Discusión de los resultados de paso de escala

There are a number of reasons why I have chosen to use a case study approach to address these questions. Not least among them is the fact that, as Otley and Berry (1994) point out, circumstances sometimes give a researcher an opportunity where access is given to examine a particular phenomenon, and I found myself in this fortunate position. Moreover, I was able to examine the phenomenon of head teachers’ emotional journeys in a particular context, namely the specific context of failure in Ofsted, and the broader context of the accountability culture. This meets one of Yin’s

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(1994) key characteristics of case study research, namely that it aims not only to explore certain phenomena, but to understand them within a certain context.

I have used Bassey’s (1999) definition of Case study:

An educational case study is an empirical enquiry which is:

 conducted within a localised boundary of space and time (ie a singularity),

 into interesting aspects of an educational activity, or programme, or institution, or system,

 mainly in its natural context and within an ethic of respect for persons,

 in order to inform the judgements and decisions of practitioners or policy makers or of theoreticians who are working to these ends, and

 such that sufficient data are collected for the researcher to be able:

a) to explore significant features of the case,

b) to create plausible interpretations of what is found, c) to test for the trustworthiness of these interpretations, d) to construct a worthwhile argument or story,

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e) to relate the argument or story to any relevant research in the literature,

f) to convey convincingly to an audience this argument or story, and g) to provide an audit trail by which other researchers may validate or challenge the findings, or construct alternative arguments.

(Bassey, 1999, p22)

It is particularly suited to satisfy ‘the desire to comprehend social phenomena in both their complexity and ‘natural’ context.’ (Miller and Brewer, 2003, or when ‘the focus is on a contemporary phenomenon within a real life context’ (Burns, 2000).

Yin (2004) defines case study as ‘an empirical enquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident….’ However, it will have the ‘singularity’ that Bassey refers to, described by Burns (2000) as a ‘bounded system’, and will usually focus on a location and a defined period of time.

In selecting a case study approach, it is important to consider aspects that are potentially problematic. Firstly, the charge can be made that case study is a term that has insufficiently clarity to be useful, and covers a broad range of research practice, a ‘catch-all category’ (Burns, 2000). Secondly,

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the case study researcher has to establish that their methods and findings have rigour and credibility. As Burns points out, ‘case study accounts can be decried as subjective, biased, impressionistic, and lacking in precision. There are dangers in ‘going native’ and thereby losing perspective.’ (Burns, 2000, p477). I felt particularly wary of this charge given that my professional history has placed me as an actor in similar situations on a number of occasions, from a number of different perspectives.

A third issue is the extent to which the outcomes of case studies are generalizable. Miller and Brewer (2003) write that ‘one case study provides an observation that can be generalised to a general theory’, but Bryman (2004) raises the question:

How can a single case possibly be representative so that it might yield findings that can be applied more generally to other cases? The answer, of course, is that they cannot. It is important to appreciate that case study researchers do not delude themselves that it is possible to identify typical cases that can be used to represent a certain class of objects… (Bryman, 2004, p70)

Case Study can be seen as an organic process that develops as the researcher defines and refines the initial research question or hypothesis, analyses the evidence and refocuses the research. This refining, and

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readjusting process continues throughout the research, representing, in the words of Bassey (1999) an ‘iterative process’.

Yin (2004) identifies this interaction between data collection, data analysis and ongoing research design as the aspect of case study which provides for ‘huge differences’ from other research methods, and it is in this that perhaps the greatest strength of case study research lies, giving the flexibility to cope with, and respond to, the unexpected results that are thrown up by complex situations. Stake (1995) acknowledges the place of the central research question, but because the boundaries of the research are set by the boundaries of the case rather than the question, new issues can emerge and be incorporated and explored, and the question can be reframed or a new question be set.

The triangulation that is provided by the use of multiple sources of evidence is also important when issues of validity and reliability are considered, to the point where the use of a range of evidence is, by definition, part of case study. As Burns (2000) writes: ‘It is a poor study that uses only one source of evidence…. The use of multiple sources is the major strength of the case study approach.’ In my research, despite the fact that the head teachers clearly provided the dominant voice, the evidence from Inspection reports and other external data about the schools provided an essential backdrop to the main interviews with the head teachers.

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The case study provides the ideal opportunity for Geertz’s (1988) ‘thick description’, a description of a human behaviour that explains not just the behaviour, but its context as well, such that the behaviour becomes meaningful to an outsider. There is an opportunity, indeed an expectation, that a case study researcher will provide a rich, detailed account of the case, and present it in such a way that the reader can understand the way that the actors interact with the context and one another, and can therefore make their own judgements about the relevance of the study to other settings, i.e. its generalisability.

Case studies strive towards a ‘holistic understanding of cultural systems in action’ and the research is usually presented in order to reflect this, with an emphasis on narrative, chronological accounts, often with an autobiographical element. This provides a greater opportunity for ‘thick description’ as the researcher has a greater element of freedom in some respects. As Yin (2004) writes: ‘…because the report does not have to follow any particular form, the opportunity to compose case studies can be more exciting and call on greater creativity than reporting about research that has been based on most other methods.’

Miller and Brewer (2003) point out that ‘It is at the point of determining the criteria for judging the success of the case study analysis that the case study method encounters most criticism’. It is certainly true that the

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outcome is unlikely to be a clear-cut conclusion that brooks no further argument, but this is not, of course, the purpose of case study. Rather it is likely to be a ‘rich descriptive real-life holistic account … that offers insights and illuminates meanings which may in turn become tentative hypotheses for further research, possibly in a more quantitative mode.’ (Miller and Brewer, 2003)

To return to Yin’s (2004) purposes, the completed case study will either describe, explain or illuminate, or some combination of the three, in such a way as to be of some further use, and allow the reader to make their own interpretation:

You need to present the evidence in your case study with sufficient clarity to allow the reader to judge independently your interpretation of the data.. (Yin, 2004, p16)

Linked to the issue of interpretation bias is the issue of generalization, as Yin cautions: ‘One of the most common misconceptions for you to overcome is believing that case studies are to represent a formal “sample” from some larger universe,’ (Yin, 2004). However, Gomm, Hammersley and Foster (2000) recognize the need for an element of common-sense reasoning to bring about ‘naturalistic generalization’.

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Finally, case study research can give the opportunity to deal with issues of great complexity, by incorporating a wide range of evidence, without allegiance to any strict methodological paradigm, and examining it in great detail. Burgess (1984) identified the fact that case studies can emphasize ‘the importance of the circumstantial and irrational alongside the logical and systematic, and portray the disorderly relationship between theory and method.’

In short, the case study is not designed to produce neat answers, because it is employed in a complex situation where neat answers do not exist, rather it provides illumination for the observer and the reader to enable their understanding to grow. This was the challenge facing me in my research. I will return to how I have addressed some of these issues in section 3.6 – Trustworthiness.

3.4 The Cases

The four head teachers in my study all found themselves leading schools that received a Category 4 judgement from Ofsted – Inadequate. Three of the schools were given a Notice to Improve, and the other was placed in Special Measures.

There were some similarities in the career patterns of all four heads in the case studies. Despite coming to headship from a range of experiences,

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none had developed their ambition for headship from an early stage, and all had almost stumbled into it as a result of their promotion through a variety of increasingly senior roles. Even when headship had been recognised as a possibility, it had not been a major aspect of their preferred professional identity, defined as ‘an amalgam of personal biography, culture, social influence, and institutional values, which may change according to role and circumstance.’ (Day, 2004, p46). For example, of the four, the one who had developed their ambition for Headship at the earliest point in their career had come to an agreement with their spouse that the first one to achieve headship would be supported by the other, so had embraced the possibility that it might not be their destiny. In the early part of their careers, none of them saw themselves explicitly as future heads and their professional identity was not predicated upon their eventual accession to headship.

All the head teachers in the case studies identified reasons why their school had failed the Inspection. However, prior to the Inspection the negative judgement had not been fully expected, and in two of the four cases, the outcome came as a surprise. In discussing the reasons for failure, they all pointed to key events during the Inspection, most of which were beyond their immediate control – senior members of staff delivering inadequate lessons, administrative staff making ‘Safeguarding’ errors etc.

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In the months and years following the inspection, although there were inevitable differences between the experiences of the schools and the head teachers, the events surrounding the inspection and its aftermath continued to exert an influence.

One of the Head teachers is no longer working in education – he remained at the school for almost three years following the inspection and led it through a series of monitoring visits, receiving a mixed set of reports, including another full inspection at which the school was formally taken out of special measures, and given a judgement of satisfactory (Grade 3). Despite the improvement, it was clear that concerns remained, particularly around the quality of leadership. At the next full inspection almost two years later, the school remained in category 3, now defined as Requiring Improvement. He retired almost immediately following that inspection and an interim Head is now in place. It was not possible to contact him to arrange a follow up interview.

Two of the heads were still in post in the same schools. One school received a judgement of Good at the next inspection, a significant (and unusual) leap forward. The Head in this school was the most experienced and well-established of all the Heads, and was the one who disagreed most vehemently with the picture that the inspection outcome painted of her school, despite accepting that the inspectors had technically applied the

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framework correctly. From the beginning, she felt that the school remained a good school that had fallen foul of one aspect of Ofsted policy, and remained adamant that the fundamental course of the school was unchanged by the inspection. However, the ramifications of the inspection for herself, the school community as a whole and for some individual members of staff were significant, and led to a period of turmoil and considerable upheaval.

The other head who remained in post has also received a judgement of ‘Good’, although this followed a period during which the school was judged to be requiring improvement, reflecting a steady improvement over time. As the least experienced of the case study heads, she was also the one who most clearly recognized the picture of the school in the report, and accepted the inadequacies it exposed. She appeared to have undergone the most significant change, and identified the most profound effects of the process. The school is now in a strong position and stakeholders are very willing to acknowledge the changes that she has brought about.

The final head in the case study schools had also overseen the journey from Ofsted Inadequate to Satisfactory, and left shortly afterwards for another headship post in a newly-opened, much smaller school in a different area of the country. Her new school was judged to be Good in its first inspection. Her former school was also judged to be Good in December

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2013. Her experience of leading a school through Ofsted ‘failure’ and out the other side (so to speak) appeared to have been a profoundly unpleasant and unsatisfying one, although she was able to recognize the purpose and broad impact of the experience.