The effect of formal team meetings on teachers’ informal data use interactions

Abstract

In recent years, the emphasis on interaction in data use has grown because of its potential to support individual teachers. However, in practice, teachers do not appear to interact widely in their use of data, either formally or informally. To gain knowledge of how sustainable data use interactions can be facilitated, this study investigated how formal data use in teams of teachers affects the teachers’ informal interactive data use. Social network analysis revealed that teachers with positive perceptions about formal data use become more active in their informal data use network, particularly within the problem diagnosis phase. Therefore, it is necessary to ensure strong connections between teachers in formal groupings in order to have an impact on their informal interactive behaviour.