Improving School Effectiveness: Policy and Research in Scotland

In troduction In September 1993, the Scottish Office Education Department (SOED) announced its intention to commission a major programme of research in school effectiveness and school improvement.The specification and supporting papers for this pro gramme were the outcome of a process of discussion and reflection within the Department which had involved not only policy divisions, research staff and Her Majesty's Inspectorate (HMI) but also prominent members of the research commu nity.As a government department, SOED was keen to promote a research pro gramme with a tangible pay-off for policy-making and for practice in schools; it recognised too that it was entering a burgeoning field of research where there were opportunities to contribute to the development of research knowledge and ap proaches to the benefit of the wider educational community.The purpose of this paper is to describe the processes which led to the formulation of the research which has now been commissioned, to discuss the rationale of the programme, and to reflect upon the interplay between government policy, professional practice and research which can be achieved in the Scottish context. The Research ContextThe importance and complexity of research in the school effectiveness and school improvement fields was recognised by SOED in setting its research priorities in 1992.In the period November 1992 to March 1993, through its Research and Intelligence Unit (RIU), SOED commissioned a series of seminars each led by prominent researchers in these fields.