DSS in educational organizations

Computerr Educ. Vol. 14, $0. I. pp. 6149, Printed in Great Bntain. All nghts reserved

1990 CopyrIght

DSS IN EDUCATIONAL

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0360-l 3 15,90 s3.00 + 0.00 I990 Pergamon Press plc

ORGANIZATIONS

MOSHE TELEM School of Education. Tel-Aviv University, Ramat-Aviv. Tel-Aviv, Israel (Received 17 October 19851 Abstract-An educational decision-support system (ED%) should constitute one of the educational system’s organizational targets, serving each of its levels. In view of the special structural and human characteristics of the educational system, and drawing upon current DSS theory and research in educational decision-making, the EDSS’ main features and a structural framework for its implementation are outlined. A subsequent article presents the potential contributions. challenges, difftculties. and even dangers inherent in the EDSS implementation into educational systems.

INTRODUCTION

Decision support systems (DSS) hold a central position in the existing literature on information technology. DSS introduction, which serves management at the organization’s strategic and coordinative leveIs[l], is an important challenge facing the organization. T’ne introduction of an educational DSS (EDSS) can contribute to improved performance[2], strengthened educational leadership[3], increased effectiveness[4,5], school renewal, and goal achievement, thereby assisting the school in overcoming its present stagnation. However, a particularly long, complex, and difficult road toward full DSS integration lies ahead of the education system. which entered the information technology era relatively late. With the exception of institutions for higher education, the educational system lags behind other organizations in terms of DSS application. The paucity of professional literature, critical reviews, and research on MIS and DSS in educational administration reflect this gap. (DSS, will be seen below, is a special kind of MIS.) McNamara and Chisolm[6, p. 5451 thoroughly analyzed recent volumes of the mainstream journals in educational administration. They found no ‘*detailed historical case studies of actual automated organizational decision systems (such as Hopkins and Massy’s[7])‘*, a scant number of “critical reviews of educational management info~ation systems” since the early 1970s[7-121: and only six references[l3-181 to “the promise and potential problems of microcomputers in educational administration”. They also cited (p.545) that the future for decision support systems in educational organizations had been treated only by Brown and Droegemueller[ 191,Matthews [20], and Sheehan [21-231. Moreover, they mentioned that “the single educational journal devoted exclusively to computer and information concerns [was] the AEDS ~u~~~~~published by the Association for Educational Data Systems” and even in this journal, “At the K-12 level there seem[edJ to be more emphasis on the adoption of computers for instructional than for management purposes”. For several decades, the literature has conveyed the potential and promise of management sciences and mathematical models for schools in general and educational administration in particular[24-271. However, despite their potential contribution to the educational system and the school, actua!, substantial advancement has not transpired in this area. As will be discussed below, EDSS deveiopment provides an impetus for increased use of such disciplines. Due to the rapid developments and variety in hardware and software, a contextual rather than technical approach will be adopted in this and the subsequent article[28]. Thus, Stabell’s(29, p. 2431 point of view is applied, that “trying to define what is unique about DSS technology is not a very useful exercise. The technological buiIding blocks-the hardware and the software components-in isolation distinguish only to a very limited extent DSS from other computer-based systems. The key characteristics of DSS are linked to the context where such systems are to be used, to why and how the systems are developed, and to how the systems are intended to be used: DSS are systems developed to support managers’ decision-making process in complex and ill-structured decision situations”[30]. This paper, the first of two articles on EDSS, will review the special characteristics of the educational system, discuss its maturity or readiness for EDSS implementation, and outline 61

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a framework for EDSS structure. The following paper, “Educational DSS: Potential Services, Benefits, Difficulties and Dangers”[28], will focus on the challenges and the potential benefits inherent in EDDS implementation as well as the services that the EDSS can provide to the various levels of the educational system described below. THE EDUCATIONAL

SYSTEIM: FOCUS ON THE SCHOOL

Various characteristics of the educational system are particularly relevant to EDSS design and implementation. The educational system, one of the largest and most complex systems in any country, encompasses thousands of diversified schools (i.e. primary, intermediate, and secondary) of various types (e.g. regular, vocational, special education), distributed all over the country. The system consists of a number of levels which differ from country to country (e.g. the five levels in the United States are the school, distinct, county, state, and federal levels, whereas Israel’s trilevel system consists of the school, district, and central levels). It is a particularly open system which establishes close interrelations with its environment. The school, the core unit of the educational system, also possesses characteristics that have ramifications for EDSS introduction. The school’s hierarchy is typically quite flat and uncomplicated[31]; however, despite its small size, the school is a bureaucratically, professionally, and politically complex organization[32-341. An implementation of the process approach[35] showed that the school, although small, constitutes a mirror image of the large organization. All the basic processes which occur in the large organization can be found in the school, albeit on a smaller scale and with the addition of the school-specific teaching and teaching-related systems which characterize educational settings. The school’s complexity on the one hand, and its relatively small administrative staff on the other, lead to widespread multifunctional affiliation (i.e the gamut of roles and responsibilities which a single functionary performs or in which s/he takes part) among its employees[36]. In light of the above, it is not surprising that school administrators work long and relatively hectic hours[37]. With the emergence of the comprehensive school, school management has become a topic of crucial importance for EDSS introduction. “Educational management is not a skill reserved for the professional elite”[38, p.l]. In fact, school administrators cannot be considered professionalized[39]. The classical administrator acts on the basis of knowledge about objectives, technology, and the organization’s past experience; however, educational administration is based on decisionmaking under ambiguity[40]. The school’s administrative system is diffuse; even where goals are clear, lack of knowledge about the technology of schooling complicates their implementation. Furthermore, even the definition of the school administrator’s role is ambiguous. It is often difficult to describe in behavioural terms precisely what administrators do, to relate observable behaviour to the activities specified, or to detect the impact of administrators’ action on schooling[41]. According to Mazzarella[42], who drew upon Martinko et al. [43], the function of high school principals in the United States in unclear, and there is no agreement on the question “What does an effective secondary principal look like ?” In studies on the principalships, secondary and elementary principals have not been sufficiently differentiated, despite the fact that principalship at the two levels differs significantly. In addition to its ambiguous management, the school is also characterized by its loosely coupled nature, including the loose relations between its two main subsystems: administration and instruction [44-46]. Secondary schools are more loosely coupled than are elementary schools [47,48]. Loose coupling also characterizes school districts[49], as well as interschool relations and the interrelations between the school and the various other levels of the educational system[50]. The school’s loosely coupled nature, in addition to its other aforementioned characteristics, create an “isolated island” phenomenon in the educational system, where the school administrator, and frequently other school employees, are completely alone when facing a complex cluster of problems in their areas of responsibility, in the absence of like professional counterparts with whom to consult. The lack of a direct, planned, and organized information flow exacerbates the phenomenon of isolation between the various systems (e.g. instruction, administration, counselling) in the school. (For a framework of the school’s main systems, their primary interrelations, and their interrelations with the external environment, cf. [36].) Similarly, the isolation between schools often

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forces the principal and other school employees to create solutions to problems which have already been solved in other, even nearby schools. Moreover. a portion of the school administrator’s decisions regarding issues such as the success of a new curriculum, juvenile delinquency, drugs, etc. require information from an extraschool level (e.g. district, state, or national). According to Feldman and March[51], the lack of appropriate information is one of the reasons for organizational stagnation. During the user needs survey[52] within the framework of the pedagogical MIS (PMIS) project for the trilevel Israeli educational system[28,50], it was found that the absence of integrative, reliable, accessible, and updated information and DSS services (see subsequent paper[28]) at the intraschool and interschool levels, and between schools and other levels of the educational system (i.e. interinstitution) constitutes an obstacle hindering functioning in the school and at the other levels of the educational system. In discussions with principals and various school functionaries, very often many of them expressed the view that if they had information and DSS services available to them at the school, regional, and national levels, they would have attempted to initiate changes toward a significant renewal of their schools. Bozeman[53-551, and others have viewed MIS, which provides information and decision support services (i.e. a DSS) to every employee, as the solution. “School personnel face increasingly complex decisions requiring information of different types-that is, information/evidence suited for the decision-maker, the given problem, and the organizational context. . . . There clearly exists sufficient rationale for continued development and implementation of MIS in education”[53, p.81. One of the inferences of the above is that the various levels of the educational system urgently need an EDSS r,o supply their decision-makers with a variety of services (illustrated in the subsequent article [28]).

COMPUCATION

OF SCHOOL

ADMINISTRATION

Schools are now attempting to close the aformentioned gap in DSS implementation, and computers can now be found on the educational scene. The initially slow penetration of computers into schools has become, with the emergence of microcomputers, a process of massive and rapid computation (i.e. the integration of “computer” and “communication”) in both hardware and software. Harhrare

School computation networks today fall somewhere between the two “extremes” of central processing for all schools in a district/region, and independent processing by schools through microcomputers and/or mini-computers. Local area networks (LAN) are already quite evident in the schools. External communications networks linking the school with other levels of the educational system and with other organizations in its external environment (e.g. municipality, public libraries, the parents’ home) are also beginning to emerge. Softu,are

MIS implementation has begun providing meaningful support for school functionaries in their daily joint activities. Usable and accessible school databases are being established, encompassing data on students, teachers, employees, classrooms, grade levels, courses, student achievements and behaviour, counselling, guidance, health, building space, curriculum physical plant, finance, inventory, transportation, extracurricular activities, etc. [52,54]. MIS provides new tools that were nonexistent in the uncompucated school, supporting the school administrator in decision-making, planning, and control functions, as well as in such activities as: student placement in classes; teacher allocation to classes; construction of daily timetables and examination schedules; assignment and disbursement of resources; follow-up on the implementation of decisions; analysis of teacher and school achievements (e.g. comparisons between teachers, classes, and grade levels, or between past and current teacher performance or student achievement). Office automation tools (e.g. word processing, electronic archives, electronic mail, automatic follow-up of decisions, spreadsheets, automation dialing, electronic appointment books, desk-top publishing, etc.) have also slowly but increasingly entered the school, strengthening its computation process. Thus, it appears that the state-of-the-art of computation in schools today is ripe for initiating a gradual DSS application.

6-i

LMos~ TELEM

THE

DSS vvill be defined, its basic components DSS) will be presented.

DSS

will be described.

and a special

type of DSS (group

Definition .4lthough DSS is now part of the mainstream of information systems, consensus has still not been reached concerning a strict definition of DSS and its content [4,5,57]. For example, according to Sprague[2. p. 1971, “DSS deals with a class of information handling activities that are goal or problem driven rather then procedure driven”. These systems are one of several kinds of information systems whose ultimate mission in an organization is to “improve the performance of information workers through the application of infomlation technology” (p. 198). Keen[56] defined DSS as basically about helping people in organizations to perform their jobs better. Others, such as Bosman [4] and Sol [5] emphasized the contribution of DSS to organizational effectiveness and to the efficiency of organizational decision-making. Sol claimed that report production or support for organizational activity falls short unless performance (which is so often lacking in the educational system) is achieved. The proponents of this definition are aware of the difficulties in defining “performance” and “improvement” but they contend that the general objective is emphasized[2]. These potential problems particularly apply to educational settings, thus constituting a challenge and a target objective for educational administrators. researchers, and software developers. In order to improve effective task performance, thereby achieving objectives, the DSS for the educational system should be developed with the aim of serving its various levels, where information handling constitutes one of the important elements in its employees’ work. In the DSS literature a distinction is often made between MIS and DSS. This paper will adopt Bosman’s[4] approach that DSS is a special kind of information system. Using Davis and Olson’s[57, p.61 definition of the information system as “an integrated, user-machine system for providing information to support operations, management, and decision-making functions in an organization”, a distinction between information systems and DSS becomes irrelevant. In other words. the DSS is an “information system” that, in addition to producing reports and supplying answers to “what-if” questions, also utilizes computer hardware and software. models for analysis, planning, control, and decision-making, manual procedures, and a data base. to make a recommended decision [57-591. Basic components The three basic components of the DSS[60, p.121 are: (a) a specific DSS application, (b) a DSS generator, and (c) DSS tools. The DSS generator consists of “a ‘package’ of related hardware and software which provide a set of capabilities to build specific DSS quickly and easily”. The components of the DSS generator are: a database system, a model base system, a dialogue system, a language system. a problem-processing system, a knowledge system[61]. a textbase (for text manipulation), and a rule-based system [62]. DSS generators that integrate models with a database and use interactive facilities such as data models and text manipulation are currently also available on the microcomputers [63], which are popular in schools. At the other levels of the educational system, in which mainframes are used, data were already previously available. According to Bosman [4, pp. 215-2161, “The components of a DSS generator offer a decisionmaker support through facilities like: a query language and a data base management system (DBMS); statistical methods to relate variables with data and to detect, interrelations between variables; modeling techniques to assist in formulating a problem and finding a solution; user interfaces, query and modeling language to help unexperienced decision-makers use the system and formulate a problem or parts of it; cognitive aids to help the decision-maker to formulate his problem and use the other components of the DSS generator. Such a cognitive aid can be a separate component of a DSS generator, as Bonczek et al. [61] proposed by introducing a problem-processing system as part of the DSS generator.. . . Cognitive support is not easily defined and can be Bosman cited Stohr[64], who stated that implemented along different ways”. As an illustration, “At a more detailed level some objectives of a cognitive aid might be: (1) To aid the decision-mak-

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ing process by extending human memory and computational capabilities. (2) To ‘externalize’ the judgment process by making the structural elements-goals and means to achieve them-explicit. (3) To guide decision-making by encouraging a systematic approach and providing cues suggestive of new alternatives and goals to be considered by decision makers. (1) To record the interaction process so that back-tracking and historic records are possible. (5) To process and combine subjective evaluations made by different participants in the decision-making process” (p. 3 11). All of the DSS components discussed above should exist in the EDSS, which is a DSS adapted to the special characteristics and needs of the educational system. Prior to 3 discussion on EDSS, group DSS (GDSS), a special type of DSS with ramifications for EDSS design and implementation will be elaborated.

GDSS According to Gray[65, p.2331. the GDSS “is an emerging subfield within DSS in which there has been a marked increase in activity in the mid-1980’s”. In most organizations the majority of decisions are group decisions, taken only after an extensive process of sharing and consultation. The PMIS’ user informational needs survey[52] reflected that schools and school districts are not exceptional: many school and district decisions are group-based. Examples of educational GDSS, which will be presented in the subsequent article. address the following characteristics of GDSS posited by Gray[65, p. 2331. It appears that a variety of in . . decision[s] or in , . . decisionpermanent and uti hoc groups in the schools are “involved related task[s] such as creating a short list of acceptable alternatives or creating a recommendation for approval at a higher level”. Gray also depicted the following activities and processes which are characteristic of such group meetings: “-the

meetings are a joint activity, engaged in by a group of people of equal or near equal status, typically involving 5 to 20 individuals. -the activity, as well as its outputs, are intellectual in nature. -the product depends in an essentially way on the knowledge, opinions. and judgments of its participants. -differences in opinion are settled either by fiat by the ranking person present or, more often, by negotiation or arbitration. The results lead to action within the organization”.

These characteristics fully apply to the various levels of the educational system. Thus, the EDSS should enable GDSS for decisions taken at the group level, by school administrators, teachers, and professional staff. Educational GDSS requires early provisions for hardware, communication networks, a suitable computer site, GDSS spatial application packages, a model-base, a database, and human interface. THE

EDSS

An EDSS constructed according to the outline below can significantly decision-making at the various levels of the educational system.

support

educational

Educational decisiorl -making Principal phases of decision-making in the educational system are essentially similar to those of other organizations. Drawing upon Simon[66], McNamara and Chisolm[6] enumerated four phases: (a) identification of occasions for decision-making; (b) determination of possible options for action; (c) selection between alternative options for action; and (d) evaluation of previous decisions. In the educational system, these decision-making phases derive their special content from the educational, human, and value-laden nature of its problems. Decision-making processes in educational organizations can also be viewed along a spectrum illustrated by Estler[67, p. 3051 that describes four types of decision-making in the school: (1)

(2)

Relatively “clear objectives, identification of alternatives and their consequences, and choice of the alternative that best meets the objectives” (e.g. purchase of supplies, scheduling of classes). ‘Shared goals, expertise, and information, with final choice based on . . . human interaction

MOSHE TELEM

66

resulting in consensus among relative equals” (e.g. revision of a high school history curriculum, ordering of books). (3) Different goals and rationales resulting in individuals and groups joining forces to pressure school board and administrators to make decisions consistent with their particular interests (e.g. initiation of a sex education curriculum). (4) Decisions where “Neither goals nor means to achieve them are clear” (e.g. classroom teacher’s selection of specific instructional strategies for specific students). These four types of decisions lie on a continuum characterized by Simon[66], ranging from programmed decisions (i.e. those which are repetitive, routine, and have a definite solution algorithm) to non-programmed decisions (i.e. characterized by one or a combination of unpredictable, complex, uncontrollable, dynamic, political, ill-defined, or interactive, elements[68], which have an indefinite solution algorithm. When awareness of the EDSS’ abilities increases, they will be used as a powerful decision-making tool for improved programmed and non-programmed decision-making. At the school level. all school employees, including school administrators, teachers, and the assistance echelon (e.g. guidance counselor, psychologist, social worker, nurse), should thus receive assistance in improving their decision-making in diversified activities, in areas such as: principalship (e.g. determining clear school objectives for planning and development, developing school-community interrelations, etc.), student administration (e.g. admissions, scheduling. discipline and absentees, guidance and counselling, student records and achievements, etc.), instruction administration (e.g. teacher placement, instruction, teachers’ professional advancement, structuring class compositions, student allocation to tracking levels, etc.), psychological support, transportation (e.g. route planning), social activities, library, classroom and building space, personnel, physical plant, etc. At the district and central levels, it would include assistance in determining: clear district and national educational targets and standards; reliable local and national standards for improving instruction and resource allocation, including updating all of the above as circumstances change; school closing strategies[69] etc. The fact that the EDSS is a DSS adapted to educational systems implies that it should entail all the aforementioned components of a DSS, including GDSS as well as interactive tools, which have become “a commonplace of management practice”[56, p. 2541. In order to cope with programmed and non-programmed decision-making stemming from the substantial instructional, administrative, and human issues characterizing the education system, EDSS development should exploit resources available in policy sciences, management sciences, computer and information sciences, behavioural sciences, and social sciences[6, p.5321. According to Sprague[Z, p. 1991, “Current DSS can be viewed as computer-based systems that lie at the intersection of two major evolutionary trends-data processing which has yielded a significant body of knowledge about managing of data, and management science which is generating a significant body of knowledge about modelling”. As can be seen in the subsequent paper, model formation constitutes a central service which should be provided by the EDSS. This and other EDSS services require the use of mathematical models[69-711 (for examples of possible uses of mathematical models in higher education, cf. [7,72]), operations research, cybernetics, systems engineering, behavioural communications, and policy sciences[73]. These tools, which have scarcely been used for educational administration[6], hold great potential for the educational system even if introduced “through the back door” via the EDSS. The EDSS

structural frameltork

The EDSS should serve the educational system for which it is established, matching its unique number of levels. Each of the levels of the educational system requires a DSS, and the database at each level should serve as an integral part of the comprehensive national EDSS database[55]. As can be seen from Fig. 1, the trilevel Israeli EDSS depicted as an example in this paper includes the: school DSS (SDSS), district DSS (DDSS), and central office DSS (CDSS). The SDSS’, DDSS’ and CDSS’ databases should be formulated so that each serves not only the levels for which it was established, but also the other levels of the educational system in various administrative and instructional domains, such as supervision, curriculum development and evaluation, updating

DSS in educational

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CDSS

Other DDSSs

/\ DDSS

A

Other

SDSS

\. Adminisrmion

Personnel

Fiance

SDSSs

Assistance

rnsmlction

Orhers

CBl

I CMI

TZXiidOIl~l Insmmion

Guidance Cmnselling

Menral

0rhCl-S

Health

I CCMI

Fig. 1. The EDSS in a trilevel educational system-a schematic example with some elaboration on the school. DSS, decision support system; EDSS, educational DSS; CDSS, central DSS; DDSS, district DSS; SDSS. school DSS; CBI, computer-based instruction; CMI, computer-managed instruction; CCMI, conventional CMI.

existing standards, new standards formation, and resource allocation according to school (local), district, and national criteria[55]. The SDSS consists of (a) administrative systems, (b) assistance systems, and (c) instructional systems which are divided into computer-managed instruction (CMI) which serve the academic subjects taught by computer-based instruction (CBI), and conventional CM1 (CCMI), which is provided by conventional data processing for those subjects in which the CBI is not used. For the basic components of CMI, cf.[74-771. The aforementioned structural EDSS framework, designed to match the administrative and instructional DSS needs at each of the educational system’s levels, will enable a maximal realization of the EDSS’ potential services analyzed and illustrated in the subsequent paper [28]. These services have various compelling advantages in addition to the multidirectional flow of information and the effectiveness of administrative and instructional decision-making. These include (a) a significant elimination of the aforementioned “island” phenomena and of data redundancy at the different EDSS levels; (b) the attainment of integrative intraschool, interschool, and interinstitution outputs; (c) impetus for educational renewal; and (d) contribution toward strengthened educational leadership. For this reason, a strong emphasis should be placed on the E in the EDSS. As mentioned above, the entrance of information technology into the educational systems was delayed in comparison to other organizations. Inherent within this delay is a great advantage for the educational system: it has the opportunity to carefully draw conclusions from the experience of other organizations which implemented DSS and to establish an EDSS designed to match the unique needs of the educational system. However, it should be emphasized that the educational system should learn from others’ DSS experience selectively and with great caution, and with the clear knowledge that “we would be making a great mistake in regarding the management of schools as similar to the process of constructing a building or operating a factory”[78, p. lo]. Direct transfer of information technology into the educational system might lead to the adoption of a simplified and inaccurate image of educational phenomena.

CONCLUDING

REMARKS

The educational system constitutes one of the largest and most complex systems in the country. In order to fulfill its objectives, the system copes with a cluster of increasingly difficult challenges as we near the 1990s. The EDSS, a DSS adapted to the special characteristics of the educational system, is a powerful tool in both administrative and instructional domains, with great potential

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for assisting in individual and group decision-making at the various levels of the educational system. This paper focused on EDSS’ substantive, contextual aspects, rather than technological advances in hardware and software. The EDSS structural framework presented can be adapted to any educational system. The need for EDSS to enable programmed and non-programmed aspects of educational decision-making was emphasized. Toward this end. the EDSS should adopt advanced tools from domains such as policy, management, computer’information, and social sciences. EDSS establishment should go hand-in-hand with empirical research concerning various aspects of its design and implementation. Major research topics as well as potential services for the educational system are elaborated in the subsequent article on EDSS.

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