How Technology, Strategic Decision Making, and School Context Influence Principals' Use of a Data Warehouse: A Latent Class Growth Analysis

Abstract

Data-driven school leadership is more than just a popular reform mantra—external accountability pressures, private and public financial support, and principal training, certification, and evaluation policies and standards have all coalesced to create a culture where principals are expected to know how to access, analyze, and use data to make decisions. Additionally, recent changes to teacher evaluation processes and the rapid expansion of data systems has provide principals with new data and tools to inform their data-driven decision making. Little is known, however, about how these data systems are used in practice. This dissertation utilizes data from one large, urban school district to examine principals use of a Data Warehouse during an academic school year. In accordance with prior work on U.S. adults’ use of technology (Horrigan, 2007), I find that three distinct types of principal Data Warehouse users emerge during the school year—Low Users, Middle-of-the-Road Users, and High Flyers. I also find that user types are associated with principals’ experience, their use of a state-run teacher value-added website, and their school context, including school level, student achievement, and student socioeconomic background. I conclude by discussing the practical implications of these findings and outlining future work for the field.