Critically analysing data

The next step within each phase of the inquiry and knowledge-building cycle is to critically analyse the data that has been gathered, making inferences about what it reveals about the strengths and needs of students and educators and about the adequacy of educators’ current theories of practice. This sense-making process is vital in the transformation of data into evidence.

Educators need some sort of analytical framework to guide them through their analysis. The framework should enable them to focus on the purpose of their interactions, to investigate how well their practice matches the values and beliefs they espouse, and to evaluate the degree to which they are achieving their intended outcomes. It should also allow educators to explore the coherence and connections between data that relates to students, to teachers, and to ISTEs.

Three steps are embedded within critical analysis of data:

1. Drawing initial inferences on the basis of our expectations

• What are our expectations for all of these students?
• Are our expectations being met by the whole group and by particular subgroups? (Subgroups could include students who belong to particular ethnic groups or who are having difficulties in a specific aspect of their learning.)
• How do our results compare to the national picture?
• Are we satisfied with these results?
• What does the data tell us about the students’ strengths and needs?
• What are our expectations for teachers/school leaders?
• What are the strengths and needs of the teachers/school leaders?
• What are our expectations of ourselves as ISTEs?
• What are our strengths and needs?
• What have we contributed to the school outcomes?

2. Asking deeper, more complex questions in order to make sense of the data

• How can we invite others into the analysis in order to include a variety of perspectives?
• What do we need to know about the educators’ content knowledge, pedagogy, and theories of practice if we are to explain the results we have? What tools will give us this information?
• What are the patterns and links we can see when we look at all of our data analyses? Do we need to disaggregate some of the data?

3. Making decisions about where to go next

• What does this information tell us about the priorities we should be setting?
• Based on these priorities, what are our targets for ourselves and the students, teachers, and school leaders?
• What do we need to learn to do to promote these targets?
• How can we align the needs of the students, teachers, and school leaders with our needs as ISTEs?
• What should we expect to notice if our changed practice is having an impact?

The text below describes two approaches that educators find useful when critically analysing and learning from data:

• using a framework to analyse practice;
• adopting the Model I – Model II framework.

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