Leading with the Social Brain in Mind: A Mixed Methods Study that Explores the Associations Among Large Secondary Schools their Organisational Structures, Collaboration as a Strategy for School Improvement, and Cognitive Limitations for Interactions
Creators: name: Casey, Joanne
Publisher: name: University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland
Year: 2022
Subjects: school improvement
silo mentality
social brain theory
collaboration
organisational structures
Curriculum and pedagogy
Education policy, sociology and philosophy

description: School improvement, reform, innovation, transformation, and change are a continuous and never-ending staple of the current Australian educational landscape. They reflect increased accountability and competition to raise academic performance and increase the professional qualities of the education workforce. Internationally, and in Australia specifically, education research has informed policy heavily promoting collaboration as a school improvement strategy, with the aim of building teacher capability and student achievement. Consequently, secondary school leaders are charged with promoting the need for teachers to collaborate meaningfully with hundreds of students, carers, parents, and colleagues each week across the “silos” of subject departments and grade levels in their school. Social Brain Theory suggests that there are cognitive limits on the number of natural face-to-face social interactions that one can have and maintain. Relationships require significant investment in time and frequency. Additionally, sociality is much more cognitively demanding than at first thought, having unforeseen influence on improvement efforts. The number of interactions required in a collaborative environment, an individual’s likely cognitive overload and the ‘silo’ nature of the school’s organizational structure must all be considered.
description: Whilst, not new, school improvement and associated frameworks have limited shelf lives along with their related reform efforts – usually being pushed aside for the next cab off the rank. This limited durability can often mean that initiatives are not fully implemented or are abandoned mid-stream because of changes in leadership, or a lack of deep understanding or a belief in the initiative itself. Enhancing school improvement viability, requires a more realistic understanding of contextual organisational structures and the school culture in which the reform is to be implemented. At the same time, a quantitative measurement culture currently permeates research studies interrogating school improvement strategies. This can be at the expense of important insights that could be discovered through qualitative approaches to researching the topic. This mixed methods study offers an alternative and novel approach to investigating school improvement. It begins with the use of social network analysis – particularly incorporating two-mode networks – and then follows up with constructivist grounded theory. This study bridges school improvement divides that can be created when using one paradigm over another and thus contribute robustly and richly to research knowledge that can inform educational practice demonstrated to be effective in complex secondary school contexts. Analysis indicates silo mentality is promoted by school structures, the number of interactions required and frequency of interactions. Most importantly, these results highlight the impact of underestimating the social complexity required for collaborative interactions for the purpose of student improvement. Findings offer an alternative theoretical framework to support policy makers and leaders in optimising school improvement. Likewise, these findings support leaders who are required to implement continuous and meaningful collaborative interactions across and within their schools.