Constructing Quality Management Indicators: A Study of High-Quality Schools in Taipei

• In Event: School Leadership in Chinese Society: Impact of Academic Research on School Improvement

Abstract

Taipei city government has been implementing High-Quality School Program since 2004 in Taiwan, which includes the dimensions of school leadership and management, curriculum development, teachers teaching, students learning, professional development, resources integration, and school campus and cultural construction. In the aspect of school leadership and management, the high-quality school extremely values knowledge management and e-management tool, performance management, and quality management. The school principal and building-level leaders not only internalize these ideas but also plan, implement, evaluate, and reflect them in the school improvement so as to reach the excellence.

The main purpose of this study is to investigate high-quality school and quality management, and construct high-quality management indicators in Taipei which consists of five dimensions: 1) Establish the plans or programs of total quality management in schools; 2) Draw up the standard operation procedure of quality management; 3) Establish the communication channel and the mechanism of initiative service; 4) Carry out the mechanism of quality management which can offer evaluation and feedback; and 5) Establish the services which take the demand and satisfaction as the guidance.

This study focuses on the reliability and validity of indicators, sampling 98 school management personnel of elementary and middle schools in Taipei city including principals, directors, and group leaders. It is found that the critical ratio of 29 indicators is greater than 5, and the power of explanation of this study is good. Five factors are extracted in which the total variance is 77.12%, and the construct validity of this study is satisfactory. The Cronbach's α coefficients of reliability analysis is greater than 0.92, and the reliability of this study is good.

In order to learn more about the "quality management indicators in high-quality school," we sampled 135 school management personnel of elementary and middle schools in Taipei city, and conducted the confirmatory factor analysis. We analyze the data by statistical methods and the main findings are found as follows: 1) The result of critical ratio analysis was good; 2) The result of reliability analysis was good; and 3) The inventory had good suitability and fitness of the dimensions and items. Thus, the quality management indicators in Taipei high-quality schools constructed by this study are good checklists for the management of Taipei high-quality school and also could serve as the references of establishing the quality management indicators in elementary and middle schools. These indicators will be useful and significant for the school principals, middle-level leaders, group leaders, and even teachers to plan, evaluate and reflect school management and improvement.

Author

• Mu-Jin Chen, National Chengchi University