Comparative qualitative assessment of technical and art schools’ internal effectiveness: a case study on the schools in Dezful, Iran

Abstract

This study is an attempt at improving the quality of schools through determining how much the internal effectiveness is, with an emphasis on quantitative indexes, in Dezful's technical and art schools, in comparison with the average internal effectiveness of Khozestan's, the Province in which Dezful city is located, and the whole country's schools. In this study, Frank Hikler's comparative method which is absolute and subjective was used. .Population of the study incorporated Dezful's technical and art schools’ students. The authors investigated the grades of these schools’ current students, and also tried to get statistics of the students from 2001 to 2006. Descriptive statistics (chart, frequency distribution, percentage) and inferential statistics (independent t-test, analysis of variance and so on) were used for quantitative assessment of the internal effectiveness. A researcher- made questionnaire was also used as the data collection tool and Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficient for the instrument was 0.7266.A sample of 260 students, out of 800 junior students of these schools, were selected through simple random sampling to complete the researcher-made questionnaire. Some students and managers were interviewed and also facilities of these schools were considered for the qualitative assessment of these schools’ internal effectiveness. Qualitative assessment showed that the internal effectiveness of Dezful's schools is 0.97,of Khozestan’ schools is 1.038,and of the whole country's schools is 0.83. The results revealed that the percent of graduated students in Dezful's schools from 2001 to 2006 were 13.25 percent lower than the percent of the graduated students from technical and art schools of Isfahan Province, Iran from 1991 to 1996. Furthermore, the results revealed that the quality of technical and art schools can be improved through proper planning for in-service training and through equipping the schools with modern equipments and facilities. Analysis and investigation of the internal effectiveness of technical and art schools would enable the government to plan properly and to reduce unnecessary cost, and the government thus would invest properly and the wealth of a country can’t be wasted.