Evidence-based actions within the multilevel system of schools – requirements, processes, and effects (EviS II)

The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) will be supporting the EviS project for a duration of three years (09/2013 – 08/2016) in the course of a framework program to promote empirical educational research in terms of managing the education system.

Intention:

One main conclusion of the first funding phase is that teachers and school administration create their professional action only to a limited extent on basis of evidence. As the data reveals, the professional approach to evidences is influenced by many factors on different levels of the school system. The school management’s actions, collective or social exchange processes as well as the competence of school actors are of particular importance. Against this background, the focus of research of the follow-up project is on a differentiated and more in-depth examination of these three influencing factors as well as their interaction concerning the development of a professional approach to evidences in schools.

The following questions are of central importance for the research:

  • Which obstacles and resources are relevant for the implementation of evidence-based actions with an extended focus on specific factors of pressure in the context of school?
  • What is the role of the school administration, especially in terms of the tension between different roles of the school administration in their responsibility towards teaching personnel, parents and school supervision in the framework of evidence-based actions?

The research group EviS approaches these two questions on three different levels of the school system:

- school level,

- school management level, and

- teacher level.

The school level includes specific organizational features as well as aggregated features on the level of the individual teachers. The school management level has a special function because it can be considered both as an individual level and as an organizational level, the latter of which it influences to a great extent and also partially represents. On the level of the individual teachers, it is particularly interesting which obstacles and resources influence evidence-based actions. The research project EviS therefore wants to contribute to collecting data on the usefulness of current endeavors in school development in a scientific manner in the second funding phase as well.

In the second funding phase, the EviS project will be will be processed by an interdisciplinary research association from the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and the University of Münster. Both of the Chairs of Business and Economics Education in Mainz (Prof. Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia and Prof. Dormann), the Chair for Organization of Work and Enterprise at the Institute for Sociology (Prof. Preisendörfer), as well as the Chair for Occupational Psychology in Münster (Prof. Binnewies) are involved in this research association. Additionally, the Center for Quality Assurance and Development (ZQ) of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz is supporting the project by means of funding the Center for Education and Academic Research (ZBH), which is also situated in Mainz.

Contact:

Prof. Dr. Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia

Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz

Department of Law, Management & Economics

Chair of Business Education

Prof. Dr. Olga Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia

Jakob-Welder-Weg 9

D-55009 Mainz

Phone: +49 (0)6131 39 22009

Fax: +49 (0)6131 39 22095