Seeing Like an Improvement Scientist: How Legibility Shapes Educators' Engagement in Continuous Improvement

• In Event: Data and Research Use for Continuous School Improvement

Abstract

Over the past two decades, policymakers, researchers, and practitioners have increasingly embraced new methods of using data to support continuous improvement and adaptation. But such approaches rely on a shared assumption, namely that the problems educators are trying to solve are legible (Scott, 1998), meaning that educators have access to (or can create) continuous, precise, and meaningful measures of progress to inform their decision-making. Drawing on a comparative case study of four continuous improvement and design methods, this study will argue that educators’ engagement with these methods is influenced by the legibility of the problems they are trying to solve, and highlight dynamics that emerge as educators seek to apply these methods to less legible aspects of schooling.

Authors

• Maxwell Yurkofsky, Radford University

• Jal David Mehta, Harvard University

• Kim Frumin, Harvard University

• Amelia Peterson, Harvard University

• James Jack, Harvard University

• Rebecca Horwitz-Willis, Harvard University