THE IMPORTANCE OF SCHOOL QUALITY ASSURANCE TEAMS IN THE SELF-EVALUATION PROCESS

Quality assurance is one of the key educational issues. The process of self-evaluation is one of the most important tools to ensure and promote quality in education. The National Centre for External Evaluation of Education is implementing the self-evaluation process in educational institutions at national level since 2006. The main objective of the self-evaluation project is a systematic and continuous monitoring and improvement of the quality of educational institutions. At the institutional level the main organisational structure is the school quality assurance team. The aim of this paper is to determine the organizational structure of the school quality assurance team and key team performance indicators. In present research we analysed a total of 634 school quality assurance teams. Data was obtained through school self-evaluation reports from a total of 653 elementary schools that were included in the self-evaluation process since 2009. The sample contained a total of 594 school principals, 622 expert assistants, 619 lower grade teachers, 615 higher grade teachers, 74 parents, 40 students and 53 members from local authorities. Team heterogeneity (function-number ratio per team; 0=homogeneity, 1=heterogeneity) varied from 0,16 to 1. Team size varied from 2 to 25 members. Approximately 93% of school teams had a school principal as an active member. In 57,37% of schools the team leader was the school principal, in 33,4% an expert assistant, in 3,96% a lower grade teacher and 5,07% a higher grade teacher. Frequency of team meetings during the self-evaluation varied from one to twenty with the mean of 5,59 (SD=2,25). Team perception of task difficulty varied from 1 to 5 with the mean of 3,84 (SD=0,84). Team satisfaction with completion of the self-evaluation process varied from 2 to 5 with the mean of 4,18 (SD=0,64). The perceived contribution of the self-evaluation process for the improvement of school quality assurance in general varied from 1 to 5 with the mean of 3.91 (SD=0,71). The results indicate a statistically significant positive correlation regarding to team size, frequency of team meetings, functional team heterogeneity, team perception of task difficulty, team satisfaction with completion of the self-evaluation process and perceived contribution of the self-evaluation process to the improvement of school quality assurance in general.
These findings help us draw important practical conclusions about school quality assurance teams and its structures. These findings could be used as guidelines for improvement of team performance and for improving the self-evaluation process and school quality in general.