School self-evaluation: a case study focused on a partnership between a university and a school

Abstract

This article focuses on the consultancy that a Research Center in the field of Education of a public Higher Education Institution (HEI) provided for two academic years to a School as part of its self-assessment, as a result of the partnership established between the two institutions . The first two authors are the researchers who were part of the partnership and the third author was, during the partnership, the Director of the School. The methodological approach is a case study, in which the case is the partnership between the two institutions that took place in the form of consultancy in the academic years 2010/11 and 2011/12. The aim of the study is to analyze the main gains, constraints and impacts that have occurred in the context of the consultancy. The study included two phases: in phase 1, which took place during the consultancy, the data were collected through document analysis, interviews and a questionnaire; in phase 2, about 5 years after the consultancy, interviews were conducted with members of the then Self-Evaluation Team. Data processing was done mainly by content analysis. The main results suggest that the partnership allowed (i) to strengthen relations between the two institutions, constituting an added value for the process of institutional self-assessment and professional growth of the partners in it and (ii) it was configured as a transfer practice knowledge and cooperation between HEI and society. The main contribution of the study is aimed at improving the quality of the school’s self-evaluation process, namely through the use of interinstitutional partnerships.