Post-primary teachers’ perspectives on school inspections and their consequences in Northern Ireland

Abstract

Most education systems have an inspection process. Recently, there has been a move to introduce an element of self-evaluation into school inspections.

The aim of this study was to acquire an insight into the effects of school inspections in Northern Ireland as there has been limited recent evidence of research in this area since the study conducted by Gray and Gardner (1999) in the pre-self-evaluation era, which revealed that inspections have significant emotional effects on teachers. The current research also sought to investigate the potential moderating influence of self-evaluation on the emotional consequences of inspections for teaching staff.

The findings furnished information regarding teachers’ understanding of the inspection process and how it impacts them. The theoretical framework was formulated using extant literature on school inspections and incorporated the dominant effects and factors influencing them.

The research design and methodology involved qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis. The results of the online survey garnered the perspectives of post-primary teaching staff on the effects and side-effects of school inspections and the factors which influenced their viewpoints. Data was also collected from semi-structured interviews with principals to determine their conceptualisations of the inspection process and the effects of school inspections. A thematic analysis of feedback from purposively selected focus group participants regarding teachers’ perceptions of school inspections was also presented.

The conclusions indicated there have been significant changes to school inspection in Northern Ireland, with a greater emphasis now being placed on self-evaluation. The emotional effect of inspection was revealed to be the foremost aspect dominating teachers’ perceptions of the process. Therefore, it could be surmised that self-evaluation does not appear to have lessened the emotional fall-out. Accordingly, recommendations are proffered for possible reforms to inspections to reduce their emotional consequences for teaching staff, while also holding schools to account.

Thesis is embargoed until 31 December 2025.

Date of Award	Dec 2022
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Queen's University Belfast
Supervisor	Ian Cantley (Supervisor) & Caitlin Donnelly (Supervisor)