A Comparative Study On School-based Instruction Research In China And The United States

This paper reveals what School-based Instruction Research (SIR) both in China and the U.S. is like from the comparative perspective, including its background, managerial system, specific activities, flow and modes, methods and strategies, evaluation and the latest status of the SIR in both countries. An introduction and seven chapters compose this paper.The research background about SIR and the backgrounds where SIR both in China and the U.S. SIR appears from are discussed in Introduction and Chapter One. Besides, the current research status, this paper's research area, the methods used and some other related concepts are also discussed or defined here.Chapter Two is related to SIR's policies and institutions both in China and the U.S. It recounts all the policies and codes during the course of institutionalizing SIR in China; and it recounts that in the U.S. according to the policies and codes about what the government does to beginning and veteran teachers. The managerial systems at different levels in both countries are introduced, too.Specific SIR activities in both countries are introduced in detail in Chapter Three, then compared and analyzed. All SIR activities in China can be generalized as personal reflection, peer coaching and professional leadership; those in America are team/cooperating teaching for pre-service teachers, mentoring for beginning teachers, peer coaching and school-based coaching for in-service teachers, all of which can be categorized into Teacher Leadership activities, which has been introduced accordingly at the end of this chapter.Chapter Four is about the implementation flow and modes of SIR in both countries. SIR's flow in China are always generalized as "problem definition--plan/design--implementation--summarization/reflection/evaluation--presentation"; that in the U.S. includes "needs assessment--goals making --plan/design--implementation/monitoring--evaluation". As for the SIR implementation modes, there are three modes that are Inside the School, Interschool and Connecting the Schools in China, while there are the other three modes of Professional Development Schools, Inside the School and School District Leadership in the U.S. Following this, those about SIR flow and modes in both countries are compared and analyzed.The methods and strategies of SIR in both countries are discussed in Chapter Five. Since there are many researches about this, this paper only introduces three kinds of them used commonly, which are action research, narrative research and the research of lessons summarizing. Then this chapter introduces four main strategies in SIR professional leadership in China and three different SIR strategies in the U.S., ending with comparing them.Chapter Six is about the SIR evaluation in China and the U.S., which covers three different fields, i.e. SIR evaluation methods, SIR evaluation activities and SIR accountability. After comparing, we have got conclusions which are: (1) Evaluation results in both countries should be clearer; (2) China's evaluation systems should be more perfect and evaluation methods should be more various.What are the latest SIR status in both China and the U.S. are generalized in the last chapter, which in China is as followed: Headmaster's responsibility has been defined more clearly; The instruction research team of integrated curriculum in schools has been institutionalized; Interdisciplinary instruction research activities have become more and more ordinary; Interschool instruction research has been more like a routine; Ways of professional leadership have been varied; Ways of Personal reflection and peer coaching have been various. That in the U.S. includes: what headmaster concerns most has been changed to instruction research; SIR team has been gradually fixed and institutionalized; Interschool instruction research has been a routine too; SIR activities and the ways to have those activities have become more and more various. After this, the paper compares those discussed above, trying to find some revelations and suggestions.