Generating School Typologies to Inform Investigations of Organizational Influences on Educational Effectiveness

• In Event: Organizational Dynamics in Educational Effectiveness: Exploring Conditions, Leadership, and Typologies

Abstract

Studying educational systems is an inherently complex undertaking. To be valid, variables taken into account with their imagined connections must be accounted for. To make sense about all high schools in one state, we selected non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) as an analytic tool applied to the complexity to two dimensions as primary axes of variation. As an exploratory approach for making sense of an over-abundance of data can in turn reveal previously unrecognized distinguishing features that were hidden within the complexity of information. Or goal was to use the typology as a basis for studying potential causes of inequities across secondary schools. Application of ordination statistics can be applied by other researchers who are seeking non-politicized mechanisms for categorizing schools.

Authors

• John Settlage, University of Connecticut

• Ben Wasserman, University of Connecticut

• Robert Bagchi, University of Connecticut