Continuous Improvement in the Public School Context: Understanding How Educators Respond to Plan–Do–Study–Act Cycles

Item

Title

Continuous Improvement in the Public School Context: Understanding How Educators Respond to Plan–Do–Study–Act Cycles

Abstract/Description

The last 5 years have witnessed growing support amongst government institutions and educational foundations for applying continuous improvement research (CIR) in school settings. CIR responds to the challenge of implementing effective educational innovations at scale by working with practitioners in local contexts to understand “what works, for whom, and under what conditions.” CIR works to achieve system improvement through the use of plan–do–study–act (PDSA) cycles, which are multiple tests of small changes. This comparative case study of two urban school districts examined how innovation design teams took up PDSA in their work to improve high school student outcomes, and their perceptions of PDSA as an approach to innovation development, adaptation, and implementation. Findings revealed both possibilities and challenges for implementing PDSA. Nearly all participants reported the value in PDSA, and participants pointed to connections to previous experiences and PDSA training as helping to build capacity. However, we found mixed levels of enthusiasm for actually conducting PDSA cycles, and capacity constraints regarding time and data collection.

Author/creator

Tichnor-Wagner, Ariel

Wachen, John

Cannata, Marisa A.

Cohen-Vogel, Lora

Date

2017

In publication

Journal of Educational Change

Volume

18

Issue

4

Pages

465-494

Resource type

Research/Scholarly Media

Resource status/form

en Published Text

Scholarship genre

en Empirical

Keywords

school improvement

ontinuous improvement research

school districts

IRE Approach/Concept

Continuous Improvement

Plan Do Study Act (PDSA) Cycle

Personalization for Academic and Social Emotional Learning (PASL)

Scale Up

District Innovation Design Team (DIDT)

Student Ownership And Responsibility (SOAR)

Featured case/project

National Center on Scaling Up Effective Schools (NCSU)

Fort Worth Independent School District (FWISD)

Broward County Public Schools (BCPS)

Primary national context

United States

Open access/full-text available

en Yes

Peer reviewed

en Yes

ISSN

1573-1812

DOI

10.1007/s10833-017-9301-4

URL

Publisher Webpage

ERIC Link (#EJ1157388)

Open Access PDF (via ERIC)

Grant funding

Institute of Education Sciences

Grant number

IES Grant #R305C100023

Other related resources/entities

[Untitled]

Citation

Tichnor-Wagner, A., Wachen, J., Cannata, M., & Cohen-Vogel, L. (2017). Continuous Improvement in the Public School Context: Understanding How Educators Respond to Plan–Do–Study–Act Cycles. Journal of Educational Change, 18(4), 465–494. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-017-9301-4

Cited in

Continuous Improvement and "High Leverage" Educational Problems

Abbreviation

J Educ Change

Item sets

Open Access Resource (IRE)

OB Citations - Conceptualizing, Measuring, and Evaluating Improvement Networks

OB Citations - Continuous Improvement and "High Leverage" Educational Problems

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