School Coherence: Internal Coherence Assessment and Protocol

Substantial evidence exists about the characteristics that differentiate coherent and incoherent schools, including shared expectations, trust, internal accountability and shared responsibility within the school community, and a sense of efficacy.

The purpose of the ICAP is to design a diagnostic that places schools on a developmental spectrum of factors related to their capacity for improving instructional practice and student learning. The work focuses on three common patterns of organizational features the school improvement literature indentifies as associated with schools’ capacity to improve: leadership focused on the support for instructional practice, individual and collective efficacy of teachers and administrators related to instructional practice and student learning, and organizational structures and processes that support improved instruction and student achievement. The Internal Coherence framework includes both the ICAP diagnostic process and guidance for school and district leaders on how to use the ICAP data to focus practice in areas that will increase the capacity of the organization to work as a collective in pursuit of common instructional goals.   

The ICAP consists of a teachers’ survey, a series of protocols for interviews and focus groups with teachers and principals, and a brief protocol for classroom observations. Data collected from the diagnostic process results in the development of a school-level profile. Originally a practice-driven instrument designed to fill a state requirement for an improvement strategy for the most underperforming schools in Boston, the survey has been restructured to tighten its connection to the relevant research base and to reflect most recent knowledge on accountability and school improvement.

Internal Coherence Project Website

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