School-based management and paradigm shift in education: an empirical study

Purpose - This paper aims to report empirical research investigating how school-based management (SBM) and paradigm shift (PS) in education are closely related to teachers' student-centered teaching and students' active learning in a sample of Hong Kong secondary schools. Design/methodology/approach - It is a cross-sectional survey research involving 31 secondary schools, 1,119 teachers and 7,063 students with seven sets of questionnaires: three for students, three for teachers and one for principals. Findings - The results of analysis indicate the following findings. The greater tendency towards SBM of a school associates with the greater extent of PS from the site-bounded paradigm towards the triplization paradigm in education. Both the measures of SBM and PS in education are closed related to teachers' student-centered teaching (in terms of facilitating student learning, facilitating student thinking and facilitating student self-reflection and assessment) and students' active learning (in terms of positive learning attitudes, application of various learning methods, learning effectiveness, multiple thinking in learning and satisfaction in learning). The profiles of "high SBM and high-PS" schools are much more preferable than "low SBM and low-PS" schools in terms of various measures of teachers' teaching and students' learning. Originality/value - Even though SBM and PS in education are strongly emphasized in ongoing educational reforms in different parts of the world, there is lack of empirical study to show how they are related to teachers' teaching and students' learning in practice. The findings of the research contribute to filling this research gap and advancing theoretical and practical understanding in such a frontier area.