In each country, an analysis of relevant documents (such as inspection frameworks,
legislation and documents describing rationales for inspection methods) was used to
reconstruct assumptions on the causal mechanisms underlying intended effects of
school inspections (Table 1). Additional interviews with inspection officials and
policy makers were scheduled in each country to validate and clarify the reconstructed
assumptions. For this purpose, inspection officials and policy makers were
asked to indicate whether the assumptions in their reconstructed program theories
provide an accurate description of the current inspection methods, their intended
effects and of the intermediate mechanisms explaining these effects. Their comments
and clarifications were used to revise the assumptions. The following table provides
an overview of the data collection in each country (Table 1):