schools make efforts to have technology support: data systems that organize and analyze interim assessment data, and data warehouses with current and historical student data. It is acknowledged that the trainings for school teams on data use are rare and focus primarily on technological support and how to access the data management system. Technological support needs to be combined with other strategies. School leadership—principals are key players in facilitating data use among teachers, they play an important role in allocating resources and time to enable teachers to use data effectively. Their espoused beliefs about data use are critical as well, so they help set the tone for data use among in school teams. For the school leader, it is important to have a whole school perspective on the improvement initiated. If the instructional and organizational improvements are not aligned, it is confusing and unmotivating for the teachers to participate. It is important to communicate for the teachers why the evidence is being collected in classroom level and how it helps to monitor the big picture of the improvement and data are not used to blame-and-shame teachers. The evidence-driven school improvement cannot be implemented without data-literate and research-wise school leader, so the crucial

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89513*

user characteristics.

(4) designed routes.

on workshops and ongoing consultancy.

target to support strategies is the leaders in schools.

**Figure 1.**

*Dimensions of evidence-driven school improvement and some examples.*

#### *School-University Partnership for Evidence-Driven School Improvement in Estonia DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89513*

characteristics. Organizational factors include the shared vision and clear norms for data usage, encouragement by the school leader, possible expert support, time, and conditions provided for collaboration between teachers. Data use depends on the user characteristics of teachers. In order to use data, teachers need to have the knowledge and skills needed to analyze and interpret different forms of data; they need to understand the quality criteria for data use and data-use concepts; and they need skills to diagnose student-learning needs and adjust instruction accordingly. Data characteristics are identified as access to student relevant data, and the usability and high quality of data. It is important to note that these factors can be enablers or barriers depending on the goal of the data use. The study [13] shows that data use for school development is influenced by organizational and data characteristics, but data use for improving teaching and learning is influenced by organizational and user characteristics.

Additionally, the evidence-driven school improvement implemented in schooluniversity partnerships is influenced by the character of the relationship. The partnership can be as two types of relationships between schools and universities: one type of partnership can be labeled as transactional and refers to a relationship, which is driven by individual purposes—in this case, the organizations remain unchanged; the second type is transformational partnership, where the parties come together to pursue a common purpose and create the possibility of growth and change through mutual interaction as they apply their resources to address complex problems [27]. Studies [7, 17, 25, 28] investigating strategies of school-university partnerships for supporting evidence-driven school improvement have identified four key domains: (1) human support, (2) leadership, (3) technology support, and (4) designed routes.

One possibility to offer human support is to use coaches. In order for coaching on data use to be effective, teachers needed to believe that the coach possesses strong interpersonal skills, content, and pedagogical knowledge that would be useful for them to learn. Facilitation of coaches includes assessing teachers' needs, modeling how to interpret and act upon data, and observing teachers while they attempt to engage in the data-use process. Another possibility is to support professional development, but from previous studies, it is evident that the structured training in how to use data is not common in schools. A third approach to human support is networking with a university: either the researcher guides the process of data analysis and brings a theoretical framework to the practice or relies primarily on workshops and ongoing consultancy.

Schools make efforts to have technology support: data systems that organize and analyze interim assessment data, and data warehouses with current and historical student data. It is acknowledged that the trainings for school teams on data use are rare and focus primarily on technological support and how to access the data management system. Technological support needs to be combined with other strategies.

School leadership—principals are key players in facilitating data use among teachers, they play an important role in allocating resources and time to enable teachers to use data effectively. Their espoused beliefs about data use are critical as well, so they help set the tone for data use among in school teams. For the school leader, it is important to have a whole school perspective on the improvement initiated. If the instructional and organizational improvements are not aligned, it is confusing and unmotivating for the teachers to participate. It is important to communicate for the teachers why the evidence is being collected in classroom level and how it helps to monitor the big picture of the improvement and data are not used to blame-and-shame teachers. The evidence-driven school improvement cannot be implemented without data-literate and research-wise school leader, so the crucial target to support strategies is the leaders in schools.

*Pedagogy in Basic and Higher Education - Current Developments and Challenges*

tation or biased interpretation.

do so, they select particular pieces of data to negotiate arguments about the nature of problems as well as the potential solutions [14]. The use of data is not only a matter of new competencies and skills, it is more about the new culture to arise. Good things do not happen thanks to data—it should be supported by data-informed leaders. Leaders should take the responsibility to evaluate what types of data are useful and for what purposes [17]. Organizational practices have an important role in affecting the way that people in organizations think and work, so it is possible to shift patterns of practice by creating organizational supports and incentives that give greater prominence to the consideration of research findings and their implications [8]. In such a case, the data and evidence can be used for school development purposes and it refers to schools using data to improve themselves; for instance, student satisfaction surveys and exam results can be used to evaluate the extent to which the school is achieving its goals [13]. The processes of decision-making and interpretation happen in parallel; this way, there is potentially a higher coherence among the data, the decision, contextual factors, as well as the risk of misinterpre-

In conclusion, we have identified two dimensions of the concept of evidencedriven school improvement (**Figure 1**). One of the dimensions is the input dimension, which refers to different inputs of the evidence: the evidence can be data informed or research based. The data-informed evidence can appear from assessment results, characteristics of teaching staff, national or school surveys, etc. The research-based evidence can be the result of some experimental study or qualitative study on teachers' behavioral patterns. The second dimension characterizes the output of evidence: whether the evidence is influencing decisions made for school development, incorporating the organizational aspects like the structures, communication, or decisions made for the improvement of instruction by the teacher,

usually in the interaction with the student and used educational method.

*Dimensions of evidence-driven school improvement and some examples.*

Studies of data use have analyzed the factors influencing evidence-driven school improvement, and based on the synthesis of recent studies [13], it can be concluded that these factors are organizational characteristics, user characteristics, and data

**188**

**Figure 1.**

Schools are required to follow norms and designed routes—specific data-driven decision-making practices—when developing their school improvement plans or for teachers to follow when using data to guide instruction. One of the primary ways that is used to build teachers' capacity to use data is providing structured time for collaboration. This includes adoption of data-discussion protocols in order to ensure that discussions about data occurred and that actions were taken on the basis of these conversations.

Factors that influence the successful implementation of a school development program with the aim to support evidence-driven school improvement have been studied. Schools are more successful, if the entire school team participates in the program, the school staff is stable and the school leader provides their teachers with sufficient time and materials. It is concluded that school leaders and trainers should pay attention to developing clear guidelines and agreements on the execution of evidence-driven school improvement activities [18].

### **3. Methodology**

#### **3.1 Context: overview of the school improvement program**

The research context is formed around the school improvement program established at the Tallinn University. The program aims to support the evidence-driven improvement in Estonian schools for improving teaching and learning culture. Five schools applied (**Table 1**), based on their interest, to join the program in 2018/2019. Each school team consisted of 5–6 members, whereas 1–2 of them where members of the management and each school formulated their own student-centered goal for the improvement they aimed to achieve.

#### *3.1.1 Evidence-driven improvement process*

In the first phase of the program, each school prepared an action plan for improvement. Before creating the action plan, an analysis of the state of the school, built on existing evidence, had to be carried out. Some of the schools used data collected at the national level (satisfaction surveys, students' study results, and existing research studies) to understand the current situation, defining the problem,


**191**

*School-University Partnership for Evidence-Driven School Improvement in Estonia*

and formulating the action plan. When analyzing the evidence, three school teams changed their initial goals because they did not find clear evidence about the problem they thought the school had or they identified another problem based on the evidence. During program activities, schools had to monitor and reflect on their own activities to understand their improvement processes. Each team agreed upon their own approach and tools for monitoring and data collection, which were discussed with their university coach. In addition to the regular monitoring, each school had to design their own action research plan, carry out the study in a classroom setting, analyze the collected data, and come up with suggestions on how the

The program consisted of elements of human support, support for leadership,

and designed joint activities. The school team—where the school leader was a compulsory member—participated in monthly seminars, where the next steps of the program were explained through theoretical underpinnings and practical suggestions. The seminars were used in the program, because the studies have shown that supporting professional development is essential in raising data-literacy skills of educational practitioners [25]. The networking aspect of the seminars is also effective to support for schools. Between seminars, the school team was supported by their university assigned coach. The coach is recognized as one of the key elements in offering human support [25]. Each step was scaffolded with the special task designed according to principles of change management and evidence-driven improvement. Data use can be improved by data-use routines, ensuring that it is a recurrent and patterned interaction that guides how people engage with each other

We followed the case-study approach, which has been acknowledged as an appropriate method in educational studies about evidence use [28]. Case studies do not aim to produce generalizable theories, but aim to provide practical wisdom, which is "about understanding and behavior in specific situations" [29]. That was also the aim of our study—to better understand the collaborative practices support-

Data were collected throughout the program and after the completion of the program. A variety of data gathering techniques that are summarized in **Table 2**

Data were analyzed based on the framework from theoretical underpinnings, where different dimensions of evidence use for school improvement were defined (**Table 3**). Instructional-level decision-making refers to the teachers' decisions to improve their own teaching, assessment, feedback, etc. Organizational-level decisions refer to the decisions made by school management or school improvement

Evidence-driven practices of the five cases were classified according to nine possible profiles of evidence-driven school improvement. These profiles were created according to criteria defined from the dimensions of evidence-driven school

• Whether the school collected (a) data-informed evidence, (b) researchbased evidence, or (c) both. We classified the school as using data-informed evidence when the data were collected by the school or made available for

ing schools in implementing evidence-driven school improvement.

team to improve school-level processes, practices, curriculum design, etc.

improvement. The criteria were the following:

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89513*

data will be used in the next decision-making steps.

*3.1.2 School-university partnership*

**3.2 Data collection and analysis**

and data [7].

were used.

#### **Table 1.**

*Characteristics of schools participating in the school improvement program.*

#### *School-University Partnership for Evidence-Driven School Improvement in Estonia DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89513*

and formulating the action plan. When analyzing the evidence, three school teams changed their initial goals because they did not find clear evidence about the problem they thought the school had or they identified another problem based on the evidence. During program activities, schools had to monitor and reflect on their own activities to understand their improvement processes. Each team agreed upon their own approach and tools for monitoring and data collection, which were discussed with their university coach. In addition to the regular monitoring, each school had to design their own action research plan, carry out the study in a classroom setting, analyze the collected data, and come up with suggestions on how the data will be used in the next decision-making steps.

#### *3.1.2 School-university partnership*

*Pedagogy in Basic and Higher Education - Current Developments and Challenges*

evidence-driven school improvement activities [18].

the improvement they aimed to achieve.

*3.1.1 Evidence-driven improvement process*

**3.1 Context: overview of the school improvement program**

*Characteristics of schools participating in the school improvement program.*

of these conversations.

**3. Methodology**

Schools are required to follow norms and designed routes—specific data-driven decision-making practices—when developing their school improvement plans or for teachers to follow when using data to guide instruction. One of the primary ways that is used to build teachers' capacity to use data is providing structured time for collaboration. This includes adoption of data-discussion protocols in order to ensure that discussions about data occurred and that actions were taken on the basis

Factors that influence the successful implementation of a school development program with the aim to support evidence-driven school improvement have been studied. Schools are more successful, if the entire school team participates in the program, the school staff is stable and the school leader provides their teachers with sufficient time and materials. It is concluded that school leaders and trainers should pay attention to developing clear guidelines and agreements on the execution of

The research context is formed around the school improvement program established at the Tallinn University. The program aims to support the evidence-driven improvement in Estonian schools for improving teaching and learning culture. Five schools applied (**Table 1**), based on their interest, to join the program in 2018/2019. Each school team consisted of 5–6 members, whereas 1–2 of them where members of the management and each school formulated their own student-centered goal for

In the first phase of the program, each school prepared an action plan for improvement. Before creating the action plan, an analysis of the state of the school, built on existing evidence, had to be carried out. Some of the schools used data collected at the national level (satisfaction surveys, students' study results, and existing research studies) to understand the current situation, defining the problem,

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**Table 1.**

The program consisted of elements of human support, support for leadership, and designed joint activities. The school team—where the school leader was a compulsory member—participated in monthly seminars, where the next steps of the program were explained through theoretical underpinnings and practical suggestions. The seminars were used in the program, because the studies have shown that supporting professional development is essential in raising data-literacy skills of educational practitioners [25]. The networking aspect of the seminars is also effective to support for schools. Between seminars, the school team was supported by their university assigned coach. The coach is recognized as one of the key elements in offering human support [25]. Each step was scaffolded with the special task designed according to principles of change management and evidence-driven improvement. Data use can be improved by data-use routines, ensuring that it is a recurrent and patterned interaction that guides how people engage with each other and data [7].

#### **3.2 Data collection and analysis**

We followed the case-study approach, which has been acknowledged as an appropriate method in educational studies about evidence use [28]. Case studies do not aim to produce generalizable theories, but aim to provide practical wisdom, which is "about understanding and behavior in specific situations" [29]. That was also the aim of our study—to better understand the collaborative practices supporting schools in implementing evidence-driven school improvement.

Data were collected throughout the program and after the completion of the program. A variety of data gathering techniques that are summarized in **Table 2** were used.

Data were analyzed based on the framework from theoretical underpinnings, where different dimensions of evidence use for school improvement were defined (**Table 3**). Instructional-level decision-making refers to the teachers' decisions to improve their own teaching, assessment, feedback, etc. Organizational-level decisions refer to the decisions made by school management or school improvement team to improve school-level processes, practices, curriculum design, etc.

Evidence-driven practices of the five cases were classified according to nine possible profiles of evidence-driven school improvement. These profiles were created according to criteria defined from the dimensions of evidence-driven school improvement. The criteria were the following:

• Whether the school collected (a) data-informed evidence, (b) researchbased evidence, or (c) both. We classified the school as using data-informed evidence when the data were collected by the school or made available for


#### **Table 2.**

*Overview of data collection.*


#### **Table 3.**

*Profiles of the cases based on dimensions of evidence-driven school improvement.*

the schools by other stakeholders, and analysis was done by the school team based on their own research and improvement interest. We classified the school as using research-based evidence when the data have been collected, analyzed, and published by researchers, and the results are used by schools in their improvement process.

• Whether the school analyzed the results with the goal (a) to improve school management, (b) to improve instruction in the classroom, or (c) both. The school was classified to use evidence on management level when the school team made decisions about communication, professional development, work organization, procedures, etc. We classified the evidence as used for the instructional improvement if the conclusions and recommendations were targeted toward teachers and their activities.

#### **4. Results**

Evidence-driven practices as part of the school improvement were tightly embedded into the different phases of program activities. Next, the schools' practices to actualize the evidence-driven school improvement, the challenges, and enablers of the process will be analyzed and discussed. The aim was to understand the following: to what extent schools used evidence collected from wider research,

**193**

was put.

*School-University Partnership for Evidence-Driven School Improvement in Estonia*

**4.1 Data-informed decision-making in organizational level**

whether they collected or analyzed data based on their own research interests, and was the results used in organizational-level or instructional(teacher-student)-level

Based on teams' reflections, interviews and analysis of the documents schools were profiled as follows (**Table 4**): usage of data-informed evidence, research-based evidence, or both to make decisions in the instructional level or organizational level

The aim for school 1 was to improve the teachers' collaboration and through that improve the students' learning experience, for that a new initiative was established as "collaboration day." Based on the reflections and document analysis, the school team focused mainly on collecting data from teachers and students to understand the usability and effectiveness of the collaboration format—questionnaire for the teachers and students after each collaboration day, students' self-analysis, and observation sheets. Evidence regarding well-established methods and theoretical underpinnings were less emphasized by this school in their improvement process. The main outcome for the school team was that the intervention supported teach-

*Teachers are more involved in collaborative learning: the number of teachers participating in more than 1–2 integration projects has increased by about 20%;* 

The majority of the decisions based on the collected and analyzed data were done in management level: improving the format of the collaboration days, identifying the needs for teacher training, sharing practices, and supporting documenta-

**4.2 Research-based and data-informed decision-making in organizational level**

*We analyzed what emerged from the teachers' work analysis and students' motiva-*

ment were used as evidence to plan the interventions and data collection:

Theories and studies regarding students' learning motivation to support engage-

*We used motivation theories, introduced by the university, to plan our intervention.*

Decisions were made mainly in the management level: observation process and

More focus on supporting teachers' sharing of experiences and good practices

*Not everything is always visible—how to go on with the improvement of the* 

School 4 focused on students' engagement in extracurricular activities. Interventions were carried out in teacher-student level and students' engagement was analyzed with observation sheets. Students' motivation was analyzed and

*teachers make more suggestions to colleagues for collaboration.*

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89513*

ers' collaboration and integration of subjects:

teachers' feedback was collected with self-analysis:

tion of the integration projects.

*tion questionnaire.*

techniques need to be improved:

*observation sheet.*

decision-making processes.

or both.

*School-University Partnership for Evidence-Driven School Improvement in Estonia DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89513*

whether they collected or analyzed data based on their own research interests, and was the results used in organizational-level or instructional(teacher-student)-level decision-making processes.

Based on teams' reflections, interviews and analysis of the documents schools were profiled as follows (**Table 4**): usage of data-informed evidence, research-based evidence, or both to make decisions in the instructional level or organizational level or both.

#### **4.1 Data-informed decision-making in organizational level**

The aim for school 1 was to improve the teachers' collaboration and through that improve the students' learning experience, for that a new initiative was established as "collaboration day." Based on the reflections and document analysis, the school team focused mainly on collecting data from teachers and students to understand the usability and effectiveness of the collaboration format—questionnaire for the teachers and students after each collaboration day, students' self-analysis, and observation sheets. Evidence regarding well-established methods and theoretical underpinnings were less emphasized by this school in their improvement process. The main outcome for the school team was that the intervention supported teachers' collaboration and integration of subjects:

*Teachers are more involved in collaborative learning: the number of teachers participating in more than 1–2 integration projects has increased by about 20%; teachers make more suggestions to colleagues for collaboration.*

The majority of the decisions based on the collected and analyzed data were done in management level: improving the format of the collaboration days, identifying the needs for teacher training, sharing practices, and supporting documentation of the integration projects.

#### **4.2 Research-based and data-informed decision-making in organizational level**

School 4 focused on students' engagement in extracurricular activities. Interventions were carried out in teacher-student level and students' engagement was analyzed with observation sheets. Students' motivation was analyzed and teachers' feedback was collected with self-analysis:

*We analyzed what emerged from the teachers' work analysis and students' motivation questionnaire.*

Theories and studies regarding students' learning motivation to support engagement were used as evidence to plan the interventions and data collection:

*We used motivation theories, introduced by the university, to plan our intervention.*

Decisions were made mainly in the management level: observation process and techniques need to be improved:

*Not everything is always visible—how to go on with the improvement of the observation sheet.*

More focus on supporting teachers' sharing of experiences and good practices was put.

*Pedagogy in Basic and Higher Education - Current Developments and Challenges*

the schools by other stakeholders, and analysis was done by the school team based on their own research and improvement interest. We classified the school as using research-based evidence when the data have been collected, analyzed, and published by researchers, and the results are used by schools in

• Whether the school analyzed the results with the goal (a) to improve school management, (b) to improve instruction in the classroom, or (c) both. The school was classified to use evidence on management level when the school team made decisions about communication, professional development, work organization, procedures, etc. We classified the evidence as used for the instructional improvement if the conclusions and recommendations were

Evidence-driven practices as part of the school improvement were tightly embedded into the different phases of program activities. Next, the schools' practices to actualize the evidence-driven school improvement, the challenges, and enablers of the process will be analyzed and discussed. The aim was to understand the following: to what extent schools used evidence collected from wider research,

their improvement process.

targeted toward teachers and their activities.

*Profiles of the cases based on dimensions of evidence-driven school improvement.*

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**4. Results**

**Table 3.**

**Table 2.**

*Overview of data collection.*


#### **Table 4.**

*The schools evidence-driven profiles.*

#### **4.3 Research-based and data-informed decision-making in instructional and organizational level**

The aim of the school 2 was to implement different learning strategies to support the development of students' learning to learn skills. For monitoring the process, several data collection techniques were used: teachers' empowerment survey, survey about teachers' understanding of learning to learn skills, and teachers' interviews about different strategies. Students' self-analysis about the learning process was carried out; students learning skills and reading strategies were tested. Evidence from national-level satisfaction surveys was used when planning the activities and later analyzed:

*National survey 2018 was used to plan the activities; National survey 2019 was used to analyze the state of the school.*

Approved training programs about reading and meaningful learning were used when designing interventions in collaboration with the university team. To support the collaborative culture, a teachers' professional learning community was initiated and research on teachers' professional community was used to support teachers' collaborative learning. Teachers in this group were also studied:

#### *We conducted interviews with the teachers' part of the learning community.*

Decisions were made in management level (training and management support for teachers' to implement the new strategies to support students' learning to learn skills) and in instructional processes (new strategies will be implemented and students' self-analysis process more systematically enhanced).

School 3 aimed to raise the students' motivation to learn through more systematic integration of the lessons and outside of the classroom activities. Selfdetermination theory was used as a research ground in different activities:

#### *In designing and conducting action research, we relied on self-determination theory.*

To analyze the effectiveness of the interventions, data were collected with the students' survey after each intervention (based on self-determination theory) and teachers' feedback. Evidence from the national-level students' satisfaction survey was used for planning interventions. Decisions regarding the future activities were made in students' level: focusing on explaining the goals of different learning activities to enhance the meaningfulness, enhancing students' skills to give feedback:

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*School-University Partnership for Evidence-Driven School Improvement in Estonia*

*Students may not have taken the feedback seriously; the purpose of the survey* 

In management-level lesson, observations based on self-determination theory

The aim of the school 5 was to implement the meaningful learning experience for the seventh grade students through integrating more real-life situations to classroom activities. For data collection, an instrument was created to analyze to what extent students understand what they learn and how it supports their professional

*Grade 7 students took a motivation test and a social skill and learning to-learn skill* 

*In addition to the paper-based feedback, we also received feedback from students* 

Also oral feedback was collected from teachers and students for more in-depth analysis of the new experiences. Some evidence about the studies on integration of subjects was also used. To some extent, research results were also read by the team:

Decisions were made mainly on management level: improving evaluation sheets,

reformulating learning outcomes to make them easier for the students to understand. In the instructional level, teachers will focus more in the future to create shared understanding with the students about what learning outcomes mean and

*The teacher does not refer to the relation of the subject's learning outcome to everyday life, the result—teacher formulates the links between the learning outcomes* 

Also the plan to create individual learning paths for the students is in the focus

Our analysis indicates that all five schools participating in our program focused on collecting data and finding research evidence on the management level and three schools worked with evidence in the instructional processes. Four schools out of five focused on improving students' learning experience; one school focused on teachers' collaboration, but still with the aim to implement integration projects to improve teaching practices in the classroom level. It can be also concluded that all schools used data as part of their own studies to understand the effectiveness of the interventions, but the usage of the research evidence did not happen systematically in all of the cases. Schools collected data from both students and teachers; the instruments were mainly prepared by the schools themselves. In a few cases, additional data were collected with research instruments proposed by the university (testing the skills of the students for instance). Decisions made based on the data and research results were mainly focused on management level: improving everyday processes, data collection techniques, formalizing methodologies, and

Students and teachers gave weekly feedback, and teachers analyzed the students'

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89513*

were developed.

*test.*

evaluation sheets:

*should be better explained to the students.*

growth. Also, all the students were tested with scientific tests:

*electronically, which makes feedback for teachers more concise.*

*We read some research about integration of the subjects.*

what students are actually expected to learn:

*together with the students.*

for the future activities.

*School-University Partnership for Evidence-Driven School Improvement in Estonia DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89513*

*Students may not have taken the feedback seriously; the purpose of the survey should be better explained to the students.*

In management-level lesson, observations based on self-determination theory were developed.

The aim of the school 5 was to implement the meaningful learning experience for the seventh grade students through integrating more real-life situations to classroom activities. For data collection, an instrument was created to analyze to what extent students understand what they learn and how it supports their professional growth. Also, all the students were tested with scientific tests:

*Grade 7 students took a motivation test and a social skill and learning to-learn skill test.*

Students and teachers gave weekly feedback, and teachers analyzed the students' evaluation sheets:

*In addition to the paper-based feedback, we also received feedback from students electronically, which makes feedback for teachers more concise.*

Also oral feedback was collected from teachers and students for more in-depth analysis of the new experiences. Some evidence about the studies on integration of subjects was also used. To some extent, research results were also read by the team:

*We read some research about integration of the subjects.*

Decisions were made mainly on management level: improving evaluation sheets, reformulating learning outcomes to make them easier for the students to understand. In the instructional level, teachers will focus more in the future to create shared understanding with the students about what learning outcomes mean and what students are actually expected to learn:

*The teacher does not refer to the relation of the subject's learning outcome to everyday life, the result—teacher formulates the links between the learning outcomes together with the students.*

Also the plan to create individual learning paths for the students is in the focus for the future activities.

Our analysis indicates that all five schools participating in our program focused on collecting data and finding research evidence on the management level and three schools worked with evidence in the instructional processes. Four schools out of five focused on improving students' learning experience; one school focused on teachers' collaboration, but still with the aim to implement integration projects to improve teaching practices in the classroom level. It can be also concluded that all schools used data as part of their own studies to understand the effectiveness of the interventions, but the usage of the research evidence did not happen systematically in all of the cases. Schools collected data from both students and teachers; the instruments were mainly prepared by the schools themselves. In a few cases, additional data were collected with research instruments proposed by the university (testing the skills of the students for instance). Decisions made based on the data and research results were mainly focused on management level: improving everyday processes, data collection techniques, formalizing methodologies, and

*Pedagogy in Basic and Higher Education - Current Developments and Challenges*

**4.3 Research-based and data-informed decision-making in instructional** 

The aim of the school 2 was to implement different learning strategies to support the development of students' learning to learn skills. For monitoring the process, several data collection techniques were used: teachers' empowerment survey, survey about teachers' understanding of learning to learn skills, and teachers' interviews about different strategies. Students' self-analysis about the learning process was carried out; students learning skills and reading strategies were tested. Evidence from national-level satisfaction surveys was used when planning the activities and

*National survey 2018 was used to plan the activities; National survey 2019 was* 

*We conducted interviews with the teachers' part of the learning community.*

Approved training programs about reading and meaningful learning were used when designing interventions in collaboration with the university team. To support the collaborative culture, a teachers' professional learning community was initiated and research on teachers' professional community was used to support teachers'

Decisions were made in management level (training and management support for teachers' to implement the new strategies to support students' learning to learn skills) and in instructional processes (new strategies will be implemented and

School 3 aimed to raise the students' motivation to learn through more systematic integration of the lessons and outside of the classroom activities. Selfdetermination theory was used as a research ground in different activities:

*In designing and conducting action research, we relied on self-determination theory.*

To analyze the effectiveness of the interventions, data were collected with the students' survey after each intervention (based on self-determination theory) and teachers' feedback. Evidence from the national-level students' satisfaction survey was used for planning interventions. Decisions regarding the future activities were made in students' level: focusing on explaining the goals of different learning activities to enhance the meaningfulness, enhancing students' skills to give feedback:

**and organizational level**

*The schools evidence-driven profiles.*

*used to analyze the state of the school.*

collaborative learning. Teachers in this group were also studied:

students' self-analysis process more systematically enhanced).

later analyzed:

**Table 4.**

**194**

better supporting teachers' collaboration. Some important decisions were also made on the student level: enhancing feedback skills, goal-setting of learning activities, enrichment of classroom activities, etc.

#### **4.4 The enablers and barriers using evidence in school improvement program**

Schildkamp and colleagues [5, 13] have proposed several factors influencing data use by school teams; they distinguish data use for accountability, school development, and instruction. In our research, we mainly focused on data use for school improvement and classroom-level instruction. Deriving from Schildkamp et al. [5, 13], we analyze the enablers and barriers of data use from the perspective of organizational, user and data characteristics.

Organizational characteristics include the shared vision, which includes a joint understanding about the nature of good teaching, student learning, and ways to evaluate the student learning. As our program focused on school improvement, building shared understanding about the change and ways to monitor the process were crucial. Schildkamp et al. [13] emphasize that effective data use also requires collaboration—teachers should share and discuss their students' results and their own functioning with students, parents, and teachers. In our case, all of the schools focused on improving teachers' collaboration and different solutions were found to find time to share experiences as part of the program activities. However, school 2—which created a teachers' professional learning community where the collected data were analyzed and results discussed—stood out among others for its evidencedriven school improvement practices. In our study, it was learnt that for the schools, it was difficult to design and conduct empirical studies (in action-research form) on their own (It is a very complex process for the school to develop research-based inquiry.) This was emphasized by the school that collaborated more tightly with the university experts to carry out research activities. On the other hand, same schools used more systematically research-based evidence in their improvement process than schools who used less university support in their activities. Therefore, the collaboration between the school team and university became very important in our study. Research data were used, but schools needed help in this regard, because it was challenging for the schools to understand what research data they could use and for what purposes and how to adapt the research-based solutions for their school settings. In our program, it was the role of the coaches to found experts, refer to the relevant studies, share validated tests and observation sheets to adapt, collect research data, etc. This relates well with Schildkamp et al. [13] user characteristics as well—data literacy of the teachers is something that needs promotion. It is not easy for the teachers to have the inquiry mindset, skills to collect data, interpret, and act based on the data. Mandinach [21] has concluded that pedagogical data literacy is the ability to transform information into actionable instructional knowledge and practices by collecting, analyzing, and interpreting all types of data to help specify educational steps by combining an understanding of data with standards, disciplinary knowledge and practices, curricular knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and an understanding of how children learn. Once teachers are prepared to work with the data, data characteristics—quick and convenient access to accurate data—also become very important. In our study, data-collection instruments were mainly prepared in collaboration with the university coaches and experts or by school teams themselves. It can be concluded that planning the data collection in collaboration with the university is something that schools can apply during the program activities. However, analyzing data quickly for feedforward purposes is something that needs further planning. For instance, school 4 who developed paper-based observation sheet learned that such documentation format

**197**

*School-University Partnership for Evidence-Driven School Improvement in Estonia*

does not support instant decision-making for classroom-level instruction. And school 1 changed their paper-based surveys to electronic surveys in the middle of

Our study indicated that in school-university partnerships, schools are able to acquire easier the mindset of evidence-driven improvement based on data collection, analysis by school team, or evidence from theoretical and methodological underpinnings. However, there are some aspects that need to be considered.

A coach has been suggested as one possibility to offer human support, which was also applied in the current program, and it can happen in school-university partnerships where the university coach guides the process. Facilitation by coaches includes assessing teachers' needs, modeling how to interpret and act upon data and observing teachers while they attempt to engage in the data-use process. It is recommended to design trainings for the school team with the following learning outcomes: learning the capabilities of the data system, understanding and using a cycle of instructional improvement, avoiding common data analysis mistakes, data transparency and safety, fostering a culture of data use, interpreting data in context, and using data to modify instruction. From the perspective of human support in the school-university partnership, our experience highlights the importance of the university coach. The school teams recognized the coaches help with practical questions and choices. This opens the discussion on the role of the coach in the school-university partnership. The university coach is often conceptualized in the literature as a data coach [7] or researcher [30] who pays attention primarily on evidence use. It may be too narrow of an approach if the final aim is to find and co-create innovative teaching and leading practices for school improvement. Yet, in our case, the profiles of the schools evidence-driven school improvement show that finding and selecting appropriate research-based evidence needs strengthening in the school improvement program. Also the main focus of the coaches was on bringing in theoretical frameworks, fostering a culture of evidence use and understanding the cycle of inquiry. The data analysis mistakes or accuracy was less emphasized by the schools. However, it was mentioned by one of the schools that they actually would like to get feedback if their

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89513*

**5.1 Human support**

**5.2 Technology support**

the program for more efficient data analysis purposes.

**5. Further perspectives and practical implications**

inquiry design, data collection, and analysis are adequate.

When technology training exists, it often focuses primarily on technological support and how to access the data management system. Studies show that schools pay efforts to have data systems that organize and analyze interim assessment data and data warehouses with current and historical student data. Our study indicated that elements to scaffold teachers to conduct teacher-led inquiry in the technologyenriched classroom as suggested by Hansen and Wasson [2] can be better supported. In our program, the data were collected rather traditionally—tests, surveys and questionnaires, mainly, and paper-based observation sheets. Focusing more on process-oriented data collection—with a variety of tools and efficient ways for classroom observations—timely access to students' learning results might influence the use of data for improving the classroom instruction. The growing use of

does not support instant decision-making for classroom-level instruction. And school 1 changed their paper-based surveys to electronic surveys in the middle of the program for more efficient data analysis purposes.

### **5. Further perspectives and practical implications**

Our study indicated that in school-university partnerships, schools are able to acquire easier the mindset of evidence-driven improvement based on data collection, analysis by school team, or evidence from theoretical and methodological underpinnings. However, there are some aspects that need to be considered.

#### **5.1 Human support**

*Pedagogy in Basic and Higher Education - Current Developments and Challenges*

enrichment of classroom activities, etc.

user and data characteristics.

better supporting teachers' collaboration. Some important decisions were also made on the student level: enhancing feedback skills, goal-setting of learning activities,

**4.4 The enablers and barriers using evidence in school improvement program**

Schildkamp and colleagues [5, 13] have proposed several factors influencing data use by school teams; they distinguish data use for accountability, school development, and instruction. In our research, we mainly focused on data use for school improvement and classroom-level instruction. Deriving from Schildkamp et al. [5, 13], we analyze the enablers and barriers of data use from the perspective of organizational,

Organizational characteristics include the shared vision, which includes a joint understanding about the nature of good teaching, student learning, and ways to evaluate the student learning. As our program focused on school improvement, building shared understanding about the change and ways to monitor the process were crucial. Schildkamp et al. [13] emphasize that effective data use also requires collaboration—teachers should share and discuss their students' results and their own functioning with students, parents, and teachers. In our case, all of the schools focused on improving teachers' collaboration and different solutions were found to find time to share experiences as part of the program activities. However, school 2—which created a teachers' professional learning community where the collected data were analyzed and results discussed—stood out among others for its evidencedriven school improvement practices. In our study, it was learnt that for the schools, it was difficult to design and conduct empirical studies (in action-research form) on their own (It is a very complex process for the school to develop research-based inquiry.) This was emphasized by the school that collaborated more tightly with the university experts to carry out research activities. On the other hand, same schools used more systematically research-based evidence in their improvement process than schools who used less university support in their activities. Therefore, the collaboration between the school team and university became very important in our study. Research data were used, but schools needed help in this regard, because it was challenging for the schools to understand what research data they could use and for what purposes and how to adapt the research-based solutions for their school settings. In our program, it was the role of the coaches to found experts, refer to the relevant studies, share validated tests and observation sheets to adapt, collect research data, etc. This relates well with Schildkamp et al. [13] user characteristics as well—data literacy of the teachers is something that needs promotion. It is not easy for the teachers to have the inquiry mindset, skills to collect data, interpret, and act based on the data. Mandinach [21] has concluded that pedagogical data literacy is the ability to transform information into actionable instructional knowledge and practices by collecting, analyzing, and interpreting all types of data to help specify educational steps by combining an understanding of data with standards, disciplinary knowledge and practices, curricular knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and an understanding of how children learn. Once teachers are prepared to work with the data, data characteristics—quick and convenient access to accurate data—also become very important. In our study, data-collection instruments were mainly prepared in collaboration with the university coaches and experts or by school teams themselves. It can be concluded that planning the data collection in collaboration with the university is something that schools can apply during the program activities. However, analyzing data quickly for feedforward purposes is something that needs further planning. For instance, school 4 who developed paper-based observation sheet learned that such documentation format

**196**

A coach has been suggested as one possibility to offer human support, which was also applied in the current program, and it can happen in school-university partnerships where the university coach guides the process. Facilitation by coaches includes assessing teachers' needs, modeling how to interpret and act upon data and observing teachers while they attempt to engage in the data-use process. It is recommended to design trainings for the school team with the following learning outcomes: learning the capabilities of the data system, understanding and using a cycle of instructional improvement, avoiding common data analysis mistakes, data transparency and safety, fostering a culture of data use, interpreting data in context, and using data to modify instruction. From the perspective of human support in the school-university partnership, our experience highlights the importance of the university coach. The school teams recognized the coaches help with practical questions and choices. This opens the discussion on the role of the coach in the school-university partnership. The university coach is often conceptualized in the literature as a data coach [7] or researcher [30] who pays attention primarily on evidence use. It may be too narrow of an approach if the final aim is to find and co-create innovative teaching and leading practices for school improvement. Yet, in our case, the profiles of the schools evidence-driven school improvement show that finding and selecting appropriate research-based evidence needs strengthening in the school improvement program. Also the main focus of the coaches was on bringing in theoretical frameworks, fostering a culture of evidence use and understanding the cycle of inquiry. The data analysis mistakes or accuracy was less emphasized by the schools. However, it was mentioned by one of the schools that they actually would like to get feedback if their inquiry design, data collection, and analysis are adequate.

#### **5.2 Technology support**

When technology training exists, it often focuses primarily on technological support and how to access the data management system. Studies show that schools pay efforts to have data systems that organize and analyze interim assessment data and data warehouses with current and historical student data. Our study indicated that elements to scaffold teachers to conduct teacher-led inquiry in the technologyenriched classroom as suggested by Hansen and Wasson [2] can be better supported. In our program, the data were collected rather traditionally—tests, surveys and questionnaires, mainly, and paper-based observation sheets. Focusing more on process-oriented data collection—with a variety of tools and efficient ways for classroom observations—timely access to students' learning results might influence the use of data for improving the classroom instruction. The growing use of

technology as part of teachers' practice opens up the possibility for a change from researcher-centered studies to teacher-centered approaches to inquiry [2].

#### **5.3 Leadership**

School principals are key players in facilitating data use among teachers—they play an important role in allocating resources and time to enable teachers to use evidence effectively. Their espoused beliefs about data use are critical, as they help to set the tone for data use in school teams. School leaders also have access to a variety of data, performance indicators, and study results; making these available for the teachers is important to enhance the data culture in the organization. However, we recognized that during the program, schools mostly used the data they gathered by themselves and the use of data gathered by or for the national or municipality level was used rarely. This raises the question of the capabilities to interpret such data by the school team, and capabilities to support and coach this interpretation by the university coaches. Moreover, our coaches could recognize some hesitations and doubts for using such data by the school teams because of the meaningfulness of the data gathered in this manner. We recognize the effective use of national data as an improvement area for the school development program.

#### **5.4 Norms and designed routes**

The schools are required to follow specific data-driven decision-making practices when developing their school improvement plans or for teachers to follow when using data to guide instruction. Providing structured time for collaboration is one of the primary ways that schools try to build teachers' capacity to use data. This includes adoption of data-discussion protocols in order to ensure that discussions about data occurred and that actions were taken on the basis of these conversations. Our program focused on understanding how can we better support schools in working with the data; in the next iteration of the program, we can more systematically focus on supporting the development of practices to create norms and routes for more systematic evidence-driven school improvement.

Our study demonstrated that in school-university partnership, when schools are scaffolded, evidence-driven practices are more widely adopted by the schools as part of the school improvement process. However, we also learned that the need for teachers to obtain complex data skills is becoming more and more important. Understanding about the inquiry process is just one angle of the challenge; also the understanding of how to read, interpret, critically evaluate, and act based on data is as important. In this iteration, the program did not systematically emphasize designing practices for collecting evidence from data and from the research, which could be better supported in the future. Also, we learned that schools understand quite well how to improve the practices in the school level based on collected evidence. Synergy between instructional-level data collection and decision-making, and organizational-level improvement can, however, be enhanced. In the future, it is important to analyze the impact of using classroom data in novel pedagogical and assessment approaches, and for teacher's professional development to determine if it changes the students' learning.

Our study also informs us how to improve initial teacher education and school principals' preparation in Estonia. The main practical implication is rooted in the dimensions of evidence-driven school improvement. Currently, in initial teacher education, students are expected to carry out action research project during their internship period. Individually they learn how to collect data in the teaching process. They do not experience how their collected data from classroom

**199**

**Author details**

Kätlin Vanari\*, Kairit Tammets and Eve Eisenschmidt

\*Address all correspondence to: katlin.vanari@tlu.ee

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

Tallinn University, Tallinn, Estonia

provided the original work is properly cited.

*School-University Partnership for Evidence-Driven School Improvement in Estonia*

interventions could feed the school improvement process and what is the relation between classroom-level evidence with school-level evidence. It can be concluded that it needs strengthening the dimension of evidence for school improvement in the initial teacher training. Additionally, current initial teacher training tends to prepare future teachers to collect action research data rather traditionally through surveys and interviews, but the usage of the learning analytics solutions as part of the inquiry could enable to monitor the practices more efficiently. Simultaneously, in principals' training program, topics like evidence-driven school improvement and schools' self-evaluation are rather theoretical. However, school principals need skills how to collect, analyze, interpret, and integrate data about instructional interventions conducted by teachers to plan improvements in school-level processes.

This research has received funding from the European Social Fund program "Development of Competence center for educational innovations in Tallinn University" and European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89513*

**Acknowledgements**

under grant no. 669074 (CEITER).

*School-University Partnership for Evidence-Driven School Improvement in Estonia DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89513*

interventions could feed the school improvement process and what is the relation between classroom-level evidence with school-level evidence. It can be concluded that it needs strengthening the dimension of evidence for school improvement in the initial teacher training. Additionally, current initial teacher training tends to prepare future teachers to collect action research data rather traditionally through surveys and interviews, but the usage of the learning analytics solutions as part of the inquiry could enable to monitor the practices more efficiently. Simultaneously, in principals' training program, topics like evidence-driven school improvement and schools' self-evaluation are rather theoretical. However, school principals need skills how to collect, analyze, interpret, and integrate data about instructional interventions conducted by teachers to plan improvements in school-level processes.

### **Acknowledgements**

*Pedagogy in Basic and Higher Education - Current Developments and Challenges*

improvement area for the school development program.

more systematic evidence-driven school improvement.

**5.4 Norms and designed routes**

it changes the students' learning.

**5.3 Leadership**

technology as part of teachers' practice opens up the possibility for a change from

School principals are key players in facilitating data use among teachers—they play an important role in allocating resources and time to enable teachers to use evidence effectively. Their espoused beliefs about data use are critical, as they help to set the tone for data use in school teams. School leaders also have access to a variety of data, performance indicators, and study results; making these available for the teachers is important to enhance the data culture in the organization. However, we recognized that during the program, schools mostly used the data they gathered by themselves and the use of data gathered by or for the national or municipality level was used rarely. This raises the question of the capabilities to interpret such data by the school team, and capabilities to support and coach this interpretation by the university coaches. Moreover, our coaches could recognize some hesitations and doubts for using such data by the school teams because of the meaningfulness of the data gathered in this manner. We recognize the effective use of national data as an

The schools are required to follow specific data-driven decision-making practices when developing their school improvement plans or for teachers to follow when using data to guide instruction. Providing structured time for collaboration is one of the primary ways that schools try to build teachers' capacity to use data. This includes adoption of data-discussion protocols in order to ensure that discussions about data occurred and that actions were taken on the basis of these conversations. Our program focused on understanding how can we better support schools in working with the data; in the next iteration of the program, we can more systematically focus on supporting the development of practices to create norms and routes for

Our study demonstrated that in school-university partnership, when schools are scaffolded, evidence-driven practices are more widely adopted by the schools as part of the school improvement process. However, we also learned that the need for teachers to obtain complex data skills is becoming more and more important. Understanding about the inquiry process is just one angle of the challenge; also the understanding of how to read, interpret, critically evaluate, and act based on data is as important. In this iteration, the program did not systematically emphasize designing practices for collecting evidence from data and from the research, which could be better supported in the future. Also, we learned that schools understand quite well how to improve the practices in the school level based on collected evidence. Synergy between instructional-level data collection and decision-making, and organizational-level improvement can, however, be enhanced. In the future, it is important to analyze the impact of using classroom data in novel pedagogical and assessment approaches, and for teacher's professional development to determine if

Our study also informs us how to improve initial teacher education and school principals' preparation in Estonia. The main practical implication is rooted in the dimensions of evidence-driven school improvement. Currently, in initial teacher education, students are expected to carry out action research project during their internship period. Individually they learn how to collect data in the teaching process. They do not experience how their collected data from classroom

researcher-centered studies to teacher-centered approaches to inquiry [2].

**198**

This research has received funding from the European Social Fund program "Development of Competence center for educational innovations in Tallinn University" and European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant no. 669074 (CEITER).

#### **Author details**

Kätlin Vanari\*, Kairit Tammets and Eve Eisenschmidt Tallinn University, Tallinn, Estonia

\*Address all correspondence to: katlin.vanari@tlu.ee

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

### **References**

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[2] Hansen C, Wasson B. Teacher inquiry into student learning: The TISL heart model and method for use in teachers' professional development. Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy. 2016;**11**:24-49

[3] Hargreaves A, Shirley D. The international quest for educational excellence: Understanding Canada's high performance. Education Canada -Toronto. 2012;**4**:10

[4] Louis K, Stoll L. Professional Learning Communities: Divergence, Depth and Dilemmas. London/New York: Open University Press/McGraw Hill; 2007

[5] Schildkamp K, Smit M, Blossing U. Professional development in the use of data: From data to knowledge in data teams. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research. 2017:1-19

[6] Datnow A, Park V. Data-Driven Leadership. Chichester, United Kingdom: John Wiley & Sons; 2014. 165 p

[7] Coburn C, Turner E. Research on data use: A framework and analysis. Measurement: Interdisciplinary Research and Perspectives. 2011;**9**(4):173-206

[8] Levin B. Leadership for evidenceinformed education. School Leadership and Management. 2010:303-315. Available from: https://wwwtandfonline-com.ezproxy.tlu.ee/doi/ full/10.1080/13632434.2010.497483 [Accessed: July 05, 2019]

[9] Parr JM, Timperley HS. Teachers, schools and using evidence:

Considerations of preparedness. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy and Practice. 2008;**15**(1):57-71

[10] Hammersley M. Some Questions about Evidence-Based Practice in Education. 2001 Available from: http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/ documents/00001819.htm [Accessed: June 30, 2019]

[11] Biesta GJ. Why 'what works' still won't work: From evidence-based education to value-based education. Studies in Philosophy and Education. 2010;**5**:491

[12] Slavin RE. Evidence-based education policies: Transforming educational practice and research. Educational Researcher. 2002;**31**(7):15-21

[13] Schildkamp K, Poortman C, Luyten H, Ebbeler J. Factors promoting and hindering data-based decision making in schools. School Effectiveness and School Improvement. 2017;**28**(1):242-258

[14] Spillane JP. Data in practice: Conceptualizing the data-based decision-making phenomena. American Journal of Education. 2012;**118**(2):113-141

[15] Jimerson JB. How are we approaching data-informed practice? Development of the survey of data use and professional learning. Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability. 2016;**28**(1):61-87

[16] Childress M. Data-driven decision making: The development and validation of an instrument to measure principals' practices. Academic Leadership: The Online Journal. 2009;**7**(1):18

[17] Datnow A, Hubbard L. Teacher capacity for and beliefs about

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2012:1-48

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[26] Schildkamp K, Karbautzki L, Vanhoof J. Exploring data use practices around Europe: Identifying enablers and barriers. Studies in Educational

[27] Butcher J, Bezzina M, Moran W. Transformational partnerships: A new agenda for higher education. Innovative Higher Education. 2011;**36**(1):29-40

[28] Sheard MK, Sharples J. School leaders' engagement with the concept of evidence-based practice as a management tool for school improvement. Educational Management Administration and Leadership. 2016;**44**(4):668-687

[29] Thomas G. How to Do your Case Study. A Guide for Students and Researchers. London: Sage; 2011

Sleegers PJC. Data feedback for school improvement: The role of researchers and school leaders. Australian educational researcher (Australian association for Research in Education).

[30] Geijsel FP, Krüger ML,

2010;**37**(2):59-75

Evaluation. 2014;**42**:15-24

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89513*

data-driven decision making: A literature review of international research. Journal of Educational

Change. 2016;**17**(1):7-28

[18] van Geel M, Visscher AJ, Teunis B. School characteristics influencing the implementation of a data-based decision making intervention. School Effectiveness

and School Improvement. 2017;**28**(3):443-462

30, 2019]

2016. 60 p

2013;**27**(4):645-675

2014;**44**(9):467-477

[23] Davies P. What is evidencebased education? British Journal of Educational Studies. 1999;**47**(2):108-121

[24] Spillane JP, Miele DB. Evidence in practice: A framing of the terrain. In: Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education. 2007;106(1):46-73

[25] Marsh JA. Interventions promoting educators' use of data: Research insights and gaps. Teachers College Record.

[19] Breiter A, Karbautzki L. Data Use in Schools—A Cross-Country Study. Institute for Information Management, University of Bremen; 2012. 24 p. Available from: https:// www.ifib.de/publikationsdateien/ ICSEI\_2012\_WAB\_1792909\_

Breiter\_%26\_Karbautzki\_Data\_Use\_ in\_Schools.pdf [Accessed: September

[21] Wayman JC, Wilkerson SB, Cho V, Mandinach EB, Supovitz JA. Guide to Using the Teacher Data Use Survey.

[22] Bryk AS. 2014 AERA Distinguished lecture: Accelerating how we learn to improve. Educational Researcher.

[20] Park V, Daly AJ, Guerra AW. Strategic framing: How leaders craft the meaning of data use for equity and learning. Educational Policy.

*School-University Partnership for Evidence-Driven School Improvement in Estonia DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89513*

data-driven decision making: A literature review of international research. Journal of Educational Change. 2016;**17**(1):7-28

[18] van Geel M, Visscher AJ, Teunis B. School characteristics influencing the implementation of a data-based decision making intervention. School Effectiveness and School Improvement. 2017;**28**(3):443-462

[19] Breiter A, Karbautzki L. Data Use in Schools—A Cross-Country Study. Institute for Information Management, University of Bremen; 2012. 24 p. Available from: https:// www.ifib.de/publikationsdateien/ ICSEI\_2012\_WAB\_1792909\_ Breiter\_%26\_Karbautzki\_Data\_Use\_ in\_Schools.pdf [Accessed: September 30, 2019]

[20] Park V, Daly AJ, Guerra AW. Strategic framing: How leaders craft the meaning of data use for equity and learning. Educational Policy. 2013;**27**(4):645-675

[21] Wayman JC, Wilkerson SB, Cho V, Mandinach EB, Supovitz JA. Guide to Using the Teacher Data Use Survey. 2016. 60 p

[22] Bryk AS. 2014 AERA Distinguished lecture: Accelerating how we learn to improve. Educational Researcher. 2014;**44**(9):467-477

[23] Davies P. What is evidencebased education? British Journal of Educational Studies. 1999;**47**(2):108-121

[24] Spillane JP, Miele DB. Evidence in practice: A framing of the terrain. In: Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education. 2007;106(1):46-73

[25] Marsh JA. Interventions promoting educators' use of data: Research insights and gaps. Teachers College Record. 2012:1-48

[26] Schildkamp K, Karbautzki L, Vanhoof J. Exploring data use practices around Europe: Identifying enablers and barriers. Studies in Educational Evaluation. 2014;**42**:15-24

[27] Butcher J, Bezzina M, Moran W. Transformational partnerships: A new agenda for higher education. Innovative Higher Education. 2011;**36**(1):29-40

[28] Sheard MK, Sharples J. School leaders' engagement with the concept of evidence-based practice as a management tool for school improvement. Educational Management Administration and Leadership. 2016;**44**(4):668-687

[29] Thomas G. How to Do your Case Study. A Guide for Students and Researchers. London: Sage; 2011

[30] Geijsel FP, Krüger ML, Sleegers PJC. Data feedback for school improvement: The role of researchers and school leaders. Australian educational researcher (Australian association for Research in Education). 2010;**37**(2):59-75

**200**

*Pedagogy in Basic and Higher Education - Current Developments and Challenges*

Considerations of preparedness. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy and Practice. 2008;**15**(1):57-71

June 30, 2019]

2010;**5**:491

[10] Hammersley M. Some Questions about Evidence-Based Practice in Education. 2001 Available from: http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/ documents/00001819.htm [Accessed:

[11] Biesta GJ. Why 'what works' still won't work: From evidence-based education to value-based education. Studies in Philosophy and Education.

[12] Slavin RE. Evidence-based education policies: Transforming

research. Educational Researcher.

[13] Schildkamp K, Poortman C, Luyten H, Ebbeler J. Factors promoting and hindering data-based decision making in schools. School Effectiveness

[14] Spillane JP. Data in practice: Conceptualizing the data-based decision-making phenomena. American Journal of Education.

[15] Jimerson JB. How are we

Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability. 2016;**28**(1):61-87

Online Journal. 2009;**7**(1):18

approaching data-informed practice? Development of the survey of data use and professional learning. Educational

[16] Childress M. Data-driven decision making: The development and validation of an instrument to measure principals' practices. Academic Leadership: The

[17] Datnow A, Hubbard L. Teacher capacity for and beliefs about

educational practice and

and School Improvement. 2017;**28**(1):242-258

2012;**118**(2):113-141

2002;**31**(7):15-21

[1] Estonian Ministry of Education and Research. Estonian Lifelong Learning Strategy 2020. 2015 Available from: https://www.hm.ee/en/estonianlifelong-learning-strategy-2020 [Accessed: August 12, 2019]

[2] Hansen C, Wasson B. Teacher inquiry into student learning: The TISL heart model and method for use in teachers' professional development. Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy.

[3] Hargreaves A, Shirley D. The international quest for educational excellence: Understanding Canada's high performance. Education Canada

[4] Louis K, Stoll L. Professional Learning Communities: Divergence, Depth and Dilemmas. London/New York: Open University Press/McGraw Hill; 2007

[5] Schildkamp K, Smit M, Blossing U. Professional development in the use of data: From data to knowledge in data teams. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research. 2017:1-19

[6] Datnow A, Park V. Data-Driven Leadership. Chichester, United Kingdom:

[7] Coburn C, Turner E. Research on data use: A framework and analysis. Measurement: Interdisciplinary Research and Perspectives.

[8] Levin B. Leadership for evidenceinformed education. School Leadership and Management. 2010:303-315. Available from: https://wwwtandfonline-com.ezproxy.tlu.ee/doi/ full/10.1080/13632434.2010.497483

[9] Parr JM, Timperley HS. Teachers,

John Wiley & Sons; 2014. 165 p

2011;**9**(4):173-206

[Accessed: July 05, 2019]

schools and using evidence:

2016;**11**:24-49

**References**


**203**

**Chapter 12**

**Abstract**

children's learning

**1. Introduction**

framed by the holistic approach in education.

ization of both teachers and parents.

Parental Engagement in Children's

Learning: A Holistic Approach to

Teacher-Parents' Partnerships

*Cristiana Levinthal de Oliveira Lima and Elina Kuusisto*

This study presents the standpoint of parental engagement, conceptualized by Janet Goodall and collaborators, as a framework that is coherent to the principles of the holistic approach of pedagogy to teacher-parents' partnerships. We bring forward the evolution of the concept of parental engagement and its main standpoints, in relation to more traditional theories on parental involvement. We also discuss previous findings about teachers' and parents' roles in education and teacher-parents' partnerships, as well as how do changes in educational paradigms challenge homeschool collaboration. Finally, the article highlights the need to implement researchbased parental engagement practices in educational systems around the world.

**Keywords:** parental engagement, parental involvement, teacher-parents partnership,

Partnerships between parents and teachers regarding students' education have been a well-researched topic throughout the past three decades. Much more recently, both research and practice contexts started adapting their perspectives on the centrality of the parents' role in their children's learning [1–5]. Such a shift is embedded in a mainstream worldwide tendency to adapt the goals of educational systems to an ever-changing and globalized world, targeting to develop not only competences in individual fields of knowledge, but also transversal competences, such as, for example, learning to learn, cultural competence, and entrepreneurship [1]. These changes, stimulated by the latest educational reflections within the scope of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [5] are deeply

In pedagogy, the holistic approach refers to the development of the whole student, underlining all the dimensions in which he/she can learn and grow as an individual, for example, cognitive, social, emotional, and spiritual dimensions [6]. This approach faces such dimensions as interdependently relevant to the well-being, healthy development, and success of the student and carries the notion that each student is the expert that guides his/her own learning process in life [7]. The adoption of a holistic approach in education requires, consequently, a role re-conceptual-

teacher-parents dialog, home-school collaboration, holistic education,

#### **Chapter 12**

## Parental Engagement in Children's Learning: A Holistic Approach to Teacher-Parents' Partnerships

*Cristiana Levinthal de Oliveira Lima and Elina Kuusisto*

#### **Abstract**

This study presents the standpoint of parental engagement, conceptualized by Janet Goodall and collaborators, as a framework that is coherent to the principles of the holistic approach of pedagogy to teacher-parents' partnerships. We bring forward the evolution of the concept of parental engagement and its main standpoints, in relation to more traditional theories on parental involvement. We also discuss previous findings about teachers' and parents' roles in education and teacher-parents' partnerships, as well as how do changes in educational paradigms challenge homeschool collaboration. Finally, the article highlights the need to implement researchbased parental engagement practices in educational systems around the world.

**Keywords:** parental engagement, parental involvement, teacher-parents partnership, teacher-parents dialog, home-school collaboration, holistic education, children's learning

#### **1. Introduction**

Partnerships between parents and teachers regarding students' education have been a well-researched topic throughout the past three decades. Much more recently, both research and practice contexts started adapting their perspectives on the centrality of the parents' role in their children's learning [1–5]. Such a shift is embedded in a mainstream worldwide tendency to adapt the goals of educational systems to an ever-changing and globalized world, targeting to develop not only competences in individual fields of knowledge, but also transversal competences, such as, for example, learning to learn, cultural competence, and entrepreneurship [1]. These changes, stimulated by the latest educational reflections within the scope of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [5] are deeply framed by the holistic approach in education.

In pedagogy, the holistic approach refers to the development of the whole student, underlining all the dimensions in which he/she can learn and grow as an individual, for example, cognitive, social, emotional, and spiritual dimensions [6]. This approach faces such dimensions as interdependently relevant to the well-being, healthy development, and success of the student and carries the notion that each student is the expert that guides his/her own learning process in life [7]. The adoption of a holistic approach in education requires, consequently, a role re-conceptualization of both teachers and parents.

It is important to address that, in this article, *parents* refer to any legally entitled adult who takes care of the children and are seen as reference figures by them, while *children* and students have equivalent meaning. This study presents the standpoint of parental engagement, conceptualized by Janet Goodall and collaborators, as a framework that is coherent to the principles of the holistic approach of pedagogy to teacher-parents' partnerships. First, we bring forward the evolution of the concept of parental engagement and its main standpoints, in relation to more traditional theories on parental involvement. Second, we more deeply discuss previous findings about teachers' and parents' roles in education and teacher-parents' partnerships. Third, we address the actual challenges such an educational paradigm brings to stakeholders, especially teachers. Finally, a conclusion is drawn, highlighting the need to implement research-based parental engagement practices in educational systems around the world.

#### **2. From involvement to engagement**

There is a consensus in research regarding the favorable impact of parents' positive attitudes and behavior toward their children's learning, schooling, and schools [8–11]. Indisputably, research has shown that such parents' emplacement impacts positively students' academic achievement as well as learning in a broader sense [10, 12–14]. However, such a set of desirable parents' attitudes and behavior has been conceptualized in numerous different ways. Researchers are far from unified regarding the terms and so are school professionals. The most traditional termination to describe various types of parents' participation in education is *parental involvement*.

Research on parental involvement in education has mostly focused on the positive repercussion parental involvement has in students' achievement, achievementrelated self-perceptions, and autonomous motivation [8, 11, 15–18]. Thus, there has been agreement that parental involvement is a multidimensional construct. On the other hand, most of the research conducted on involvement in the past decades is based on influential frameworks that conceptualize it in terms of parents' participation in children's schools or schooling, in other words, in the processes *surrounding* learning *in* school [19, 20].

Grolnick and Slowiaczeck [11] have stated the importance of integrating both educational and developmental constructs in the perspective of involvement, underlining the significance of *home-school partnerships* to the children's schooling. Hence, they built a framework that identified three types of parental involvement in the child's schooling:


Later, Joyce Epstein [9] postulated a six-type model for parental involvement. In her model, Epstein underlines the concept of partnerships between parents and educators numerous times and calls for school staff's key role in involving parents. Her framework includes (1) parenting; (2) communicating; (3) volunteering;

**205**

and extended.

schooling, as in previous models.

*Parental Engagement in Children's Learning: A Holistic Approach to Teacher-Parents' Partnerships*

(4) learning at home; (5) decision making; and (6) collaborating with community. Epstein's framework [9] seems to pursuit an even more home- and parent-related standpoint for academic success, enhancing the value of the home context and figures. Within each of the six types of involvement, the author highlights, based in a solid cluster of research findings, numerous advantages of involving parents in

Despite of viewing involvement from the perspective of ecological systems theory [21], considering various system levels that influence children's development (e.g., family, school, and community), Epstein's model is still school-centered, attached to a perspective of fulfillment of schools' needs and academic success of the students. For example, regarding the first type of involvement described in the model, *parenting*, the central goal is to help families establish home environments to support children as students, such as suggesting home conditions that support studying; or providing school meetings that would help families to understand the school functioning. Concerning, for instance, the forth type described in the model, *learning at home*, the emphasis is put on informing parents about skills required at each grade level, providing regular homework schedules or providing opportunities

schools—for students, for teachers and for parents themselves [9].

for families to attend math, science and reading activities at school [9].

documents of international organizations [31, 32].

The models of Grolnick and Slowiaczeck and Epstein highlight two main domains of involvement: *school-based* and *home-based*. School-based involvement is linked to activities where parents interact with teachers and the school community, home-based involvement refers to assistance with homework, study support, and talking with children about school [16, 22]. Still, both models imply the assumption of the parents' role as an assistant to the school's or the teachers' goals. Nevertheless, research has already shown that the relation between academic outcomes and parents' *school-based* involvement is *weaker* than between those and parents' *home-based* involvement [15]. In recent years, the body of research pointing to the centrality of effective teacher-parent communication and partnership have begun to expand consistently [23, 24], giving parental involvement a more family-centered approach and, consequently, questioning the involvement-concept and its adequacy. It has been strongly suggested that the termination *involvement* should be discarded and replaced [23]. In parallel, the term parental engagement has been gaining space in research on home-school partnerships and shedding new lights on the topic [4, 25–28], mostly in the United States and the United Kingdom. This is the case especially regarding studies focused on parental involvement from a comprehensive point of view, seeking to understand not only the parental role in academic success but also their role in teacher-parent communication and parent–child interactions outside the academic sphere (e.g., parenting styles and non-academic related activities away from school) [29, 30]. Similar perspectives can be found on educational policies

From that standpoint and based on several findings and influential theories [33, 34], Goodall and Montgomery [10] built an original up-to-date framework on parental engagement, where previous parental involvement practices are included

Goodall and Montgomery's model [10] places emphasis on parents' relationship with their children and their children's learning, in *and* outside school, academically *and* non-academically, not on the parents' relationship with schools or children's

Goodall and Montgomery's model presupposes that the children's learning occurs in all varieties of contexts that largely surpass the school environment, giving the home environment and experiences, as well as other contexts mediated by parents, an enormous relevance as children's learning scenarios. This model is presented as a *dynamic continuum* of three main points, throughout which parent-teacher dyads can move

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89841*

#### *Parental Engagement in Children's Learning: A Holistic Approach to Teacher-Parents' Partnerships DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89841*

(4) learning at home; (5) decision making; and (6) collaborating with community. Epstein's framework [9] seems to pursuit an even more home- and parent-related standpoint for academic success, enhancing the value of the home context and figures. Within each of the six types of involvement, the author highlights, based in a solid cluster of research findings, numerous advantages of involving parents in schools—for students, for teachers and for parents themselves [9].

Despite of viewing involvement from the perspective of ecological systems theory [21], considering various system levels that influence children's development (e.g., family, school, and community), Epstein's model is still school-centered, attached to a perspective of fulfillment of schools' needs and academic success of the students. For example, regarding the first type of involvement described in the model, *parenting*, the central goal is to help families establish home environments to support children as students, such as suggesting home conditions that support studying; or providing school meetings that would help families to understand the school functioning. Concerning, for instance, the forth type described in the model, *learning at home*, the emphasis is put on informing parents about skills required at each grade level, providing regular homework schedules or providing opportunities for families to attend math, science and reading activities at school [9].

The models of Grolnick and Slowiaczeck and Epstein highlight two main domains of involvement: *school-based* and *home-based*. School-based involvement is linked to activities where parents interact with teachers and the school community, home-based involvement refers to assistance with homework, study support, and talking with children about school [16, 22]. Still, both models imply the assumption of the parents' role as an assistant to the school's or the teachers' goals. Nevertheless, research has already shown that the relation between academic outcomes and parents' *school-based* involvement is *weaker* than between those and parents' *home-based* involvement [15].

In recent years, the body of research pointing to the centrality of effective teacher-parent communication and partnership have begun to expand consistently [23, 24], giving parental involvement a more family-centered approach and, consequently, questioning the involvement-concept and its adequacy. It has been strongly suggested that the termination *involvement* should be discarded and replaced [23].

In parallel, the term parental engagement has been gaining space in research on home-school partnerships and shedding new lights on the topic [4, 25–28], mostly in the United States and the United Kingdom. This is the case especially regarding studies focused on parental involvement from a comprehensive point of view, seeking to understand not only the parental role in academic success but also their role in teacher-parent communication and parent–child interactions outside the academic sphere (e.g., parenting styles and non-academic related activities away from school) [29, 30]. Similar perspectives can be found on educational policies documents of international organizations [31, 32].

From that standpoint and based on several findings and influential theories [33, 34], Goodall and Montgomery [10] built an original up-to-date framework on parental engagement, where previous parental involvement practices are included and extended.

Goodall and Montgomery's model [10] places emphasis on parents' relationship with their children and their children's learning, in *and* outside school, academically *and* non-academically, not on the parents' relationship with schools or children's schooling, as in previous models.

Goodall and Montgomery's model presupposes that the children's learning occurs in all varieties of contexts that largely surpass the school environment, giving the home environment and experiences, as well as other contexts mediated by parents, an enormous relevance as children's learning scenarios. This model is presented as a *dynamic continuum* of three main points, throughout which parent-teacher dyads can move

*Pedagogy in Basic and Higher Education - Current Developments and Challenges*

systems around the world.

learning *in* school [19, 20].

parents' evening);

their schooling, like reading).

the child's schooling:

**2. From involvement to engagement**

It is important to address that, in this article, *parents* refer to any legally entitled adult who takes care of the children and are seen as reference figures by them, while *children* and students have equivalent meaning. This study presents the standpoint of parental engagement, conceptualized by Janet Goodall and collaborators, as a framework that is coherent to the principles of the holistic approach of pedagogy to teacher-parents' partnerships. First, we bring forward the evolution of the concept of parental engagement and its main standpoints, in relation to more traditional theories on parental involvement. Second, we more deeply discuss previous findings about teachers' and parents' roles in education and teacher-parents' partnerships. Third, we address the actual challenges such an educational paradigm brings to stakeholders, especially teachers. Finally, a conclusion is drawn, highlighting the need to implement research-based parental engagement practices in educational

There is a consensus in research regarding the favorable impact of parents' positive attitudes and behavior toward their children's learning, schooling, and schools [8–11]. Indisputably, research has shown that such parents' emplacement impacts positively students' academic achievement as well as learning in a broader sense [10, 12–14]. However, such a set of desirable parents' attitudes and behavior has been conceptualized in numerous different ways. Researchers are far from unified regarding the terms and so are school professionals. The most traditional termination to describe various types of parents' participation in education is *parental involvement*. Research on parental involvement in education has mostly focused on the positive repercussion parental involvement has in students' achievement, achievementrelated self-perceptions, and autonomous motivation [8, 11, 15–18]. Thus, there has been agreement that parental involvement is a multidimensional construct. On the other hand, most of the research conducted on involvement in the past decades is based on influential frameworks that conceptualize it in terms of parents' participation in children's schools or schooling, in other words, in the processes *surrounding*

Grolnick and Slowiaczeck [11] have stated the importance of integrating both educational and developmental constructs in the perspective of involvement, underlining the significance of *home-school partnerships* to the children's schooling. Hence, they built a framework that identified three types of parental involvement in

a.behavioral, (e.g., participating in activities promoted by the school, such as

b.personal (e.g., positive child-parent affective interactions about and around

c. cognitive-intellectual (e.g., exposure to cognitive-stimulating events and materials, such as books, that would help the children practice skills *useful* in

Later, Joyce Epstein [9] postulated a six-type model for parental involvement. In her model, Epstein underlines the concept of partnerships between parents and educators numerous times and calls for school staff's key role in involving parents. Her framework includes (1) parenting; (2) communicating; (3) volunteering;

school, such as parents' assistance with homework);

**204**

along on the course of their interactions concerning the child's learning. A summary of characteristics, examples, and benefits of each of the points are presented in **Table 1**.

By observing the information in **Table 1**, it becomes clearer that the third point of the continuum, parental engagement, integrates the positive characteristics of


*Note: The information was extracted from Goodall and Montgomery [10] and compiled by the author of the present article.*

**207**

*Parental Engagement in Children's Learning: A Holistic Approach to Teacher-Parents' Partnerships*

the previous two points, since it portraits an *authentic partnership* between teachers and parents. According to Goodall and Montgomery [10], while moving in the continuum, the closer parents and teachers get to the third point, the higher the level of *shared agency* and *shared responsibility* they experience concerning children's learning. The same is true regarding the frequency of involvement activities happening away from the school context and closer to the home context. Here, in contrast with previous conceptualizations on parental involvement, parental engagement refers to more than the parents' activity or participation—it encompasses a *greater commitment and a greater feeling of ownership of the action*, where the parent is *conscious* about his/her role as a parent [10]. Howbeit, this perspective on parental engagement does not compete with parental involvement; on the contrary, it integrates

Thus, through this model's lenses, a true teacher-parent relationship encompasses reciprocal open mindsets, where both teachers and parents learn from each other, show mutual interest in what each other has to say, and have a genuine concern about not only the schooling success, but about all other life contexts that are significant for the child. Here, parents' levels of expertise on their own children are valued by teachers and their role is elevated, both teachers' and parents' perspectives matter and both have *equitable distribution of agency* regarding the children's

The presented framework allows analysis and comprehension of the important relationships between parents and teachers, regarding the children's learning, from a holistic perspective. The word *engagement*, instead of *involvement*, refers to a broader and globalizing construct, as well as a more active and more genuine attitude from parents. Also, the choice of the term *children's learning*, instead of *children's education*, indicates that this framework views the learning process as one not attached to the classroom or the school, but intrinsic to the development of the student as a whole individual, in all contexts of life that concern cognitive, social, moral, emotional or spiritual growth. In addition, Goodall [35] also brings up the term *dialog*, as it is considered to better define a two-way communication pattern in a partnership. However, it is important to address that the third point, as well as the whole continuum dynamics, refers to an ideal framework, one that parents and, especially,

Although *involvement* and *engagement* are not synonyms, in this article, we take the studies adopting the involvement concept into account, as we consider mandatory to acknowledge them in order to reach an accurate comprehension of parental engagement and its relevance to children's learning. *Involvement* and *engagement* share paths both in research and practice, as the latter derives from the former.

Teachers are central stakeholders in education and constitute cohorts of powerful agents for change, due to their training, specialization, and experience [12, 36]. Teachers' psychological and behavioral characteristics regarding the involvement of parents have been strongly associated to parents' actual involvement [8, 30, 37]. Additionally, although teachers are more successful in involving parents during the initial levels of schooling [38, 39], they continue to act as key figures for parental engagement throughout all levels of children's academic life, especially regarding

Research has evidenced that teachers consider families' involvement important to the students' school success, recognizing that parents are positive contributors. Howbeit, the majority of these studies focused on the home-based academical

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89841*

and complements it.

learning [10].

teachers should aim to [10].

**2.1 Teachers' role on parental engagement**

Therefore, we consider they should not be dissociated.

difficult pupils and hard to reach families [40–42].

### **Table 1.**

*Parental Engagement in Children's Learning: A Holistic Approach to Teacher-Parents' Partnerships DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89841*

the previous two points, since it portraits an *authentic partnership* between teachers and parents. According to Goodall and Montgomery [10], while moving in the continuum, the closer parents and teachers get to the third point, the higher the level of *shared agency* and *shared responsibility* they experience concerning children's learning. The same is true regarding the frequency of involvement activities happening away from the school context and closer to the home context. Here, in contrast with previous conceptualizations on parental involvement, parental engagement refers to more than the parents' activity or participation—it encompasses a *greater commitment and a greater feeling of ownership of the action*, where the parent is *conscious* about his/her role as a parent [10]. Howbeit, this perspective on parental engagement does not compete with parental involvement; on the contrary, it integrates and complements it.

Thus, through this model's lenses, a true teacher-parent relationship encompasses reciprocal open mindsets, where both teachers and parents learn from each other, show mutual interest in what each other has to say, and have a genuine concern about not only the schooling success, but about all other life contexts that are significant for the child. Here, parents' levels of expertise on their own children are valued by teachers and their role is elevated, both teachers' and parents' perspectives matter and both have *equitable distribution of agency* regarding the children's learning [10].

The presented framework allows analysis and comprehension of the important relationships between parents and teachers, regarding the children's learning, from a holistic perspective. The word *engagement*, instead of *involvement*, refers to a broader and globalizing construct, as well as a more active and more genuine attitude from parents. Also, the choice of the term *children's learning*, instead of *children's education*, indicates that this framework views the learning process as one not attached to the classroom or the school, but intrinsic to the development of the student as a whole individual, in all contexts of life that concern cognitive, social, moral, emotional or spiritual growth. In addition, Goodall [35] also brings up the term *dialog*, as it is considered to better define a two-way communication pattern in a partnership.

However, it is important to address that the third point, as well as the whole continuum dynamics, refers to an ideal framework, one that parents and, especially, teachers should aim to [10].

#### **2.1 Teachers' role on parental engagement**

Although *involvement* and *engagement* are not synonyms, in this article, we take the studies adopting the involvement concept into account, as we consider mandatory to acknowledge them in order to reach an accurate comprehension of parental engagement and its relevance to children's learning. *Involvement* and *engagement* share paths both in research and practice, as the latter derives from the former. Therefore, we consider they should not be dissociated.

Teachers are central stakeholders in education and constitute cohorts of powerful agents for change, due to their training, specialization, and experience [12, 36]. Teachers' psychological and behavioral characteristics regarding the involvement of parents have been strongly associated to parents' actual involvement [8, 30, 37]. Additionally, although teachers are more successful in involving parents during the initial levels of schooling [38, 39], they continue to act as key figures for parental engagement throughout all levels of children's academic life, especially regarding difficult pupils and hard to reach families [40–42].

Research has evidenced that teachers consider families' involvement important to the students' school success, recognizing that parents are positive contributors. Howbeit, the majority of these studies focused on the home-based academical

*Pedagogy in Basic and Higher Education - Current Developments and Challenges*

along on the course of their interactions concerning the child's learning. A summary of characteristics, examples, and benefits of each of the points are presented in **Table 1**. By observing the information in **Table 1**, it becomes clearer that the third point of the continuum, parental engagement, integrates the positive characteristics of

*Note: The information was extracted from Goodall and Montgomery [10] and compiled by the author of the present* 

**206**

*article.*

**Table 1.**

*Summary of the parental engagement continuum framework.*

involvement of parents (e.g., reinforcement of the learning that occurs in school, especially in supporting homework at home), pointing out such forms as the most valued types of parental involvement [43–47].

In different cultures, teachers' conceptualizations and practices have been focused on and proven to be crucial to parental involvement, in particular for those parents who have difficulties in being involved [41, 42]. These include the emotional climate experienced when teachers and parents interact, including the time dedicated to effective communication and dialog, but also other aspects, such as teachers' self-efficacy and role beliefs, expectations about involvement and specific practices to promote involvement [13, 37, 48–51].

Improving home-school effective communication has been identified as a primary way to enhance trust between teachers and parents, as well as has the *nature* of the teacher-parent interaction proven to be a better predictor of trust than the frequency of interactions [12, 52–54]. This means that it is more important that each dialog makes teachers and parents feel heard and respected, even if there are not so many of them, than to keep constantly in touch without the feeling of true commitment and interest from the other part.

Much of what is considered to be structurally necessary for an effective dialog in teacher-parent interactions lies in the teachers' set of competences such as managing the time dedicated to talk to and *actively listen* to the parent and making sure that the specific goals of the contact are met [55]. Although both teachers and parents reveal their highest level of trust in each other at the elementary level of education, parents tend to trust teachers more frequently than the contrary [52]. This fact puts teachers in the spotlight again, regarding the major role they play in building a reciprocally respectful and considerate relationship with parents.

Parental involvement is greater when parents feel that teachers include them and value their contributions [37, 56]. In fact, teachers whose expectations are that the parents can contribute to the children's learning are more likely to involve parents than those teachers who have low expectations on the competences of their students' parents [13, 54, 57]. Teachers' support of parents to learn how to help their children is appreciated by parents [54] and teachers' invitations for involvement are positively responded by parents [30], which gives teachers' solicitations an important and predicting role on the dynamics of parental engagement. Additionally, teachers' self-efficacy perceptions on parental involvement has been significantly related to involvement itself, also functioning as a predictor [11]. These studies corroborate the importance of student teachers having an academic path that highlights parental engagement strategies and attitudes.

On the other hand, and despite agreeing that home-school collaborations are essentially important, teachers and parents differ in opinion about the extent in which each other actually meet their expectations. Research has shown that often teachers and parents have incongruent parents' role perceptions and that teachers expect parents to perform academic-related tasks in the home more frequently than parents do themselves, both in primary and secondary levels [43]. This adds, once more, to the evidence on the power teachers do have, to change the perspective from *involvement* to *engagement*.

#### **2.2 Parents' role on parental engagement**

Parent's influences on their children's achievement have been largely studied [8, 11, 16, 18]. Factors like parents' socioeconomic status and educational background are known to act as predictors of students' achievement and school adaptation, as well as of parental involvement [9, 42, 58]. Literature is also consistent about the positive response from parents toward their children's learning, regarding

**209**

order to do so.

*Parental Engagement in Children's Learning: A Holistic Approach to Teacher-Parents' Partnerships*

teachers' expectations and solicitations of parental involvement [13, 37, 49, 50], which is believed to contribute to the parents' role of themselves and for them to

However, in comparison to research on teachers' role and perceptions or studies where both teachers' and parents' attributes are analyzed regarding children's academic success, only more recently, parents' role and perceptions started gaining significant space as objects of study on parental involvement [19, 59, 60]. That can be explained, in some extent, due to the history of school and home contexts' instituted views of each other as entities with different and complementary objectives [52, 61], where children's schooling was a school duty and children's basic well-being and healthy development was attributed solely to parents. Lately, as these two tremendous tasks increasingly merge into each other, the role of parents' attitudes and behavior is being progressively more taken into account, from a holistic point of view. Today, we know that parents who believe that their own role is important in affecting their child's achievement in school tend to more often facilitate the development of their child's interests, in comparison to parents who do not view their role as important [20]. Role beliefs identified in research are, in part, related to what modern expectancy-value theory refers as task-value [62]. Task-value beliefs are key determinants of choice, persistence, and engagement in tasks. Eccles and Wigfield [62] outlined four components of task-value: attainment value, intrinsic value, utility value, and costs. Regarding parental engagement, these components would refer to (a) the personal importance the parent would attribute for positively contributing to their child's learning; (b) the genuine enjoyment the parent would feel about doing so; (c) the relation the parent attributes between positively contributing to their children's learning and their own personal goals in life; and (d) the amount of effort or negative experiences a parent feels they have to go through in

Recent findings point out that enjoyment and genuine interest of parents about their children's learning have life-long positive impacts. Parents who read recreationally to their children at young age and who talk informally to their adolescent children around a table, about political or social issues, are more likely to have a significant impact on children's life and school outcomes than those parents who do not [32]. These kinds of *engagement* practices from parents since young age of their children, impact not only children's language skills later on, but also their development of valuable transversal competences, such as ability to plan, set their own goals, initiate and follow through in their studies and individual projects.

Various authors [2, 22, 30, 63, 64] have recently studied the impact of parental styles at home. Goodall [2] points to the *authoritative style of parenting* as one that effectively supports children's learning throughout their lives, once it encompasses parental warmth, discussion, and appropriate level of control regarding the stage of development of the child, underpinning parental interest and involvement in children's learning. Accordingly, Silinskas and colleagues [14, 29], concluded that, regarding parents' support in homework at home, the most beneficial style of parental involvement is the one that is autonomy supportive, process focused and that includes positive effects and positive beliefs from the parent. These findings support, once more, the significance of *parents being conscious about their role* and

As the role of parents in engaging in children's learning is acknowledged to be such an essential element in the children's lives, in and outside school, research also underlines the existence of a pattern in the quality of the child's affective relationship with parents and with teachers, since children seem to have a concordant evocative impact on both parents and teachers [14]. This gives teacher-parents' partnerships even more centrality, once teachers, as professional educators, have

*being expected and solicited* by their children's teachers to engage.

view their own participation as important, through the teachers' eyes.

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89841*

#### *Parental Engagement in Children's Learning: A Holistic Approach to Teacher-Parents' Partnerships DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89841*

teachers' expectations and solicitations of parental involvement [13, 37, 49, 50], which is believed to contribute to the parents' role of themselves and for them to view their own participation as important, through the teachers' eyes.

However, in comparison to research on teachers' role and perceptions or studies where both teachers' and parents' attributes are analyzed regarding children's academic success, only more recently, parents' role and perceptions started gaining significant space as objects of study on parental involvement [19, 59, 60]. That can be explained, in some extent, due to the history of school and home contexts' instituted views of each other as entities with different and complementary objectives [52, 61], where children's schooling was a school duty and children's basic well-being and healthy development was attributed solely to parents. Lately, as these two tremendous tasks increasingly merge into each other, the role of parents' attitudes and behavior is being progressively more taken into account, from a holistic point of view.

Today, we know that parents who believe that their own role is important in affecting their child's achievement in school tend to more often facilitate the development of their child's interests, in comparison to parents who do not view their role as important [20]. Role beliefs identified in research are, in part, related to what modern expectancy-value theory refers as task-value [62]. Task-value beliefs are key determinants of choice, persistence, and engagement in tasks. Eccles and Wigfield [62] outlined four components of task-value: attainment value, intrinsic value, utility value, and costs. Regarding parental engagement, these components would refer to (a) the personal importance the parent would attribute for positively contributing to their child's learning; (b) the genuine enjoyment the parent would feel about doing so; (c) the relation the parent attributes between positively contributing to their children's learning and their own personal goals in life; and (d) the amount of effort or negative experiences a parent feels they have to go through in order to do so.

Recent findings point out that enjoyment and genuine interest of parents about their children's learning have life-long positive impacts. Parents who read recreationally to their children at young age and who talk informally to their adolescent children around a table, about political or social issues, are more likely to have a significant impact on children's life and school outcomes than those parents who do not [32]. These kinds of *engagement* practices from parents since young age of their children, impact not only children's language skills later on, but also their development of valuable transversal competences, such as ability to plan, set their own goals, initiate and follow through in their studies and individual projects.

Various authors [2, 22, 30, 63, 64] have recently studied the impact of parental styles at home. Goodall [2] points to the *authoritative style of parenting* as one that effectively supports children's learning throughout their lives, once it encompasses parental warmth, discussion, and appropriate level of control regarding the stage of development of the child, underpinning parental interest and involvement in children's learning. Accordingly, Silinskas and colleagues [14, 29], concluded that, regarding parents' support in homework at home, the most beneficial style of parental involvement is the one that is autonomy supportive, process focused and that includes positive effects and positive beliefs from the parent. These findings support, once more, the significance of *parents being conscious about their role* and *being expected and solicited* by their children's teachers to engage.

As the role of parents in engaging in children's learning is acknowledged to be such an essential element in the children's lives, in and outside school, research also underlines the existence of a pattern in the quality of the child's affective relationship with parents and with teachers, since children seem to have a concordant evocative impact on both parents and teachers [14]. This gives teacher-parents' partnerships even more centrality, once teachers, as professional educators, have

*Pedagogy in Basic and Higher Education - Current Developments and Challenges*

valued types of parental involvement [43–47].

practices to promote involvement [13, 37, 48–51].

highlights parental engagement strategies and attitudes.

ment and interest from the other part.

involvement of parents (e.g., reinforcement of the learning that occurs in school, especially in supporting homework at home), pointing out such forms as the most

In different cultures, teachers' conceptualizations and practices have been focused on and proven to be crucial to parental involvement, in particular for those parents who have difficulties in being involved [41, 42]. These include the emotional climate experienced when teachers and parents interact, including the time dedicated to effective communication and dialog, but also other aspects, such as teachers' self-efficacy and role beliefs, expectations about involvement and specific

Improving home-school effective communication has been identified as a primary way to enhance trust between teachers and parents, as well as has the *nature* of the teacher-parent interaction proven to be a better predictor of trust than the frequency of interactions [12, 52–54]. This means that it is more important that each dialog makes teachers and parents feel heard and respected, even if there are not so many of them, than to keep constantly in touch without the feeling of true commit-

Much of what is considered to be structurally necessary for an effective dialog

Parental involvement is greater when parents feel that teachers include them and value their contributions [37, 56]. In fact, teachers whose expectations are that the parents can contribute to the children's learning are more likely to involve parents than those teachers who have low expectations on the competences of their students' parents [13, 54, 57]. Teachers' support of parents to learn how to help their children is appreciated by parents [54] and teachers' invitations for involvement are positively responded by parents [30], which gives teachers' solicitations an important and predicting role on the dynamics of parental engagement. Additionally, teachers' self-efficacy perceptions on parental involvement has been significantly related to involvement itself, also functioning as a predictor [11]. These studies corroborate the importance of student teachers having an academic path that

On the other hand, and despite agreeing that home-school collaborations are essentially important, teachers and parents differ in opinion about the extent in which each other actually meet their expectations. Research has shown that often teachers and parents have incongruent parents' role perceptions and that teachers expect parents to perform academic-related tasks in the home more frequently than parents do themselves, both in primary and secondary levels [43]. This adds, once more, to the evidence on the power teachers do have, to change the perspective from

Parent's influences on their children's achievement have been largely studied [8, 11, 16, 18]. Factors like parents' socioeconomic status and educational background are known to act as predictors of students' achievement and school adaptation, as well as of parental involvement [9, 42, 58]. Literature is also consistent about the positive response from parents toward their children's learning, regarding

in teacher-parent interactions lies in the teachers' set of competences such as managing the time dedicated to talk to and *actively listen* to the parent and making sure that the specific goals of the contact are met [55]. Although both teachers and parents reveal their highest level of trust in each other at the elementary level of education, parents tend to trust teachers more frequently than the contrary [52]. This fact puts teachers in the spotlight again, regarding the major role they play in building a reciprocally respectful and considerate relationship with parents.

**208**

*involvement* to *engagement*.

**2.2 Parents' role on parental engagement**

opportunity to identify and break such patterns when they are not effective for the child's sake [24, 65, 66]. In such cases, teachers have the ability to comprehend more complex home dynamics such as those of students from diverse cultural or socioeconomic backgrounds, *listening to* parents that may be little engaged as well as instructing them about more effective attitudes and behaviors in the home [28, 40].

#### **2.3 Challenges for parental engagement**

Surpassing the sphere of children's academic achievement or school engagement, teacher-parents' partnerships are nowadays seen as a powerful tool for breaking undesirable patterns. It has been considered an extremely important element on equity issues in education when built on effective teacher-parent dialog [40, 42]. Yet, this scenario is not prevalent in most schools around the world, since, as Goodall [3] attests, the most popular perception of working with parents is still *school-centered* instead of *learning-centered*. This means that the traditional *involvement* approach to parents is still much more often used in schools than the more effective and integrative approach presented by the parental *engagement* framework.

Despite the growing knowledge regarding parental engagement in a larger sense, one of non-dependence of the school environment, many are the obstacles for engagement to take place in schools and homes around the world. Some of them have been around longer than the others, which make it even more difficult for the school community to tackle them, as they seem to pile up. For instance, the lack of resources such as time and personnel, in many schools, prevents teachers from developing consistent approaches for parental involvement itself, let alone practices of engagement, that demand an even superior amount of time and follow-up dialogue between teachers and parents. Some of the linger drawbacks for involvement and engagement practices also list: lack of support from schools' administration or simply a set of school's beliefs that do not favor teacher-parents' partnerships; mothers' over fathers' representativeness in schools; and difficulty of maintaining or establishing effective home-school dialogue throughout the levels of schooling.

Regarding the institutional level, leaders such as the school's headmaster or department's head teachers may or may not adopt a facilitator role to involving and engaging parents [67]. For the engagement path to be accessible, it is essential that a consistent definition of parental engagement is shared between school's administration, teachers, and parents of a specific school, so all these cohorts are able to develop realist and shared expectations about each other's roles [68]. Thus, headmasters and head teachers have a decisive role on the development of a school culture which values the engagement of parents in the children's learning [69].

Such school's guidelines can also make a difference in engaging *both* mothers and fathers in the children's learning and therefore turning engagement even more effective. It is true, for both research and practice, that even though, today, families as institutions encompass much more different structures and dynamics than 15 or 20 years ago, the presence of mothers is still more common regarding school- and education-related issues, over the presence of fathers [64, 70, 71]. This constitutes an obstacle for engagement as each of the child's parents have their unique relationship and perspective regarding their child [72], and a fuller picture of the child's home life is only possible when the teacher can reach both mother and father. Also, any needed positive impact of what the teacher may recommend is multiplied when both mother and father establish an authentic partnership with the teacher.

Another well-known stumbling rock for parental engagement, that is cited above, constitutes the difficulty of maintaining or creating teacher-parents' partnerships as children grow in age and grade level. As children develop into young

**211**

of children.

**3. Conclusions**

*Parental Engagement in Children's Learning: A Holistic Approach to Teacher-Parents' Partnerships*

adults, the nature of their relationships with adults and peers changes, as they look forward to a progressively more independent life, which originates a growing distance between teacher and parents dialogs [73]. Additionally, in most countries, as children progress in education, the number of teachers grow, fact that also handicaps teachers-parents' partnerships and holistic education. In that matter, Goodall [35] encourages that schools explore the numerous possibilities technology provides for engagement of parents of older students as well as busier or hard to reach parents (e.g., e-mail, texting, and specific channels of communication). Technology transports us to a more recent range of challenges for parental engagement, together with diversity in classrooms and teacher education programs. Despite the lack of research in the topic, that, as Goodall [35] herself attests, consists in a very difficult theme to study appropriately, the transformation in the major routes of communication between teachers and parents has crucially changed in the last few years. In Finland, for instance, digital communication has become the primary means for teachers and parents to communicate [74]. The advance and accessibility of technology consist of an advantage for parental engagement, when the tools are well used by professionals, for example, as it helps professionals to communicate with parents more efficiently and reach a higher number of parents in a little amount of time [35]. However, these practices elicit new and unknown difficulties that need to be outpaced by schools. As pointed out in Finland [74], such strategies may shorten distances with a specific group of parents, such as the ones from rural contexts, but other groups may feel they are not given enough space to communicate as teachers would think. The lack of substantial education of teachers on how to use technology to improve teacher-parents dialogue, during their trainings, needs to be tackled in order to bring schools and homes together [35, 74]. In fact, teacher education needs reflections and updates in many parts of the world. In Portugal, for example, only 39% of lower secondary teachers reported feeling prepared, by the time they had finished their studies, to teach in cognitively diverse settings and 27% reported a strong need to receive formal education in this area [75]. Classroom diversity certainly challenges teachers, often causing tense relationships to emerge with parents. To respond this and other flaws, a huge educational reform based on a holistic approach has been recently implemented by the Portuguese government [76], even though no additional training for practitioners

Finally, and because education needs to be approached from an ecological systems perspective [21], one of the greater challenges for parental engagement dwells not only in the classroom, but in the community and the society. Along with globalization, teachers all around the world must deal with a rising diversity of students and parents, which demands teachers to have a creative, sensitive, and versatile attitude toward parents. Such diversity requires a greater amount of resources from the teacher than it does in cases where he/she deals with more uniform groups

In a primary contact, parental engagement may seem complex and sometimes even utopic. The holistic approach to pedagogy calls for a holistic approach to teacher-parents' partnerships and vice-versa: one cannot fully achieve its goals without the other. It is probably one of the main reasons it has been so difficult even for well-intentioned and well-educated teachers to introduce engagement practices and to break the traditional cycles where schools ask parents for more than they can

give and the whole family ends up feeling frustrated.

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89841*

have been made available, so far.

#### *Parental Engagement in Children's Learning: A Holistic Approach to Teacher-Parents' Partnerships DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89841*

adults, the nature of their relationships with adults and peers changes, as they look forward to a progressively more independent life, which originates a growing distance between teacher and parents dialogs [73]. Additionally, in most countries, as children progress in education, the number of teachers grow, fact that also handicaps teachers-parents' partnerships and holistic education. In that matter, Goodall [35] encourages that schools explore the numerous possibilities technology provides for engagement of parents of older students as well as busier or hard to reach parents (e.g., e-mail, texting, and specific channels of communication).

Technology transports us to a more recent range of challenges for parental engagement, together with diversity in classrooms and teacher education programs.

Despite the lack of research in the topic, that, as Goodall [35] herself attests, consists in a very difficult theme to study appropriately, the transformation in the major routes of communication between teachers and parents has crucially changed in the last few years. In Finland, for instance, digital communication has become the primary means for teachers and parents to communicate [74]. The advance and accessibility of technology consist of an advantage for parental engagement, when the tools are well used by professionals, for example, as it helps professionals to communicate with parents more efficiently and reach a higher number of parents in a little amount of time [35]. However, these practices elicit new and unknown difficulties that need to be outpaced by schools. As pointed out in Finland [74], such strategies may shorten distances with a specific group of parents, such as the ones from rural contexts, but other groups may feel they are not given enough space to communicate as teachers would think. The lack of substantial education of teachers on how to use technology to improve teacher-parents dialogue, during their trainings, needs to be tackled in order to bring schools and homes together [35, 74].

In fact, teacher education needs reflections and updates in many parts of the world. In Portugal, for example, only 39% of lower secondary teachers reported feeling prepared, by the time they had finished their studies, to teach in cognitively diverse settings and 27% reported a strong need to receive formal education in this area [75]. Classroom diversity certainly challenges teachers, often causing tense relationships to emerge with parents. To respond this and other flaws, a huge educational reform based on a holistic approach has been recently implemented by the Portuguese government [76], even though no additional training for practitioners have been made available, so far.

Finally, and because education needs to be approached from an ecological systems perspective [21], one of the greater challenges for parental engagement dwells not only in the classroom, but in the community and the society. Along with globalization, teachers all around the world must deal with a rising diversity of students and parents, which demands teachers to have a creative, sensitive, and versatile attitude toward parents. Such diversity requires a greater amount of resources from the teacher than it does in cases where he/she deals with more uniform groups of children.

#### **3. Conclusions**

In a primary contact, parental engagement may seem complex and sometimes even utopic. The holistic approach to pedagogy calls for a holistic approach to teacher-parents' partnerships and vice-versa: one cannot fully achieve its goals without the other. It is probably one of the main reasons it has been so difficult even for well-intentioned and well-educated teachers to introduce engagement practices and to break the traditional cycles where schools ask parents for more than they can give and the whole family ends up feeling frustrated.

*Pedagogy in Basic and Higher Education - Current Developments and Challenges*

**2.3 Challenges for parental engagement**

opportunity to identify and break such patterns when they are not effective for the child's sake [24, 65, 66]. In such cases, teachers have the ability to comprehend more complex home dynamics such as those of students from diverse cultural or socioeconomic backgrounds, *listening to* parents that may be little engaged as well as instructing them about more effective attitudes and behaviors in the home [28, 40].

Surpassing the sphere of children's academic achievement or school engagement,

teacher-parents' partnerships are nowadays seen as a powerful tool for breaking undesirable patterns. It has been considered an extremely important element on equity issues in education when built on effective teacher-parent dialog [40, 42]. Yet, this scenario is not prevalent in most schools around the world, since, as Goodall [3] attests, the most popular perception of working with parents is still *school-centered* instead of *learning-centered*. This means that the traditional *involvement* approach to parents is still much more often used in schools than the more effective and integrative approach presented by the parental *engagement* framework. Despite the growing knowledge regarding parental engagement in a larger sense,

one of non-dependence of the school environment, many are the obstacles for engagement to take place in schools and homes around the world. Some of them have been around longer than the others, which make it even more difficult for the school community to tackle them, as they seem to pile up. For instance, the lack of resources such as time and personnel, in many schools, prevents teachers from developing consistent approaches for parental involvement itself, let alone practices of engagement, that demand an even superior amount of time and follow-up dialogue between teachers and parents. Some of the linger drawbacks for involvement and engagement practices also list: lack of support from schools' administration or simply a set of school's beliefs that do not favor teacher-parents' partnerships; mothers' over fathers' representativeness in schools; and difficulty of maintaining or establishing effective home-school dialogue throughout the levels of schooling. Regarding the institutional level, leaders such as the school's headmaster or department's head teachers may or may not adopt a facilitator role to involving and engaging parents [67]. For the engagement path to be accessible, it is essential that a consistent definition of parental engagement is shared between school's administration, teachers, and parents of a specific school, so all these cohorts are able to develop realist and shared expectations about each other's roles [68]. Thus, headmasters and head teachers have a decisive role on the development of a school culture which values the engagement of parents in the children's learning [69]. Such school's guidelines can also make a difference in engaging *both* mothers and fathers in the children's learning and therefore turning engagement even more effective. It is true, for both research and practice, that even though, today, families as institutions encompass much more different structures and dynamics than 15 or 20 years ago, the presence of mothers is still more common regarding school- and education-related issues, over the presence of fathers [64, 70, 71]. This constitutes an obstacle for engagement as each of the child's parents have their unique relationship and perspective regarding their child [72], and a fuller picture of the child's home life is only possible when the teacher can reach both mother and father. Also, any needed positive impact of what the teacher may recommend is multiplied when both mother and father establish an authentic partnership with

Another well-known stumbling rock for parental engagement, that is cited above, constitutes the difficulty of maintaining or creating teacher-parents' partnerships as children grow in age and grade level. As children develop into young

**210**

the teacher.

After a closer look, one may realize engagement practices have, in fact, a simple foundation. It is based on authentic interactions, true acceptance, trust, and believe in bringing out the best of each family; it goes beyond interacting as teacher and parents—rather, refers to interacting as whole individuals that are sensitive about each other's needs, beliefs, and ideas and instead of competing with each other, unify their strengths for the common goal of the child's success in life.

For a teacher of a holistic classroom environment who wants to develop a closer and an authentic partnership with his/her pupil's parents, there is a need to preserve his/her attitude in the classroom, reflecting it in the interactions with the parents [3]. If the teacher has the goal to prompt the development of the student as a whole person, then, first, the teacher needs to *see him/herself* from a similar perspective, including when establishing partnerships with parents. The paradigm of education has been strongly changing around the world, from one that the teachers hold the truth about all academic content to one where the students are strong contributors for learning. Accordingly, the paradigm of teacher-parent relationships shall necessarily follow the same principles. Teachers are not, anymore, the only ones to have valuable information to transfer to parents and parents are no longer merely recipients of information on children's accomplishments and behavior outcomes. Instead, parents' knowledge and thoughts must be heard and appreciated, because they carry equally valuable information about children's learning and development as the teacher does.

Beyond all challenges presented before, it has been difficult to move from an *involvement* to an *engagement* perspective because whereas the former allows teachers and schools to address request in a regular basis, the latter demands teachers to reflect about themselves, as professionals and individuals, and implies that schools let parents in as *equal* partners. Engaging parents shall, necessarily, be viewed as a team effort, not an individual task. Schools' leaders are more decisive in the way parents play their role in children's learning than it has been pointed out until the date [77].

However, as stated above, engaging parents demands a deep reflexive attitude from the teacher—one that most likely develops through practice and meaningful internalization processes of knowledge [78]. "Beginning teachers need to be encouraged to develop a moral stance in relation to their professional responsibilities" ([78], p. 33) in order to meaningfully develop the ability and sensitiveness to stablish authentic partnerships with all parents. The teacher's professional knowledge will reveal itself in pedagogical decisions that cannot be dissociated from his/ her own principles and values. This means that each student teacher's path will be unique and will be shaped by the formal education they will receive, the thoughts and discussions they will encounter during this period, and the moral choices regarding values and principles they will make along the way.

A purposeful teacher looks for not only fulfilling his/her own goals in life but has a profound sense of beyond-the-self impact and self-transcendent goals [79]. Teacher education can establish optimal contexts to foster student teachers' sense of purpose in life and in teaching, self-knowledge, and reflection ability. Methods that involve guided analysis, group, and individual reflections and are based on authentic cases from student teachers' past experiences in school [79] seem to offer a promising wellspring for teaching how to engage parents. This could involve, for example, student teachers' recollection of memorable learning experiences with their parents, reflection about the meaning and impact it had in their studying-learning process and reflection about their teachers' attitude toward parents at the time.

Practitioners' and researchers' efforts, through research-based practices and practice-based research, are crucial in giving life to such a framework in schools and homes, more and more as years go by, and making the holistic approach more than a *utopia*, but a reality.

**213**

**Author details**

Cristiana Levinthal de Oliveira Lima1

1 University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

2 University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland

provided the original work is properly cited.

\*Address all correspondence to: cristiana.levinthal@helsinki.fi

\* and Elina Kuusisto2

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

*Parental Engagement in Children's Learning: A Holistic Approach to Teacher-Parents' Partnerships*

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89841*

*Parental Engagement in Children's Learning: A Holistic Approach to Teacher-Parents' Partnerships DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89841*

### **Author details**

*Pedagogy in Basic and Higher Education - Current Developments and Challenges*

unify their strengths for the common goal of the child's success in life.

After a closer look, one may realize engagement practices have, in fact, a simple foundation. It is based on authentic interactions, true acceptance, trust, and believe in bringing out the best of each family; it goes beyond interacting as teacher and parents—rather, refers to interacting as whole individuals that are sensitive about each other's needs, beliefs, and ideas and instead of competing with each other,

For a teacher of a holistic classroom environment who wants to develop a closer and an authentic partnership with his/her pupil's parents, there is a need to preserve his/her attitude in the classroom, reflecting it in the interactions with the parents [3]. If the teacher has the goal to prompt the development of the student as a whole person, then, first, the teacher needs to *see him/herself* from a similar perspective, including when establishing partnerships with parents. The paradigm of education has been strongly changing around the world, from one that the teachers hold the truth about all academic content to one where the students are strong contributors for learning. Accordingly, the paradigm of teacher-parent relationships shall necessarily follow the same principles. Teachers are not, anymore, the only ones to have valuable information to transfer to parents and parents are no longer merely recipients of information on children's accomplishments and behavior outcomes. Instead, parents' knowledge and thoughts must be heard and appreciated, because they carry equally valuable information about children's learning and development as the teacher does. Beyond all challenges presented before, it has been difficult to move from an *involvement* to an *engagement* perspective because whereas the former allows teachers and schools to address request in a regular basis, the latter demands teachers to reflect about themselves, as professionals and individuals, and implies that schools let parents in as *equal* partners. Engaging parents shall, necessarily, be viewed as a team effort, not an individual task. Schools' leaders are more decisive in the way parents play their role in children's learning than it has been pointed out until the

However, as stated above, engaging parents demands a deep reflexive attitude from the teacher—one that most likely develops through practice and meaningful internalization processes of knowledge [78]. "Beginning teachers need to be encouraged to develop a moral stance in relation to their professional responsibilities" ([78], p. 33) in order to meaningfully develop the ability and sensitiveness to stablish authentic partnerships with all parents. The teacher's professional knowledge will reveal itself in pedagogical decisions that cannot be dissociated from his/ her own principles and values. This means that each student teacher's path will be unique and will be shaped by the formal education they will receive, the thoughts and discussions they will encounter during this period, and the moral choices

A purposeful teacher looks for not only fulfilling his/her own goals in life but has a profound sense of beyond-the-self impact and self-transcendent goals [79]. Teacher education can establish optimal contexts to foster student teachers' sense of purpose in life and in teaching, self-knowledge, and reflection ability. Methods that involve guided analysis, group, and individual reflections and are based on authentic cases from student teachers' past experiences in school [79] seem to offer a promising wellspring for teaching how to engage parents. This could involve, for example, student teachers' recollection of memorable learning experiences with their parents, reflection about the meaning and impact it had in their studying-learning process

Practitioners' and researchers' efforts, through research-based practices and practice-based research, are crucial in giving life to such a framework in schools and homes, more and more as years go by, and making the holistic approach more than a

regarding values and principles they will make along the way.

and reflection about their teachers' attitude toward parents at the time.

**212**

*utopia*, but a reality.

date [77].

Cristiana Levinthal de Oliveira Lima1 \* and Elina Kuusisto2

1 University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

2 University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland

\*Address all correspondence to: cristiana.levinthal@helsinki.fi

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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*Pedagogy in Basic and Higher Education - Current Developments and Challenges*

New York: The Guilford Press; 2007.

[9] Epstein JL. School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Preparing Educators and Improving Schools. Boulder: Westview Press; 2001. 624 p

[10] Goodall J, Montgomery C. Parental involvement to parental engagement:

Review. 2014;**66**(4):399-410. DOI: 10.1080/00131911.2013.781576

[11] Grolnick WS, Slowiaczek ML. Parents' involvement in children's schooling: A multidimensional conceptualization and motivational

1994;**65**:237-252. DOI: 10.2307/1131378

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[13] Hoover-Dempsey K, Bassler O, Brissie J. Explorations in parent-school relations. Journal of Educational Research. 1992;**85**(2):287-294. DOI: 10.1080/00220671.1992.9941128

[14] Silinskas G, Kiuru N, Aunola K,

Lerkkanen MK, Nurmi JE. The developmental dynamics of children's academic performance and mothers' homework-related affect and practices. Developmental Psychology. 2015;**51**(4):419-433. DOI: 10.1037/

[15] Hill N, Tyson D. Parental

involvement in middle School: A metaanalytic assessment of the strategies that promote achievement. Developmental Psychology. 2009;**45**:740-763. DOI:

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A continuum. Educational

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a0038908

10.1037/a0015362

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10.1080/13632434.2012.724668

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help, and children's literacy

s10212-017-0330-4

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### *Edited by Kirsi Tirri and Auli Toom*

This book takes a holistic approach to pedagogy and argues that the purpose of education is to educate the student's whole personality including cognitive, social, and moral domains. The four sections and twelve chapters address the current pedagogical challenges in basic and higher education in international contexts. The authors describe the principles and practices through which meaningful education is promoted and enhanced in a variety of ways. The challenges educators face in their profession as well as ways to overcome them are elaborated on both theoretically and empirically. The book allows both researchers, teachers, and educational policy makers to reflect on current developments, challenges, and areas of development in educational institutions when aiming to support student growth and learning.

Published in London, UK © 2020 IntechOpen © Koca / iStock

Pedagogy in Basic and Higher Education - Current Developments and Challenges

Pedagogy in Basic

and Higher Education

Current Developments and Challenges

*Edited by Kirsi Tirri and Auli Toom*