Can the use of informal control mechanisms increase trust among teachers? An evaluation of the Accelerated Schools intervention

Abstract

The Accelerated Schools Program (ASP) mobilizes a cohesive set of informal control mechanisms as a part of its approach to school-wide improvement. However, despite their frequent use in educational settings, the empirical investigation of the nature and function of organizational controls in building trust in schools has been largely overlooked in the educational literature, particularly from within a causal research framework. This study employed a propensity score matching approach to data from the Study of Instructional Improvement, a longitudinal study of the design, implementation, and instructional effectiveness of three widely-adopted comprehensive school reform models including Accelerated Schools. This quasi-experimental approach permitted the isolation of ASP’s effect on growth in teacher-teacher relational trust over time while controlling for implementation depth across the 54 schools and 1561 teachers in the sample. Analysis revealed a robust treatment effect of the ASP model on growth in teacher-teacher relational trust over time. Several components of the informal control process also produced positive change in teacher-teacher trust growth over time, including critical dialogue, innovation and risk-taking, and collective responsibility.