In the presentation of results in this section, responses from both class teachers and HOD’s are treated as “teachers’ responses” for two reasons. First, these categories of respondents are also classroom teachers and second, in the Kenyan school context, the two are also referred to as teachers. Detailed results on data use by teachers can be found on Table 8.
First, the study results generally showed that the use of data by teachers was limited. Many sources of data were also not used by teachers. Instead many teachers mainly showed interest in syllabus coverage by attending their lessons and trying to improve their subject mean scores. One teacher in school 3 argues that- “I ensure that I attend my lessons and I use schemes of work to see how far I have covered the syllabus”. The same teacher continues:“When we analyze exam results, we consider the very potential students and those who are not. I then consider focusing on them to establish how much contact hours they need.” Unfortunately, beyond this there lacked evidence of genuine
improvement action that could be mentioned by the teacher. Another striking finding was that teachers did not access, read or use school inspection reports. They instead associated it more with school leaders. A teacher for instance, remarked: “school inspection reports are available, in the Principal’s office. She reads it to us and sometimes we are only told what relates to our department”. Another teacher in school 2 provides further evidence that inspection report was rarely used by teachers. The teacher reports:
“After inspection, inspectors gather everybody and tell us our strengths and weaknesses. They allow reactions and later they compile a report which is given to the principal. I think last year our HOD told us in our departmental meeting some things that were recommended in the report, but personally I do not read or use it”.
The results further show that teachers mainly used student daily attendance data, assessment results, final examination results, schemes of work, records of work covered, school programme of events and class minutes for the following purposes:
i) Supporting conversations with students and parents
All teachers reported that they mainly used assessment results, final examinations results, student daily attendance and discipline data to support conversations with parents and students. A teacher in school 1, for example, confirmed: “We have a tracking record and when an exam is done and results released, it's compared with the previous ones and we note the deviations to know which student to summon for a discussion on performance.” A second teacher in school 2 also said:” We usually create time to discuss exam data not only with weak students but also with well performing students so that we encourage them to add effort and perform even better”.
ii) Meeting accountability demands
All teachers interviewed reported keeping and using schemes of work, records of work covered, student daily attendance and student assessment results since they were required by the school administration and the quality assurance inspectors. For instance, a teacher in school 2 said:
“We are required to have schemes of work and records of work covered. The record of work covered is a record of topics covered daily based on the schemes of work. Here I have a submission of record of work book where the school leader checks the topics I have covered. So it is for managing what the teachers are doing. They have now become a routine”.
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iii) Planning Monitoring and identifying areas of need
Teachers were using student enrolment data, schemes of work and school programme of events to plan. For example, enrolment data that provides students’ population was used by examinations department to plan how many copies of examination papers to produce. On the other hand, the school programme of events helped all teachers to draw their departmental programmes and to plan on where to slot their own programs so that they do not clash with major school events. Teachers also used schemes of work to plan and monitor syllabus coverage in terms of the amount of content to cover in a term and, to prepare for resources to use in the classroom during instruction. All teachers interviewed also reported using assessment results, final examination results, and records of work covered, student daily attendance and schemes of work data to monitor and identify areas of need. A teacher in school 3 for instance said: “from assessment and final examinations analysis, it is easier to know which class is tailing or doing well so that you may know which class or topic needs re-teaching”. Teachers also use
assessment data to monitor performance of individual students. One teacher in school 1, for example, stated that, “I use assessment results to compare and check whether students are in the upward or downward trend.” On the other hand students’ daily attendances data was used by class teachers to
monitor students’ truancy and absenteeism.
iv) Instructional changes
Results indicate that teachers in the three schools studied rarely initiated instructional changes in their classrooms based on data. Instead many instructional changes in the schools either resulted from discussions in staff meetings or actions from the school leaders themselves. For instance, the increase teaching hours and testing policy were all initiatives from the school leaders and always passed in staff meetings. Another example is the use of contact cards that was also initiated by a school leader to increase supervision of weak students.
vi) Negative use of data by teachers
Strategic, misuse and abuse of data also emerged during the interview with teachers. First, misuse of data by teachers was reported in school 1. One teacher for instance, reported that some teachers had used class minutes data to victimize students who openly aired views about their poor style of teaching and did not for instance, use that information to help them change their teaching approaches. This prompted the school leader to deny teachers from accessing class minutes. Second, in school 3 teachers appeared to abuse data by using it to warn and threaten weak students to improve or be asked to repeat classes instead of putting concrete instructional measures to assist such students improve. One teacher gave an insight into this possibility by stating, “We have data on weak performers. If a student is weak we call them to discuss it and they promise to improve in the presence of the parent. If they fail to improve then we ask them to repeat the class.” Last, strategic use of inspection reports also
emerged. Teachers choose to act only on aspects of the report that pleased them while ignoring other recommendations. One teacher explains:
“We were told that the last report stressed on value addition on progress reports which we implemented. It also recommended that when teaching; students should also have text books to confirm. That one is debatable!”.
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