A Maturity Model for Assessing the Use of ICT in School Education

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Generation of report cards, registration, qualifications Follow-up of student/ teacher cases There are no reports automatically generated There are no follow-ups of cases There are no formal procedures There are informal procedures to assist in the follow-up of cases There are formal procedures There are formal procedures to follow-up There is a standardised way to generate reports All the follow-ups are done using standardised procedure All reports are using ICT and best practices All the follow-ups are done using the best practices The KDA “Vision, Strategies and Policies” must satisfy the ICTE objective of managing and conducting all “IT resources” according to the school strategy and its priorities. Its relevant “Information Criteria” are Effectiveness and Availability, and the main “IT Resources” required are Applications and Data. Its level of capability is determined by six critical variables, but we show details of the following four variables: (1) Strategy alignment with the national educational directions. (2) Principal commitment with the implementation of school initiatives. (3) Periodic communication to all involved people within the school. (4) Resource assignment commitment with the implementation of the organizational school strategy. The CLs are defined below. Within each level four assertions are presented, one for each variable related to the KDA. Level 1 “Initial”: (1) There is evidence that the school has recognized that the strategy alignment is important and needs to be addressed; however, there are neither actions nor approaches that tend to be applied. (2) There is no awareness and need for the principal to get involved early with the school initiatives. (3) There are no formal actions to communicate the school initiatives to the people in the school. (4) There is no evidence of resources specifically allocated for the ICT and education implementation. Level 3 “Defined”: (1) The ICTE Vision is well defined and it is integrated to the school strategy. There is a policy about ICT and educational strategy planning and it is well documented. (2) Principal and teachers are committed to and get involved early in the ICTE initiatives. (3) The ICTE vision, policies and strategies have been communicated to and are well understood by all personnel in the school. (4) Enough monetary resources to support ICTE initiatives have been assigned. Its allocation is included in the school’s annual budget. Level 5 “Optimised”: (1) The vision is periodically reviewed according to stakeholders’ needs and new technologies. The strategy and policies are periodically updated according to feedback from stakeholders, teachers, and educational policies. The strategy planning process is continuously compared with the international standards. (2) Principals have an explicit role assigned in the IT strategy planning process. (3) Personnel, stakeholders, and teachers are considered when the ICTE vision is developed. (4) Resources assigned to the ICTE initiatives are periodically adjusted according to a cost/benefit analysis and to stakeholders satisfaction. Validation of the ICTE—MM model The evaluation methodology associated to the ICTE-MM model establishes activities, schedules, institutions, workflows, work products, roles and responsibilities, to provide effective assessments to schools using the ICTE- MM model (Sabattin, 2009). The evaluation methodology is supported by a web tool, which supports the gathering and processing of information generated in each evaluation based on the ICTE-MM model. Table 3 shows the participants and data collection instruments used during the validation process. In order to check validity we use more than one data source to obtain information about key aspects of the model: The proposed model has been presented to instructional technology experts (2), teachers (6), administrators (5), and principals (6). These recipients represented schools of different maturity levels (according to annual ICT investment), sizes (number of students) and types (Pub: public; Sub: subsidised; Pri: private). A survey was conducted to determine the relevance of the CV included in the ICTE-MM model, and a questionnaire was administered to determine whether the model was a valid and useful tool for guiding principles in moving towards best management practices. The questionnaire 215
was sent to 19 stakeholders as shown in Table 3, and all of them (100%) answer it in less than 5 days. So, according to Margaret Sanger Center International (2009), the results are representative of the group of stakeholders to whom the questionnaire was mailed. The results show that 80% of the CVs were considered of high or very high relevance. Most remarkable is the case of the “Teachers” domain, which yielded a relevance perception of 92%. Due the current model weights of critical variables are equal, all participants (100%) agreed that future versions of the model should refine these weights. Table 3. Participants in validation process Technology experts Teachers Administrators Principals Pub Sub Pri Pub Sub Pri Pub Sub Pri Pub Sub Pri Total Number of participants 2 2 2 2 1 2 2 3 2 1 19 Data collection tools Questionnaires Interviews During interviews, we assured the principals that what they were going to say was in confidence and that the identity of speakers would not be revealed. As participants were guaranteed anonymity, we can ensure they were honest in their responses (research validity). Since there are only three interviews, all three were conducted by one experienced and trained interviewer, avoiding invalidity in comparisons of data across different interviewees. The interviewer received training about the project and his role, and he received an interview protocol to conduct the interview. The training includes evaluation objectives, review of data collection techniques, and the importance of following instructions and the application protocol. The principals (88%) stated that they agreed with the criteria for moving from one maturity level to the next. Five of the six principals found that a tool like this could be very helpful. The remaining one, a principal of a private school, did not need a tool like this because the school had hired an in-house expert for technical assistance. Pilot study of the web-support tool A pilot study conducted in a set of schools was performed during September 2009 with the following objectives: validate the model and its associated web-support tool; test the applicability of the model to schools with different characteristics; and obtain feedback from schools. A sample of six heterogeneous schools was selected in terms of type, organisational size, and degree of technological advancement. All of them are based in the Metropolitan area of Santiago, Chile. The KDA set was divided up and assigned to three different management field roles: Administrator (director of the school, not always a teacher, but sometimes with a Ph.D. in education), IT Management (head of IT unit, normally a teacher), and Teacher. Therefore, at least three teachers were required to participate in each school. A two-hour workshop was conducted to explain the web tool, a call center was available to answer questions during ten days and questions were answered by email as well. The ICTE-MM model was validated and commented on by participants in the pilot study. This pilot study was supported by a web tool that supported the gathering and processing of information generated in each evaluation. The web tool was developed in PHP, using PhpMyAdmin and MySql to run in Joomla. We created six accounts to access the web tool, and we sent usernames and passwords to each participant. The web tool is available for any school and can be periodically used to monitor improvement of capabilities and maturity levels at the website http://tice-mm.inf.santiago.usm.cl (in Spanish). An assessment is performed on a school by answering the web tool’s questions. The result is an evaluation (capabilities of each KDA and school maturity) plus a proposed capability maturity improvement roadmap. The pilot test was helpful to find out how long data collection takes: participants took ten days to answer all the questions of the web tool. They validated the model’s structure, applicability, and capability and maturity calculation scheme. 216
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A Maturity Model for Assessing the Use of ICT in School Education

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