Competence Profile School Management (CPSM) – an inventory for the self-assessment of school leadership

Abstract

The professional demands on school leaders have changed drastically and have become highly complex in the last few years. The professionalization of school leaders is high on the agenda. Human resource management includes different aspects of professionalization. One major domain is the preparation, induction and continuous professional development of individual leaders and leadership teams. Another is personnel marketing and selection, which includes the question of attracting capable future leaders and of appointing the right candidates. However in Europe there is a need for standardised tools which provide systematic feedback to professionals interested in assessing their strengths and individual development needs. Suitable instruments are still scarce. The Competence Profile School Management CPSM (German: KompetenzProfil SchulManagement; KPSM) is the first online-based self-assessment in the German language which has been designed to fit the school context and is based on psychometric principles. It offers participants the possibility to reflect their strengths and weaknesses in different requirement areas of school leadership; and to compare their individual results with peers from the school context, thus gaining valuable information on their individual profiles when planning their professional development and careers. After sketching the theoretical and empirical background, this article presents information about the aims and purpose of CPSM, the tool’s development, its test scales and test formats, the results of the pilot study and those of the evaluation study. Then, the further development of the tool in terms of modifications and add-ons are outlined, before, finally, the tool’s contribution to practice and research is discussed.