Data Use in Ontario School Board Improvement Plans

Abstract

Board improvement plans (BIP) are documents which include goals and actions to improve student achievement and well-being within a school board. School boards in Ontario are encouraged to use data to make informed educational decisions about their students, educators, and schools to improve education. However, how data are used in board improvement planning is unknown. The purpose of this research is to explore the role of data in board improvement planning to gain an understanding of how data are used at the board level of the Ontario school system. To understand the role of data at the board level, the main research question is: What is the role of data in board improvement planning?

Data were collected from three sources for this exploratory case study: three principal interviews, document analysis of relevant Ministry documents, and document analysis of 18 BIPs. Interviews were inductively coded and used to deductively analyze Ministry documents. BIPs were analyzed following the iterative process of skimming, reading, and interpretation using elements of content and thematic analysis.

The three themes discovered during interview analysis and used to explore Ministry documents were: functional development of BIPs, relational aspect of BIPs, and data path in BIPs. From document analysis, four broad types of data were found: board-wide student achievement data, board-wide student well-being data, school level data, and classroom level student data. With respect to the uses of data, data were used to identify, plan, and monitor. Lastly, data were found to be interpreted by examining trends (deconstructing and comparing) and through triangulation (multiple sources and in teams). In conclusion, the results provide evidence that multiple types of data are being used for board improvement planning, for various different uses, with different ways of interpreting the data.