Melanie C M Ehren
Biographic Data
| ID | 1549487 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Melanie C M Ehren |
| GIVEN NAMES | Melanie C M |
| FAMILY NAME | Ehren |
| SIGNATURE | EHREN M C M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8159-7675 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 35 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
School and student characteristics related to primary and secondary school students’ social–emotional functioning
Introduction A healthy social–emotional functioning is vital for students’ general development and wellbeing. The school environment is a major determinant of social–emotional functioning, yet little is known about school-level and student-level characteristics related to healthy social–emotional functioning. In this study, we examined school-level characteristics (school size, school disadvantage score, urbanization level, and school denominatio…
The multilevel context of teacher accountability
How do teachers interpret and act on external accountability and how are these interpretations influenced by the school, community and system context in which they work? We explore this question through interviews with teachers in eight South African primary schools, divided equally between affluent, high-performing schools and deprived, low-performing schools. Some teachers adopt an agentic, professional orientation, while others follow a compli…
Global governance of education
Factors contributing to and detracting from relational trust in leadership
Trust in leadership is a key element in organizational effectiveness and the foundations of a successful school. However, this element of leadership is underexplored in terms of empirical work, concomitantly, distrusting school cultures have been identified as inhibitors of school improvement. This paper explores trust in leadership through a relationship-based perspective of trust, taking by taking the case of eight primary schools, in South Afr…
Trust in standardised assessments
Standardised assessments play an important role in many education systems. They inform decisions about progression, certification, qualification and graduation of students and provide or withhold opportunities for those who take these tests. Assessments are standardised when items, tasks or questions are the same for all test takers; are administered under similar conditions; and where editing, scoring and interpretation of results are applied in…
A conceptual framework for trust in standardised assessments
This article presents a conceptual framework for trust in standardised assessments. Standardised assessments play an important role in many education systems as they inform decisions about students' future schooling career or entry to the labour market. Also, standardised assessments are often used for teacher performance reviews and school accountability, or to monitor learning outcomes on the national level. Various stakeholders rely on the acc…
High and low performing schools in South Africa
TEST 02 - Elsevier's Scopus, the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature. Search and access research from the science, technology, medicine, social sciences and arts and humanities fields
Leading mandated network formation in Chile’s new public education system
The public education system in Chile was reformed in 2017, introducing networking as a principle for governing and improving schools. Between 2018 and 2025, 70 Local Public Education Services (SLE) will replace 345 municipalities as the intermediate level of the new system. SLEs are mandated to lead the formation of networks to support the improvement of schools. This paper presents a qualitative case study exploring how professionals from one SL…
School inspections in low- and middle-income countries
Many efforts to implement and improve school inspections have been modelled on examples from high-income countries, and many studies on the effectiveness of such systems have also only been carried out in these countries. However, local contexts in low- and middle-income countries are very different from those in developed countries, and findings about the effectiveness of school inspections from Western studies are therefore not easily transfera…
Mechanisms of Change in Dutch Inspected Schools
In many countries the need for education systems and schools to improve and innovate has become central to the education policy of governments. School inspections are expected to play an important role in promoting such continuous improvement and to help schools and education systems more generally to consider the need for change and improvement. This article aims to enhance our understanding of the connections between school inspections and thei…
From inspection to quality
Comparing effects and side effects of different school inspection systems across Europe
In this article, different inspection models are compared in terms of their impact on school improvement and the mechanisms each of these models generates to have such an impact. Our theoretical framework was drawn from the programme theories of six countries’ school inspection systems (i.e. the Netherlands, England, Sweden, Ireland, the province of Styria in Austria and the Czech Republic). We describe how inspection models differ in the schedul…
Risk-based school inspections in the Netherlands
The Relationships Between School Inspections, School Characteristics and School Improvement
The effects of school inspections on school improvement have been investigated only to a limited degree. The investigation reported on in this article is meant to expand our knowledge base regarding the impact of school inspections on school improvement. The theoretical framework for this research is partly based on the policy theory behind the Dutch Educational School Supervision Act (the latter includes assumptions about how school inspections …
Towards a Theory on the Impact of School Inspections
This article describes a theory about the ambition of most Inspectorates to realise ‘school improvement through inspection’. Literature about a number of direct and indirect interventions, such as reciprocity, communication and feedback is used to build a theoretical model stating the relations between working methods of school inspectors, reactions of schools and resulting effects and side effects. Finally two types of inspections strategies are…
On the Impact of the Dutch Educational Supervision Act
This article uses a policy scientific approach to reconstruct assumptions underlying the Dutch Educational Supervision Act. We show an example of how to reconstruct and evaluate a program theory that is based on legislation of inspection. The assumptions explain how inspection leads to school improvement. Evaluation of these assumptions is used to predict the (in)effectiveness of this legislation. The article concludes by discussing the advantage…
Comparing effects and side effects of different school inspection systems across Europe
In this article, different inspection models are compared in terms of their impact on school improvement and the mechanisms each of these models generates to have such an impact. Our theoretical framework was drawn from the programme theories of six countries’ school inspection systems (i.e. the Netherlands, England, Sweden, Ireland, the province of Styria in Austria and the Czech Republic). We describe how inspection models differ in the schedul…
On the Impact of the Dutch Educational Supervision Act
This article uses a policy scientific approach to reconstruct assumptions underlying the Dutch Educational Supervision Act. We show an example of how to reconstruct and evaluate a program theory that is based on legislation of inspection. The assumptions explain how inspection leads to school improvement. Evaluation of these assumptions is used to predict the (in)effectiveness of this legislation. The article concludes by discussing the advantage…
Towards a Theory on the Impact of School Inspections
This article describes a theory about the ambition of most Inspectorates to realise ‘school improvement through inspection’. Literature about a number of direct and indirect interventions, such as reciprocity, communication and feedback is used to build a theoretical model stating the relations between working methods of school inspectors, reactions of schools and resulting effects and side effects. Finally two types of inspections strategies are…
The Relationships Between School Inspections, School Characteristics and School Improvement
The effects of school inspections on school improvement have been investigated only to a limited degree. The investigation reported on in this article is meant to expand our knowledge base regarding the impact of school inspections on school improvement. The theoretical framework for this research is partly based on the policy theory behind the Dutch Educational School Supervision Act (the latter includes assumptions about how school inspections …
Global governance of education
School inspections in low- and middle-income countries
Many efforts to implement and improve school inspections have been modelled on examples from high-income countries, and many studies on the effectiveness of such systems have also only been carried out in these countries. However, local contexts in low- and middle-income countries are very different from those in developed countries, and findings about the effectiveness of school inspections from Western studies are therefore not easily transfera…
On the Impact of the Dutch Educational Supervision Act
This article uses a policy scientific approach to reconstruct assumptions underlying the Dutch Educational Supervision Act. We show an example of how to reconstruct and evaluate a program theory that is based on legislation of inspection. The assumptions explain how inspection leads to school improvement. Evaluation of these assumptions is used to predict the (in)effectiveness of this legislation. The article concludes by discussing the advantage…
Towards a Theory on the Impact of School Inspections
This article describes a theory about the ambition of most Inspectorates to realise ‘school improvement through inspection’. Literature about a number of direct and indirect interventions, such as reciprocity, communication and feedback is used to build a theoretical model stating the relations between working methods of school inspectors, reactions of schools and resulting effects and side effects. Finally two types of inspections strategies are…
The Relationships Between School Inspections, School Characteristics and School Improvement
The effects of school inspections on school improvement have been investigated only to a limited degree. The investigation reported on in this article is meant to expand our knowledge base regarding the impact of school inspections on school improvement. The theoretical framework for this research is partly based on the policy theory behind the Dutch Educational School Supervision Act (the latter includes assumptions about how school inspections …
Risk-based school inspections in the Netherlands
From inspection to quality
Comparing effects and side effects of different school inspection systems across Europe
In this article, different inspection models are compared in terms of their impact on school improvement and the mechanisms each of these models generates to have such an impact. Our theoretical framework was drawn from the programme theories of six countries’ school inspection systems (i.e. the Netherlands, England, Sweden, Ireland, the province of Styria in Austria and the Czech Republic). We describe how inspection models differ in the schedul…
School inspections in low- and middle-income countries
Many efforts to implement and improve school inspections have been modelled on examples from high-income countries, and many studies on the effectiveness of such systems have also only been carried out in these countries. However, local contexts in low- and middle-income countries are very different from those in developed countries, and findings about the effectiveness of school inspections from Western studies are therefore not easily transfera…
Mechanisms of Change in Dutch Inspected Schools
In many countries the need for education systems and schools to improve and innovate has become central to the education policy of governments. School inspections are expected to play an important role in promoting such continuous improvement and to help schools and education systems more generally to consider the need for change and improvement. This article aims to enhance our understanding of the connections between school inspections and thei…
Leading mandated network formation in Chile’s new public education system
The public education system in Chile was reformed in 2017, introducing networking as a principle for governing and improving schools. Between 2018 and 2025, 70 Local Public Education Services (SLE) will replace 345 municipalities as the intermediate level of the new system. SLEs are mandated to lead the formation of networks to support the improvement of schools. This paper presents a qualitative case study exploring how professionals from one SL…
High and low performing schools in South Africa
TEST 02 - Elsevier's Scopus, the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature. Search and access research from the science, technology, medicine, social sciences and arts and humanities fields
Factors contributing to and detracting from relational trust in leadership
Trust in leadership is a key element in organizational effectiveness and the foundations of a successful school. However, this element of leadership is underexplored in terms of empirical work, concomitantly, distrusting school cultures have been identified as inhibitors of school improvement. This paper explores trust in leadership through a relationship-based perspective of trust, taking by taking the case of eight primary schools, in South Afr…
Trust in standardised assessments
Standardised assessments play an important role in many education systems. They inform decisions about progression, certification, qualification and graduation of students and provide or withhold opportunities for those who take these tests. Assessments are standardised when items, tasks or questions are the same for all test takers; are administered under similar conditions; and where editing, scoring and interpretation of results are applied in…
A conceptual framework for trust in standardised assessments
This article presents a conceptual framework for trust in standardised assessments. Standardised assessments play an important role in many education systems as they inform decisions about students' future schooling career or entry to the labour market. Also, standardised assessments are often used for teacher performance reviews and school accountability, or to monitor learning outcomes on the national level. Various stakeholders rely on the acc…
Global governance of education
School and student characteristics related to primary and secondary school students’ social–emotional functioning
Introduction A healthy social–emotional functioning is vital for students’ general development and wellbeing. The school environment is a major determinant of social–emotional functioning, yet little is known about school-level and student-level characteristics related to healthy social–emotional functioning. In this study, we examined school-level characteristics (school size, school disadvantage score, urbanization level, and school denominatio…
The multilevel context of teacher accountability
How do teachers interpret and act on external accountability and how are these interpretations influenced by the school, community and system context in which they work? We explore this question through interviews with teachers in eight South African primary schools, divided equally between affluent, high-performing schools and deprived, low-performing schools. Some teachers adopt an agentic, professional orientation, while others follow a compli…
Educational Assessment and Improvement (11 works) · Political science (11 works) · Psychology (11 works) · Computer Science (10 works) · Evaluation and Performance Assessment (9 works) · Business (7 works) · Pedagogy (7 works) · Public relations (6 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Mathematics education (5 works)