| dc.description.abstract | The No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 and the Individuals with Disabilities Improvement Education Act of 2004 mandated that state and local education agencies assured that programs and interventions purchased with federal funds were proven effective through rigorous, scientifically-based research. This mandate required central office administrators who managed federal budgets to make evidence-based decisions when purchasing interventions and programs with federal funds. In this study, central office administrators across the state of Texas were surveyed to obtain information about their evidence-based decision-making practices and the factors that influenced them when making decisions about interventions for their districts.
The purpose of this quantitative non-experimental study was to identify the evidence-based decision-making practices of central office administrators (n = 268) and the factors that influence them. Based on the findings in the literature, a survey was developed to collect data to examine correlations between central office administrators’ evidence use in decision-making and (a) administrator knowledge of evidence-based practices, confidence in understanding statistical methodology and analyses, and beliefs about research; (b) individual administrator characteristics measured by education, experience, and employment; (c) school district characteristics such as size, type, location, and presence of policies; and (d) the administrator level at which evidence-based decisions were made. Data were collected using survey methodology. Factor analysis, regression analysis, and ANOVAs were employed to analyze the data.
The present study provides evidence that administrators’ knowledge of evidence-based practices and their self confidence in their own ability to understand the statistical methodologies and analyses that are typically found in research studies, impact administrators’ evidence-based decision-making practices; however, results from this sample did not support the importance of administrators’ beliefs about research in general. Results indicated that individual administrator level of education, administrative experience, and current employment did not predict their evidence-based decision-making practices. However, the data did indicate that the type of district (rural, suburban, urban), size of the district, and the presence of policies concerning evidence-based practices did impact administrators’ evidence-based decision-making practices. Finally, to provide some insight on the impact of organizational structure on evidence-based decision-making, this study investigated the level within the central office where evidence-based decisions were made. Findings indicated that in urban districts, the majority of decisions were made by the program director or the assistant superintendent, whereas suburban districts identified program directors/budget managers as the primary decision-maker. Small rural districts appeared to make decisions at the higher superintendent level; however, this could be due to the fact that in some small rural districts the superintendent is also the program director/budget manager, yet only identified themselves as superintendent in the study. | en |
