Enhancing Knowledge Utilization as a Strategy for School Improvement

The inability of either bottom-up or top-down strategies, by themselves, to provide suitable conditions for school improvement warrants a shift to school-focused knowledge use as a way to encourage such improvement. This study examines the influence of a large array of factors, derived from a knowledge utilization framework, on educators' use of several types of information for improvement purposes. Two hundred and thirty-three elementary school principals and 155 central board office staff members completed a survey instrument inquiring about most useful sources of information for improving curriculum and instruction in grades 4 to 6. Results provided support for categories of knowledge use factors in explaining variation in use of information for school improvement—characteristics of the source of information, characteris tics of the improvement setting, and interactive processes. These results are used to illustrate how a school-focused knowledge use perspective combines many of the strengths and avoids critical weaknesses of bottom-up and top-down strategies for change.