The Research-Engaged School: The Development and Test of a Causal Model through an Exploratory Mixed Methods Design

The present study was undertaken to design and test a research-engaged school model using mixed methods design. In the qualitative and quantitative parts of the study, phenomenological strategy and structural equation modeling were utilized, respectively. The tool for gathering data in the qualitative section was a semi-structured interview with 25 faculty members of Farhangian University and Academy of Scientific Studies in Education as well as educational experts. These individuals were selected through purposive sampling method. In the quantitative part, the instrument was a researcher-made questionnaire which was administered to a sample of 450 high school teachers. Based on the results of the interviews and via a thorough examination of literature review, the primary model of a research-engaged school was designed with 4 dimensions of principal (promoting inquiry, facilitating inquiry, distributed leadership), teacher (belief in the importance of research, professional knowledge and skills, professional relationships and interactions), culture and structure (inquiry-based culture, empowering structure, supportive rules, resources), and inquiry-based teaching and learning (classroom management, inquiry-based teaching, inquiry-based content, inquiry-based evaluation, enhancing inquiry-based skills,  inquiry-based assignment, inquiry-based encouragement). To assess the credibility of the model, the goodness of fit index was used and the obtained GOF of 0.809 demonstrated that the designed model was potentially a robust one.