School effectiveness and school improvement: Sustaining links

Ideally, school effectiveness research and school improvement might have a relationship with a surplus value for both. In reality, this relationship is often troublesome. Some problems can be attributed to the intrinsic differences between effectiveness and improvement, such as different missions. However, an analysis of the current situation in effectiveness and improvement shows that there are many possibilities at all stages of research studies and improvement projects for a more fruitful relationship. In this article, stronger links between effectiveness and improvement are advocated. Such links can be achieved by better-guided processes of application and reconstruction of knowledge during effectiveness research and improvement. These processes, illustrated by some successful projects which have started recently, are described under the heading of sustained interactivity.