Purpose

Educational organizations confront a number of failures along with successful practices. Although a potential learning source for organizations, failures encountered are not normally welcomed and utilized to improve future practices. However, the existing literature emphasizes that individuals and organizations can learn a lot from their failure by adopting a pragmatic understanding toward the concept of failure and implementing a learning-from-failure (LFF) approach in their practices. Drawing on these assumptions, the purpose of this study is to explore how school principals identify educational failures and implement an LFF approach in their managerial practices.

Design/methodology/approach

This study adopted a qualitative research paradigm. The research was conducted in a middle-sized city in Turkey. The data for the study came from individual semi-structured interviews conducted with 12 school principals. The interview data were coded and analyzed using a conceptual coding framework.

Findings

Findings indicated that school principals’ definitions of failure are classified as learning related and nonlearning related. Failures were generally considered to be a learning opportunity rather than a complete loss, although principals’ identification of important examples of failure varied across school levels. In operating an LFF approach at schools, certain limitations existed such as a lack of institutional policy and professional skills, heavy workload and limited autonomy.

Originality/value

This study attempted to explore domains of educational failures and the application of an LFF approach at educational organizations. The LFF approach has previously been studied and discussed in business organizations. This study applied the concept to the education field.

中文翻译：

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从失败中学习或从失败中学习：校长的观点

目的

教育组织在成功实践的同时也面临着许多失败。尽管对组织来说是潜在的学习资源，但遇到的失败通常不会受到欢迎，也不会被用来改进未来的实践。然而，现有文献强调，个人和组织可以通过对失败的概念采取务实的理解并在他们的实践中实施从失败中学习（LFF）的方法，从他们的失败中学到很多东西。基于这些假设，本研究的目的是探索校长如何识别教育失败并在他们的管理实践中实施 LFF 方法。

设计/方法/方法

本研究采用定性研究范式。该研究是在土耳其的一个中等城市进行的。该研究的数据来自对 12 名校长进行的个人半结构化访谈。使用概念编码框架对访谈数据进行编码和分析。

发现

结果表明，校长对失败的定义分为学习相关和非学习相关。失败通常被认为是一次学习机会，而不是完全丧失，尽管校长对失败的重要例子的识别因学校而异。在学校实施 LFF 方法时，存在某些限制，例如缺乏机构政策和专业技能、工作量大和自主权有限。

原创性/价值

本研究试图探索教育失败的领域以及 LFF 方法在教育组织中的应用。LFF 方法之前已在商业组织中进行过研究和讨论。本研究将这一概念应用于教育领域。