Utilisation of SWOT Analysis for Decision-Making in Educational Contexts

Abstract

In increasingly complex educational systems, school leaders require strategic tools that integrate organisational analysis with evidence-informed decision-making. Although SWOT analysis is widely used in educational management, its application often remains superficial, episodic, and detached from continuous improvement processes. This study reconceptualises SWOT as a dynamic, contextually responsive framework. It introduces the Contextualised SWOT Model for School Units (CSM-SU), designed to strengthen strategic coherence, organisational learning, and stakeholder participation in schools. The model was developed through an integrative review of 82 studies on leadership, organisational learning, decision-making, and open-systems theory. To ensure practical relevance and conceptual clarity, a two-round Delphi study with ten experienced practitioners (principals, inspectors, academics) refined and validated the model's components. The CSM-SU positions SWOT as a four-phase strategic management cycle: (1) Engage and Diagnose with multi-source internal and external data; (2) Interpret and Prioritise organisational interactions; (3) Develop and Implement actionable plans through distributed leadership; and (4) Review, Learn, and Re-cycle insights through iterative feedback loops. The model embeds collaborative sense-making, stakeholder involvement, and trust-building as essential conditions for effective strategic management. The study advances educational management theory by reframing SWOT as a continuous mechanism for organisational learning rather than a static planning tool. The CSM-SU offers a transferable, theoretically robust, and practitioner-oriented framework suitable for diverse European school contexts.