Looking Inside the Black Box of the School Improvement Process: A Network Analysis Approach

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Abstract

Adopting a network analysis, this review mapped the paths through which school improvement is achieved as a function of a network of contributions from the principal’s leadership, school conditions, and staff capacity. It uses 643 pairs of relationships among 142 quantitative variables as its analytic dataset. A network analysis reveals 14 concepts that play strong mediating roles in the school improvement paths, supporting prior evidence that leadership impact on student learning is mediated by multiple within-school factors. Related, a close examination of the sampled studies’ methods sections suggests that predominant analytic approaches in this body of research are not adequate to reveal the complex mediating paths embedded in organizational improvement. Implications for educational leadership practice and research are presented.

Author

• Joonkil Ahn, University of North Dakota