| Abstract: | School-based management (SBM) is considered one element in the educational reform movement. Schools are implementing the SBM process in an effort to empower the teachers and other stakeholders in the school system. The limited evaluation instruments available today emphasize the structure of SBM without considering the interactions of the people involved. The interactions of the principal and other stakeholders are an essential part of the process empowerment. In this study, the researcher developed an evaluation instrument of critical incidents focused on the interactions of the stakeholders to assess the behaviors of the principal which are necessary for empowerment. The theoretical basis for the assessment was Argyris and Schon's Theory of Professional Practice with its components: espoused theory and theory-in-use. The principal's interactions were assessed to what degree they exhibited behaviors according to Argyris and Schon's Model I or Model II theory-in-use. This study consisted of four phases. Phase I is the collection and analysis of principals' "espoused theories" and teachers' "theories-in-use." Phase II is the collection and analysis of data from field observations of three selected schools and writing of case studies. Phase m is the collection and analysis of data from campus improvement plans. Phase IV is a combination of data sources and the final analysis. If, the relationship and communication process described by Argyris and Schon's Model II are crucial in the implementation of school-based management, then it would be useful to have instrumentation for identifying whether Argyris and Schon's Model II prevails at a school. The findings of this study revealed: 1. The currently used Campus Improvement Plan is not a useful instrument because it is bound by the governing variable of Model I. 2. The instrument prepared for the study, using responses to critical incidents, provides pictures of espoused theory and theory-in-use that may better describe the dominance of Model I or Model II in a school. 3. Site visits, looking at interactions and artifacts of human behavior, can also confirm or disconfirm the predominance of Model I or Model II relationships. |
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