Monitoring learning-oriented school education: Indicator construction and their application

Abstract

While learning-oriented education has long been a global educational reform issue, an appropriate assessment tool is still lacking. This study's purpose is twofold: first, to construct indicators for monitoring learning-oriented school education and, second, to employ these indicators to evaluate how learning-oriented education has been implemented in Taiwan. To construct the indicators, we compiled relevant literature to develop a preliminary model, then consulted experts to finalize our indicator model. For evaluation, we collected 454 valid samples from 48 schools and demonstrated how importance-performance analysis data can indicate both the strengths and weaknesses of a school's learning-oriented education as well as implications for efficient leadership in school improvement. The results suggest that an indicator system for learning-oriented school education should consist of seven dimensions and 34 indicators. Among the seven dimensions, ‘student learning’ and ‘curriculum planning and implementation’ are the most important yet underperforming dimensions that need immediate improvement.