Does accountability pressure through school inspections promote school improvement?

"New" school inspections are essential parts of "evidence-based governance" concepts and have been implemented by many European countries as a major strategy to assure and improve the effectiveness and quality of their education systems. However, national inspection systems vary in their composition and in their contextual features. Using online survey data from approximately 2300 principals in 7 European countries, the paper explores the role of "accountability pressure" as an element for understanding the operation of inspection systems. The results indicate that principals who feel more "accountability pressure" are more attentive to the quality expectations communicated by inspections, more sensitive to stakeholders' reactions to inspection results, and more active with respect to improvement activities. However, also the number of unintended consequences is increasing with pressure. Inspection systems in different countries are seen by school leaders as applying differential degrees of "accountability pressure", which is reflected in system-specific amounts of improvement activities.