DEVELOPING AN EUROPEAN QUALITY ASSESSMENT TOOL FOR SCHOOLS

Purpose – The purpose of the research was to develop a simple self-evaluation model and tool that would be based on the preferences of improvement areas of all the stakeholder groups and that also would be possible to use in all European countries. Design/methodology/approach – The methodology starts with a survey to three school levels (primary, secondary, and vocationa) in seven EU countries, in which the opinions of important factors and their related importance are surveyed of the relevant stakeholder groups (school workers, pupil associations, parents, municipal education authorities, next higher school level, or employers). Total N of responses of stakeholder groups was 126. The relative importances are then built into a DEXi model with weightings generated from the responses, and finally a self-assessment tool that uses the DEXi structure developed for the use of the schools in their quality improvement.