GENESIS OF THIS CASE STUDY

Dilemma: A Planning Committee with No Plan?

• Was a central workshop, even in conjunction with regional follow-up workshops, the most effective means of assisting school administrators, Regional Participation and Equity Program (PEP) Coordinators, teachers, parents and students to understand and address 'Equity' issues more fully?

• If a central 'Equity' workshop were to be held, what should it focus on to give maximum support to regional workshops? What balance should there be between process issues and content issues?

• Who should be represented at a central 'Equity' workshop?

• What form should a central workshop take? Were keynote speakers relevant if a major objective was sharing of participants' knowledge and follow-up action by participants at a regional and local level?

• How could the divergent approaches and views of planning committee members be resolved into commonly agreed upon decisions and action?

What Involving a Sympathetic 'Outside' Observer Help Planning?

Two members of the planning committee simultaneously proposed that John Nash, then co-ordinator of Participation and Equity Program projects in Curriculum Services Branch, be approached to act as a 'critical friend' at planning meetings. The Principal Education Officer of Curriculum Services Branch agreed to a written request.

The critical friend attended his first QINSEC 'Equity' Workshop planning meeting in March 1985. He was asked to act as a process observer and to report on his observations during the meeting. Particular attention was to be paid to the planning group remaining on task and using the time available most efficiently and effectively.

The new 'observer' chose detailed note making as a strategy to record and reflect on discussion. During the note making, decisions were asterisked, and questions or clarification were added and highlighted by circling or drawing boxes around them. This technique facilitated ease of rapid questions at points during the debate when intrusion was judged to be most constructive by asking:

...'I'm not sure what you mean by'...
...'So far you seem to have decided to'...

The choice of detailed documentation was fortuitous. Planning Committee members decided that documenting the process and outcomes of meetings could have enabled more decisive planning in earlier meetings. At the same time the QINSEC Evaluation Committee was concerned to develop and disseminate information regarding strategies for formative evaluation in in-service planning.

Consequently the critical friend was asked to continue detailed documentation at all planning meetings and to write a report which would constitute a pilot study of formative evaluation.

How Did the Critical Friend's Role Develop?

The decision to invite central support agency and school divisions staff to the 'workshop' increased the numbers from around 60 to 90. Some of these staff acted as group workshop facilitators but the 'workshop' had now become a 'conference' with representatives present who were not involved in PEP initiatives at a local school level in their day to day work.

At the last pre-conference planning meeting the critical friend was asked to document not only the planning of the conference but its implementation, to write a report about the planning, implementation and evaluation and to present a final session at the conference on Applying Participation and Equity Principles to In-Service Education.

So far eight pre-conference meetings had been attended between March and May 1985. The conference was held on 26-29 May. It was proposed that the critical friend circulate amongst the workshop groups at the conference, attend six planning committee meetings at the conference and the post-conference meeting of special interest group workshop leaders who had been asked to write workshop reports.

The critical friend's role had been broadened quite extensively. Written reports now include summative as well as formative evaluation. This would require a broader data base. The brief for the final session at the conference included the elaboration of principles which had guided, or should have guided the central conference planning and their modification for the development of regional follow-up conferences. The initial task of documenting the conference in planning had now been extended to writing a case study of the conference in planning and practice with guidelines for follow-up conferences.

DATA BASE FOR THE CASE STUDY

What Manageable Data Base Would Match the New Purpose?

• The critical friend's notes from pre-conference, conference and post-conference planning meetings.

• Conference participants' evaluation questionnaire responses. The questionnaires were incorporated into the critical friend's final session address at the conference. This ensured a high response rate (86%).

• Participants' comments at debriefing sessions.

• Informal comments from participants and planning committee members at and after the conference.

• Interviews with the planning committee conducted and summarised by the Executive Officer of QINSEC (except for one interview conducted by the critical friend who also formulated the questions).

• Records of correspondence and telephone calls kept by conference organisers.

• Key issues in in-service discussed in the critical friend's address. These were related to literature in the area as well as the experience of conference planning and implementation.

• Special Interest Group Leaders' Reports.

• Keynote Speakers' Addresses at the conference.

• Students
• School Administrators
• Central Support Services Staff
• Regional PEP Co-ordinators/Consultants
• Teachers
• Parents
• Workshop Leaders
• Keynote Speakers
• Conference Facilitators
• Conference Planners
• Conference Organisers
• The Critical Friend.

This provided an information base on which follow-up regional 'Equity' conferences could be designed. Several follow-up conferences occurred in 1985. Others were planned for 1986.

The final reports were intended to be generalisable to a wide range of in-service and community development activities beyond the Equity issue. The final report was to be of use to:

• Teachers, administrators, parents and students in State and non-State primary, secondary and special schools involved in organising in-service.

• Regional office consultants involved in in-service in both State and non-State sectors.

• Regional QINSEC committees.

• Central support service staff involved in in-service in both the State and non-State sectors.

• The central QINSEC committee.

• Other in-service organisers.

PUBLICATION FORMAT FOR THE CASE STUDY

Why Consider Purpose and Audience?

The audience for this case study report was much broader than participants at the conference or those already involved intensely in the Participation and Equity Program as such. One of the major purposes of the publication was to reach a much wider audience with respect to strategies for in-service organisation and evaluation and the issue of increasing equity of outcomes for all students.

This wider audience was unlikely to read a 180 page report. Given the heavy demands on their time, they were more likely to browse through articles or booklets which seemed of interest, locate specific content of direct relevance to their work and focus of their particular needs and interests. How could the case study reports be structured and formatted so that this browsing approach to new information would be facilitated?

The QINSEC Equity Conference Planning Committee suggested a series of discrete but related booklets. The Special Interest Group Leaders' Reports and the Keynote Speakers' Addresses focussed predominately on the 'Equity' issue. It made sense to publish these separately.

The critical friend had collated the data from planning meetings and the conference participants' evaluation questionnaire responses in terms of the six key issues discussed in the final session.

These were:

• Goals
• Audience
• Sources of Knowledge
• Representation
• Implementation/Organisation
• Evaluation.

Since the booklets have only recently been distributed there has not been time to survey the effectiveness of these publishing strategies or the perceived usefulness of the reports to specific audiences.

WHAT THE CASE STUDY BOOKLETS ARE ABOUT

1. FROM PLANNING TO PRACTICE: SIX KEY ISSUES contains information on the background to the conference and its purpose, the 'critical friend's' description of planning meeting and analysis of the extent to which plans were put into practice. Six key issues in in-service planning are dealt with, and the conclusion provides some handy hints for conference organisers through a practical checklist.

2. THE CONFERENCE IN PRACTICE provides conference participants' evaluation survey responses collated in terms of six key issues in in-service education which are also the basis of the structure of booklet 1 and discussed in detail in booklet 3.

3. APPLYING PARTICIPATION AND EQUITY PRINCIPLES TO IN-SERVICE EDUCATION. This is an amended version of the 'critical friend's' address at the conference. It discusses the six key issues in in-service education chosen to structure booklets 1 and 2 of the case study evaluation in more detail. Appendix 1 provides one strategy for prioritising in-service education issues related to increasing Participation and Equity at a school, community or regional level.

   A detailed index is intended to make specific aspects of the booklets more accessible to readers. For example, if you are interested in students' responses to the evaluation survey, you can use the index to locate these quickly. If you are looking for the best methods of enabling conference participants to acquire knowledge, you can use this index to browse through the Sources of Knowledge sections in booklets 1 and 2.

4. QINSEC EQUITY CONFERENCE MAY 1985 - KEYNOTE SPEAKERS' ADDRESSES BY:
   • Clarrie Burke
   • Catherine Blakers
   • Dahle Suggett

   These addresses deal with the concept of 'Equity', the social implications of 'Equity' and the role of schooling and strategies for promoting an inclusive or democratic curriculum. In the context of other booklets they exemplify a particular approach to in-service organisation and evaluation.

5. QINSEC EQUITY CONFERENCE MAY 1985: SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP LEADERS' REPORTS The sharing of participants' knowledge and views was a major focus at the conference. The conference was largely organised around workshop groups. Booklet 5 deals with reports from conference workshops. They exemplify a particular approach to in-service organisation and evaluation.

ISSUES ARISING FROM THE CASE STUDY

For example, the planning committee focussed mainly on two general goals:

• To explore some of the substantive issues that contribute to inequitable outcomes for students; and

• To develop further initiatives to promote Equity in schools.

The rank ordering of strategies used at the conference was:

• Keynote Speakers
• Special Interest Groups
• Regional Groups
• Facilitators' Briefings
• Informal Discussions
• General Groups with Colleagues in Similar Work
• Special Interest Group Workshop Leaders
• Debriefing Sessions
• Workshop Guide Sheets
• Pre-Conference Readings.

Appropriate strategies will vary according to the purpose and audience of various in-service activities. What can be deduced from this particular case study are some of the necessary conditions upon which the strategies used depend for success.

Each group represented at the conference received high to very high ratings from all participants. The rank ordering was:

• Teachers
• PEP Co-ordinators and Consultants
• Parents
• School Administrators
• Students
• Central Support Services Staff.

Organisers section in Booklet 1 provides a check list which can be used by itself or in conjunction with the analysis of the six key issues for in-service and the detailed description of the conference in planning and practice.

Evaluation strategies most appropriate for particular activities also illuminated by the case study. The participants' questionnaire received a high response rate but some participants objected to being led through the questionnaire and others claimed that its incorporation into the final session biased responses.

A similar question can be raised regarding the role of the critical friend. Did the location of the critical friend in a central support agency influence, however subtly, the increase in non-school based participants at the conference?

Should the critical friend's role and strategies used at planning meetings have been negotiated and specified in much greater detail from the beginning? Would this have been possible? Does a more open, developing role lead to greater responsiveness to specific needs as they emerge?

AVAILABILITY OF THE FIVE BOOKLETS

Limited additional copies may be available on request from:

John Nash
Curriculum Services Branch
Department of Education
P.O. Box 33
North Quay Q 4000.

Please cite as: Nash, J. (1986). A case study of some strategies and outcomes addressing the issue of 'equity': In-service organisation and evaluation. Queensland Researcher, 2(3), 24-34. http://www.iier.org.au/qjer/qr2/nash.html