Between university and school: the School Improvement Advisor/researcher (SIA)

Abstract

This paper focused on the actions of the School Improvement Advisor/Researcher (SIA) reports on the results of research carried out in schools over the course of a decade, and discusses and evaluates this approach to the raising of standards in educational institutes. From a methodological standpoint, this approach is the evolution of a process that lies midway between action research and design-based research, during the phases of which the SIA is able to effectively combine coaching, aimed at raising standards in both the institute and in individual teachers, with the creation/development/adaptation of tools, whose primary function is to respond to the needs expressed by these players and to the problems they experience. The approach was developed on the basis of several considerations: on the one hand, relative to the processes of change in place and, on the other, to the related research processes. Choosing to proceed in such a way is not an arbitrary act but originates in both the difficulty the research ‘academic’ faces in establishing himself as a type of compass for teachers in their daily practice and also from the need to conduct action research where rigour is not simply sacrificed for the immediate relevance of results.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. In this text, the term ‘scientific’ should not be understood on the basis of a positivist or realist conception, but rather as inherent to knowledge, as rigorous as possible, appropriate to the subject being investigated and within an interactive process.

2. It is important to note that the approach proposed in this paper considers dissemination to be not so much a generalised process of large-scale reproduction of ‘best practices’ but, rather, a growth and extension dotted around within the system of experiences, different from each other but also united by fundamental features and objectives.