Critical Perspective and Comprehensive Educational Quality: Perceptions of Lower-Secondary School Administrators in Villavicencio, Colombia

Abstract

This study described the perceptions of school administrators from public lower-secondary institutions in Villavicencio, Colombia, regarding the critical perspective as a component of comprehensive educational quality. A quantitative, descriptive, non-experimental, cross-sectional design was used. The population comprised 152 school administrators, and the sample included 112 principals and coordinators selected through non-probability convenience sampling according to their availability and willingness to participate. This article analyzes nine items from a 76-item Likert questionnaire corresponding to social transformation, critical curriculum, and learning to learn. The full instrument was validated by expert judgment and achieved a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.9327 in a pilot test with 15 participants; for the nine critical-perspective items, the recalculated coefficient was α = 0.813. Each participant was treated as the unit of analysis, and each indicator was computed as the mean of its three items. Mean scores were 4.49 for social transformation, 4.41 for critical curriculum, and 4.25 for learning to learn; the overall mean was 4.38. All three indicators fell within the very high perceived-frequency category. The findings describe self-reported perceptions and do not constitute direct evidence of institutional practices or social transformations actually produced. In this study, the critical perspective is interpreted through the social purpose of education, critical curricular organization, and learner autonomy.