| How school administrative teams perform is influenced by how they learn. The administrative team may be an important component of a learning organization and, potentially, a critical element of school-level leadership. The purpose of this theory building study, therefore, was to increase understanding of administrative team learning.;As a comparative case study, this research involved three secondary school administrative teams, each consisting of a principal and two vice-principals. Data collection techniques included interviews (both individual and team), discourse analysis, and protocol analysis.;What is the nature of administrative team learning? The analogy of how individuals learn through structures, such as an executive, long-term and short-term memories, served to identify a number of organizational or collective processes and structures used by administrative teams.;What conditions foster administrative team learning? The case studies provided evidence of Senge's (1990) five disciplines, systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, and team learning.;This study is aimed at a particular form of "theory building." A broad but still selective body of literature addressing the concepts of the learning organization and organizational learning was synthesized into an overall framework of conditions and variables claimed to be important in explaining the learning of organizations. This framework was then used as the basis for identifying questions about the functioning of administrative teams in secondary schools: What is the nature of administrative team learning? What conditions foster administrative team learning? What conditions inhibit administrative team learning? Data were then collected in response to these questions and analyzed to determine whether the perspective provided by the guiding framework significantly illuminated the functioning of administrative teams.;What conditions inhibit administrative team learning? Although fostering and inhibiting conditions are related, in that the absence of a fostering condition inhibits learning, the case studies provided evidence of additional inhibiting conditions. The lack of appropriate information inhibited systems thinking; interruptions curtailed dialogue; absence of discussion impaired the development of a shared vision; stage of career determined personal mastery; and ineffective leadership affected all dimensions. |
