Aggregating school based findings to support decision making with implications for educational leadership

Successful school reform is dependent on the quality of decisions made by educational leaders. In such decision making, educational leaders are charged with using sound research findings as the basis for choosing school reform initiatives. As part of the debate regarding the usability of various evaluative research designs in providing information in support of decision making, randomised field trials (RFT) have been advanced as the only valid way of determining program effectiveness. This paper presents a methodological rationale that would apply multi-level statistical analysis to aggregated, pre-post intervention data readily available from multiple school sites within a multiple baseline design framework to provide educational leaders with a valid alternative to RFT designs. Presented and discussed is an illustrative application of the potential value of such a design, in establishing the effectiveness of a cluster of reading programs in a form, that is directly applicable by educational decision makers considering reform initiatives and involving developmental reading.