Teachers’ Use of Data: Loose Coupling, Agenda Setting, and Team Norms

This article explores the influence of grade‐level team norms and district and school leadership on teachers’ data use. Using an embedded‐systems perspective to consider teachers’ data use in four schools located in two different districts, the research takes the practitioners’ perspective on what constitutes data. Findings indicate that establishing rationale for teachers to use particular data, modeling such use, and structuring time for teachers to learn about using data are deliberate agenda‐setting activities. Varying degrees of loose coupling between the case study districts underscore how grade‐level norms and agenda setting mediate teachers’ collaborative use of data.