RETA: Chicago School Staff Social Network Questionnaire Qualitative Interviews, 2006 (ICPSR 33582)

Version Date: Jan 11, 2013

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Principal Investigator(s):
James Spillane, Northwestern University; Penelope Peterson, Northwestern University; Miriam Sherin, Northwestern University; Stephen Fisher, Northwestern University; Spyridon Konstantopoulos, Northwestern University

Series:

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR33582.v1

Version V1

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Alternate Title

SSSNQ 2006, RETA 2006

Summary

The Chicago School Staff Social Network Questionnaire Qualitative Interviews, 2006, is a part of the RETA: Distributed Leadership for Middle School Mathematics Education: Content Area Leadership Expertise in Practice study. The goal of RETA was to design and validate a series of research instruments to identify leadership for mathematics instruction in middle schools and for documenting instructional leadership practice. Adopting a distributed perspective on leadership, this work focused on both formally designated and informal leaders and their leadership routines. The objective was to develop valid and reliable instruments that make the day-to-day practice of school leadership for mathematics instruction more transparent, as well as measure changes in this practice over time. This project utilized Social Network Surveys, Experience Sampling Methods (ESM), and Daily Practice Logs. To validate these instruments, a combination of shadowing, end of day cognitive interviews, and semi-structured interviews was used. These instruments were used to describe and analyze when and how teachers and other educators solicit or provide instructional advice and the degree to which these resources influence their work.

In order to validate the survey, qualitative interviews were conducted with a subset of teachers at 6 of these 22 schools in early Spring 2006. A purposeful sample of schools was selected to maximize variation so that the sample included two public schools (an elementary and a middle school), two Catholic schools, and two charter schools. The interviewees were selected based on an analysis of the SSSNQ data. Using a purposeful sampling strategy, the following were selected in each school: formal leaders (i.e., Principal, Assistant Principal, Math Specialist, Literacy Specialist), informal leaders (i.e., two teachers who were not formally designated leaders but had more people go to them for math advice relative to other people in their school), and followers (i.e., two to four teachers who were not formal or informal leaders). Interviews with 49 staff members focused mainly on their advice-seeking practices around mathematics instruction. Using a semi-structured protocol, researchers asked interviewees about their advice or knowledge seeking related to mathematics instruction and their views of leadership and change efforts underway at the school.

Citation

Spillane, James, Peterson, Penelope, Sherin, Miriam, Fisher, Stephen, and Konstantopoulos, Spyridon. RETA: Chicago School Staff Social Network Questionnaire Qualitative Interviews, 2006. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2013-01-11. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR33582.v1

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Funding

National Science Foundation (NSF#412510)

Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

Smallest Geographic Unit

city

Restrictions

This data collection may not be used for any purpose other than statistical reporting and analysis. Use of these data to learn the identity of any person or establishment is prohibited. Data must not be linked to the schools.

Restricted Use Files: To protect respondent privacy, the data are restricted from general dissemination. Users interested in obtaining these data must complete an Agreement for the Use of Confidential Data, specify the reasons for the request, and obtain IRB approval or notice of exemption for their research. Apply for access to these data through the ICPSR restricted data contract portal, which can be accessed via the study home page.

Distributor(s)

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
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Time Period(s)

2006

Data Collection Notes

  1. The pseudonyms (two-letter codes) for interview participants used in this study can be linked to the variable "pseudoname" from the Chicago School Staff Social Network Questionnaire Longitudinal Study, 2005-2008 (ICPSR 32921).

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Study Purpose

The program of research and development addresses three main goals:

  • To describe and analyze content leadership practices for middle school mathematics instruction and generate empirical evidence concerning which of these practices enables improvement in mathematics teaching and learning.
  • To describe the dimensions of knowledge for content leadership in mathematics at the middle school level and design, pilot, and validate these instruments for measuring content leadership knowledge.
  • To generate more robust empirical evidence about whether and how content leadership knowledge can be learned through both formal learning opportunities (e.g., MSPs, Institute Partnerships) and informal on-the-job learning.

Sample

A purposeful sample of schools was selected from the Chicago School Staff Social Network Questionnaire, 2005-2006 to maximize variation so that the sample included two public schools (an elementary and a middle school), two Catholic schools, and two charter schools. Interviewees were selected based on the analysis of the SSSNQ data. Using a purposeful sampling strategy the following were selected in each school: formal leaders (i.e., Principal, Assistant Principal, Math Specialist, Literacy Specialist), informal leaders (i.e., two teachers who were not formally designated leaders but had more people go to them for math advice relative to other people in their school), and followers (i.e., two to four teachers who were not formal or informal leaders). Forty-nine staff members were interviewed across the six schools.

Time Method

Cross-sectional

Universe

School teachers and leaders in one large urban midwestern school district who participated in the Chicago School Staff Social Network Questionnaire Longitudinal Study, 2005-2006 (ICPSR 32921).

Unit(s) of Observation

individual

Data Type(s)

Mode of Data Collection

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Original Release Date

2012-08-31

Version History

2018-02-15 The citation of this study may have changed due to the new version control system that has been implemented. The previous citation was:

  • Spillane, James, Penelope Peterson, Miriam Sherin, Stephen Fisher, and Spyridon Konstantopoulos. RETA: Chicago School Staff Social Network Questionnaire Qualitative Interviews, 2006. ICPSR33582-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2012-08-31. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR33582.v1

2013-01-11 Document covers have been updated.

2012-12-21 Document covers have been updated.

2012-09-06 Public documentation was added.

2012-08-31 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

  • Performed recodes and/or calculated derived variables.

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Notes

  • The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.

  • One or more files in this data collection have special restrictions. Restricted data files are not available for direct download from the website; click on the Restricted Data button to learn more.

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Education Research Data Sharing Initiative

This study is maintained and distributed by The Education Research Data Sharing Initiative: an AERA-ICPSR Partnership, a project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).