The influence of the process of teachers' involvement in school development planning on their practices
Date of Award
8-1-2005
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Master of Education (M. Ed.)
Department
Institute for Educational Development, Karachi
Abstract
Teachers are the main implementers of most school improvement initiatives in schools. It is well recognized in the literature of teachers' involvement in SDP1 that involving teachers in the whole process including the planning stage is important for a better implementation of plans. Emphasis to involve stakeholders from the first stage is going on, and many schools, especially this network of private school I conducted my study on, have adopted the idea. They are currently involving teachers in different decisions about school curriculum and related activities. Therefore, the study aimed at exploring teachers' experiences on the process and influence of their involvement in planning for school improvement, on their practices. Since this was not a well-researched area, especially in Pakistan, therefore, the study is expected to provide useful information for policy makers. The process of involvement was uncovered through eliciting teachers' ideas and other stakeholders (headteacher and education officer) of the school improvement activities. This helped me to discover in what ways teachers are involved, to what extent and what were the influences on them as practitioners behind the involvement practices. Challenges as well as facilitating factors in this process were also examined, and hence useful information could come up for policy makers. I hope this will also help them to make an informed decision on different school improvement practices. The information on this topic was collected through qualitative case study method. This method facilitated eliciting teachers' experiences for providing useful descriptions and rich findings. Semi structured interviews, observations and document analysis were the three data collection techniques used during the study. Main research participants were two teachers, two LAC2 teachers, the headteacher and the education officer. Taking into consideration the time for the field work and teachers' work-load in the school, only one interview per teacher was conducted, and this made total number of interviews to be six. Due to national examinations schedule which was going on during the period of data collection only one classroom observation was done.
Recommended Citation
Shaaban, M. (2005). The influence of the process of teachers' involvement in school development planning on their practices (Unpublished master's dissertation). Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan.