Confirmatory Research Design: Testing Sustainable Performance Model of Schools Improvement

This case study is based on the research investigating the factors in Dubai private schools’ organizational culture which contribute to the effectiveness of the school improvement framework of Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA), Dubai. Researchers have observed that the private schools in Dubai were showing inconsistent performance patterns. By examining the KHDA school data, five distinct patterns were identified. It was conceptualized that the KHDA school improvement framework was unable to capture all factors determining the school’s performance, and some confounding variables played the role to produce observable inconsistent growth patterns. The theoretical framework was developed with literature support, and three factors of school culture were identified as missing in the KHDA model. The proposed model was then tested by applying the structural equation modeling technique in the confirmatory research
design. This case study covers the reflection of the researcher’s experience in conducting the field research. It also covers the discussion on problem identification, developing research objectives, and how researchers have progressed to the theoretical framework from the conceptual domain. In the observational domain, the discussion on the structural equation modeling and how the appropriateness of the AMOS software in the testing of recursive reflective models. The case study guides the readers who intend to test group analysis of the recursive multivariate reflective structural models.