Professional Development in the Use of Data: From Data to Knowledge in Data Teams

ABSTRACT

Schools need support in the use of data. To provide this support, a data team intervention was developed. A prior study conducted in the Netherlands showed that several factors can enable or hinder the work of data teams. The current replication study focuses on the factors influencing data use in data teams and the perceived effects of the data teams’ work, but looking at data teams in Sweden. The results of this qualitative study show that the data teams’ work is influenced by the same factors as in the Netherlands: Data characteristics (e.g., relevance of the data), team characteristics (e.g., heterogeneity of the team), and school organizational characteristics (e.g., school leader support).

KEYWORDS:

• Data-based decision making
• data teams
• school improvement
• professional development
• professional learning communities
• replication study

Disclosure Statement

After the coaching period of the teams that participated in the first data team pilot studies had finished, training companies became licensed to coach schools in the intervention through a spin-off company. We have therefore not used the specific name of the intervention. The data for this study has been partly collected by one of the authors not affiliated with the spin-off company. For research purposes, these (anonymized) data can be made available upon request.

ORCID

Kim Schildkamp http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6154-6857