Turbulence in the British Columbia education system encouraged Ministry and School District administrators to develop a holistic, formative evaluation process for school districts. Called the Information Profile System (IPS), the process was intended to assist district administrators with improvement of accountability, professional teamwork and commitment, decision making, and gain of public support for education. However, the literature also suggested that while formative evaluation holds great theoretical promise for administration, the practical results are often disappointing. Examination of a first pilot confirmed this viewpoint. The central problem of the study therefore became to ascertain whether the IPS could be refined and reformatted to act as an effective leader-substitute in British Columbia; for the literature on both administration and evaluation suggested that the IPS could be considered a "leader-substitute" evaluation process, a series of tasks, procedures, and processes intended to enhance leadership effectiveness through stakeholder involvement in evaluation.
To solve the problem action research employing the IPS in evaluations of three school districts was conducted during the 1988-89 school year. Interviews of stakeholder participants in each district evaluation and other data were naturalistically evaluated in order to solve the main problem and three sub-problems: (1) how could the IPS be refined to improve the achievement of its goals; (2) what factors limited the IPS's effectiveness; and (3) what insights can be gathered into the leader-substitute construct of leadership? The IPS procedures and processes are described and critiqued in three district evaluation case studies. Meta-evaluation of the cases produced findings related to the restructuring of the IPS, its effectiveness, and the role of formative evaluation in administration.
The research suggests that a substantially reconstituted IPS can assist administrators with accountability, but only marginally effect the other purposes envisaged for the evaluation unless ownership and follow-through amongst the larger community of stakeholders is developed. The research also suggests that senior administrator commitment, moral fibre, and management of meaning skills are major factors limiting the success of formative evaluation. Finally, the research suggests that the "leader-substitute" construct of leadership has some conceptual merit as a characterization of the IPS, and for the dynamics of leadership; a characterization commensurate with a "subjectivist", or "humanistic" view of administration. / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uvic.ca/oai:dspace.library.uvic.ca:1828/9458 |
| Date | 15 June 2018 |
| Creators | Dickson, Graham Stewart |
| Contributors | Hodgkinson, Christopher E. |
| Source Sets | University of Victoria |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | Available to the World Wide Web |
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