Quantifying Education Quality in Secondary Schools

2. Research Methods

This research follows the Design Science research model by Hevner, March, Park, & Ram (2004) to create a framework that encompasses all the important components and stakeholders of the education process. As a first step of this research, a literature study is conducted in both the topic of education quality and business intelligence. In addition, we review the Dutch education system as this will be the exemplary environment for our research. Next, a semi-structured interview method (Longhurst, 2010; DiCicco & Crabtree, 2006) is employed to gather data from experts in the field of education. The interviewees involved in this research include policy advisors of a school group, quality assurance personnel of a school group, independent researchers on education management and quality, and one founder of an education quality assessment organization. After conducting interviews, we develop our initial framework, which is then validated through a questionnaire survey to secondary school directors in the Netherlands. The questionnaires handed out in this research are online and aimed for school directors of the different level of secondary schools in the Netherlands.