Information Use in Secondary Schools: A Case Study of the Development of a Comprehensive Information System

CSE Staff and School Site Personnel collaborated in an attempt to build an on-going, comprehensive, school-based information system useful in instructional decision making and general school renewal. The project was conducted at a suburban senior high school over an 18-month period. The information-system idea interacted with three types of contextual factors: the school’s social organization, teachers’ thinking and reasoning about information, and leadership and support. While faculty opinion was divided as to the usefulness of a school-based information system (citing irrelevance of building-level data to ongoing classroom teaching and individual diagnostic information needs, as well as possible abuses such as biasing teacher attitudes) , teachers’ positive reactions seemed to center on the Student-At-A-Glance and Class-At-A-Glance data report forms. Without settings for use beyond the individual teacher in a self-contained classroom and without the principal’s commitment, there seemed little likelihood of further development of the system at this school. However, information gathered during the reality test was used at both the classroom and building levels.