Commentary: Navigating the complexity, bridging the gap: the role of school-university partnership in sustaining school improvement during the post-pandemic era

Moosung Lee (Department of Education, Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea)

Journal of Educational Administration

ISSN: 0957-8234

Article publication date: 29 November 2024

Issue publication date: 29 November 2024

121

Citation

Lee, M. (2024), "Commentary: Navigating the complexity, bridging the gap: the role of school-university partnership in sustaining school improvement during the post-pandemic era", Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 62 No. 6, pp. 716-720. https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-11-2024-292

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2024, Emerald Publishing Limited


Despite emerging research evidence on the positive role that school-university partnerships play in strengthening initial teacher education such as clinical practices, our current knowledge of school-university partnerships is still limited. In this commentary article, I delve into discussions on the research gaps in the existing literature on school-university partnerships and how the nine studies in this special issue contribute to filling the gaps with a focus on sustaining school improvement.

Existing school-university partnerships focus primarily on general clinical practice in initial teacher education to the exclusion of other types of partnering. Specifically, clinical practice partnerships are just one type of school-university partnership possible. While a few school-university partnerships are designed with a more diverse and distinct focus (e.g. University of Canberra’s partnership that focuses on co-developed action research for school improvement, in-service teachers’ professional learning, alongside pre-service teachers’ school-based clinics), existing partnership models usually fall within one of the following five categories: practicum-based partnerships, research-practice partnerships, professional development partnerships, consultancy partnerships and clinical practice partnerships (Lee et al., 2024). In other words, few school-university partnerships encompass programs that extend beyond the clinical practice focus in the context of initial teacher education.

While some of the studies in this special issue focus on pre-service teachers’ clinical practices in the context of school-university partnerships (e.g. Wu and Xu’s study), which is valuable in and of itself, other studies also present a variety of partnership forms, purposes, emphases and target groups in the collaboration between school and university. Specifically, beyond school-university partnership for pre-service teachers, several studies in the special issue explore the significant role of a school-university partnership in the professional development of practicing teachers and school leaders. Bryant, Ho, Lu and Wong’s study demonstrates how university-led development activities facilitated professional interactions among various teachers and school leaders, resulting in advancing the school improvement initiative of lesson study. In a distinctive partnership setting – i.e. teacher leadership program coordinated by a district-union-university partnership – the study conducted by Henry, VanGronigen and Wronowski reports that in-service teachers participating in the partnership bolstered their professional networks and leadership skills, which, in turn, supported long-term school improvement efforts.

These studies shed light on whether and how practicing teachers’ professional development activities within a school-university partnership context contributes to school improvement through various forms of teachers’ professional learning communities (PLCs). Over the last decade, PLCs have emerged as a vehicle for sustainable school improvement (Lee and Louis, 2019; Lee et al., 2022) in that PLCs have proven to be avenues for providing new ideas, critical feedback and multiple perspectives for teachers through deprivatized practices, reflective dialogs and opportunities to act as critical friends (Hord, 1997; Stoll and Louis, 2007). However, most PLC literature focuses primarily on school-based PLCs. The aforementioned two studies demonstrate that a school-university partnership can also serve as an avenue for the enactment of PLCs for in-service teachers’ professional development. Notably, even though some partnership models (e.g. research-practice partnership and professional development partnership) highlight the professional development of practicing teachers who are involved in a school-university partnership as a key outcome (e.g. Cavanagh and Garvey, 2012), there is a lack of research knowledge about how and why practicing teachers and school leaders further change and improve their practices through a school-university partnership. Ho et al.’s study offers some answers by demonstrating the change in professional interactions over time among participants in the partnership program.

A vast majority of existing school-university partnerships and relevant research tend to focus primarily on participants’ professional development and experience in the partnership. As a result, less is known about whether and how a school-university partnership impacts student learning outcomes, including academic achievement and well-being. In the special issue, Lowenhaupt, Hegseth, Oliveira and Lai’s study provides some insights into this research gap. This study captures how the research-practice partnership could bring together school, community and research partners to support local leadership and collaboration in enhancing youth well-being during the pandemic and beyond. As another example, Neumerski and Yurkofsky’s study indicates that the district-university partnership they investigated aimed at addressing two key district-wide issues: enhancing students’ mathematical reasoning and improving central office leaders’ understanding of both student and adult social-emotional learning. Although their study does not provide specific findings about how the partnership contributed to students’ mathematical reasoning and social-emotional learning, it shows that there is a growing focus on exploring the link between school-university partnerships and student learning outcomes.

Several studies in this special also present an extended form of school-university partnerships such as a district-university partnership and a district-union-university partnership.

Specifically, the study by Hashim, Hashim, Morton, Leak, Wright, Dizon-Ross, Stephens and Hamilton shows that district leaders were crucial in co-designing research that aligns with local needs and facilitating stakeholder participation in the district-university partnership. Similarly, Lowenhaupt et al.’s case study details the structure of the partnership, highlighting how district leaders worked together with university researchers to implement the district-university partnership program for youth well-being in an authentic way. Neumerski and Yurkofsky’s research illuminates how the district-university partnership, conceptualized as “Network Improvement Communities,” contributed to improving central office leaders’ understanding of both student and adult social-emotional learning. It is also worth noting that the partnership explored by Henry et al.’s study included the “teacher union” as a partnership member. The studies noted above commonly demonstrate the important role of district leaders in the partnerships and, conversely, how they could also benefit professionally from their engagement in the program.

In terms of theory, a potential contribution of the studies in the special issue is that they provide a plethora of conceptual ideas that are embedded or embodied through various partnership contexts: renewal model (Zheng, Shen & Reeves), frameworks of evidence (Miles et al.), elements of improvement science, contingent theory (Viano and Yurkosfsky), lens of organizational learning, network improvement communities (Neumerski and Yurkosfsky), relational agency and collective agency (Madrid et al.) and co-teaching (Wu and Xu). Similar to concepts such as “the third space,” I believe that some of these ideas can potentially be used as conceptual bricks to build towards theorizing school-university partnership in the existing literature.

Methodologically, the nine studies exhibit a range of analytical approaches, including archival data analysis, content and discourse analysis, interview data analysis, ethnographic observations, network analysis and statistical analysis. While appreciating diversity in analytical strategies, seven of the nine studies employ qualitative research, some of which are relatively small-scale case studies. While those qualitative studies are informative, there should be more explorations of school-university partnerships on a larger scale. In fact, this is a limitation not just for most of the studies in the special issue but also for existing research that often fails to capture the effects of a school-university partnership on a larger scale. This is mainly because existing research focuses on a school-university partnership implemented in only a few schools or one school district. As such, most studies of school-university partnerships in the extant research are relatively small scale, cross-sectional, qualitative studies [1]. In this regard, it is worth noting Xu and Lu’s study in this special issue. It employs quantitative survey data from 513 pre-service teachers to explore the impact of co-teaching (i.e. collaborative teaching between experienced school teachers and university instructors at university classrooms for pre-service teachers) on pre-service teachers' classroom management and professional experience. This study adds value to existing literature on school-university partnership, given its research context (i.e. China), contextualized concept (i.e. co-teaching) and relatively large sample size with quantitative investigations. At the same time, a methodological limitation in the study, like existing research, is that it is still limited in its ability to identify time-varying, causal effects within the research design (e.g. correlational studies with self-reported data and absence of multiple mediation analyses). Longitudinal approaches on a larger scale are needed to identify time-varying and causal relationships between a school-university partnership and enhanced pre-service teachers’ professional experiences and skills. Specifically, I suggest that a longitudinal study with randomized controlled trials (e.g. schools participating in a school-university partnership vs schools that do not) is much needed, given that the transferability of findings in existing studies could be limited to other contexts.

The limitation of cross-sectional investigation noted above is also applicable to most of the studies in the special issue, except two studies. Viano and Yurkofsky’s longitudinal case study explored how educators engaged with improvement science elements in the context of a school-university partnership. Ho et al. conducted a longitudinal investigation (i.e. three different time points) of the professional interactions of participants in a leadership initiative within the context of a university-led leadership initiative. This study is worth noting, given the use of social network analysis, which is a relatively less utilized method in the literature of school-university partnerships. In this regard, the study adds value to the literature. At the same time, however, future studies should consider using advanced network analysis in this field to move beyond descriptive analysis of network data measured at different time points. For example, research utilizing more advanced longitudinal network analysis such as scholastic actor-oriented modeling and temporal exponential random graph modeling is still rare in the literature of school-university partnerships.

Some of the studies in this special issue were conducted in Chile, China and Hong Kong. The international literature of school-university partnerships is dominated by Western literature, mostly studies reflecting on the contexts of the USA, the UK and Australia. In this regard, research knowledge on school-university partnerships from the geographical contexts noted above is useful for international audiences.

Finally, as highlighted in the title of the special issue, most of the studies provide implications for school improvement during the post-pandemic era, as their data were collected during the pandemic and/or right after the pandemic. For example, Viano and Yurkosfsky’s study shows how the perspectives of participants changed in the elements of improvement science were more or less effective in sustaining improvement efforts in the context of a school-university partnership during the pandemic. Another example is Lowenhaupt and colleagues' study, which illuminates how collaboration between a school district and a university co-created a cross-sector initiative designed to unite institutional and community leaders in addressing youth well-being following the COVID-19 pandemic. In short, most of the studies in the special issue touch upon issues related to the pandemic given their research contexts, which adds research knowledge for what educators can do for dealing with unique challenges imposed by an unprecedented crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic.

In conclusion, reflecting on the knowledge gaps and the contribution of the studies in the special issue, I believe that the special issue represents an advancement in the international research field of school-university partnership with a focus on school improvement. In addition, the research findings will be particularly beneficial to local education authorities, given their practical nature and features. In other words, the research findings can be used for evidence-based policymaking (e.g. Zheng et al.’s review study and Miles et al.’s case study). For example, findings from the nine studies could provide implications and suggestions for policy decision-making in terms of how school districts can best utilize their on-going school-university partnership for sustaining school improvement. Also, since most of the studies in the special issue address the scope of data collection during the pandemic, some findings can trace how schools struggled to cope with organizational fault lines and fragilities revealed by the pandemic (Leach et al., 2021) and how they have strived to build organizational resilience and improvement, which in turn signposts a pathway beyond the limits of a conventional model of school improvement during the post-pandemic period. Finally, from a broader perspective, given that the issues of declining teacher quality and increasing teacher turnover have frequently resurfaced across many countries, particularly in policy and media discourse in relation to concerns over a continuous decline in students’ academic achievement, the studies in the special issue will be valuable for policymakers intending to lay out long-term planning for educational reform through strengthening initial teacher education, in-service teachers’ professionalism and teachers’ role as agents of change, rather than imposing top-down policy measures or external accountability measures entailing substantive socio-economic costs. While the nine studies focus on schools in four societies, the research findings and outcomes of the innovative school-university partnerships can possibly serve as an empirical resource for policy transfer and dialogs internationally.

Notes

1.

There are a few exceptions—for example, RMIT University’s school-university partnership evaluation study (Kenny et al., 2014) and the University of Canberra’s school-university partnership study in Australia (Lee et al., 2024).

References

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Hord, S.M. (1997), “Professional learning communities: what are they and why are they important?”, Issues About Change, Vol. 6 No. 1, pp. 1-8.

Kenny, J.D., Hobbs, L., Herbert, S., Chittleborough, G., Campbell, C., Jones, M., Gilbert, A. and Redman, C. (2014), “Science teacher education partnerships with schools (STEPS)”, Australian Journal of Teacher Education, Vol. 39 No. 12, pp. 43-65, doi: 10.14221/ajte.2014v39n12.4.

Leach, M., MacGregor, H., Scoones, I. and Wilkinson, A. (2021), “Post-pandemic transformations”, World Development, Vol. 138, pp. 1-11.

Lee, M. and Louis, K. (2019), “Mapping a strong school culture and linking it to sustainable school improvement”, Teaching and Teacher Education, Vol. 81, pp. 84-96, doi: 10.1016/j.tate.2019.02.001.

Lee, M., Kim, J.Y., Walker, A. and Mo, Y. (2022), “A review of professional learning community (PLC) instruments”, Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 60 No. 3, pp. 262-287, doi: 10.1108/jea-03-2021-0060.

Lee, M., Hills, E., Morrissey, C., Halcrow, K., Kim, E. and Appel, M. (2024), An Evaluation Study of the Affiliated Schools Program, University of Canberra.

Stoll, L. and Louis, K.S. (Eds) (2007), Professional Learning Communities, Open University Press, Maidenhead.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Yonsei University’s research grant (2022) for a project, titled Exploring a School-University Partnership and Its Impact on Teacher Education and School Improvement.

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