Exploring Instructional Leadership Practises Items Among Headmasters in Public Primary Schools: An Exploratory Factor Analysis

Abstract

As stated in most of the instructional leadership literature, school leadership affects teacher learning. The concept of instructional leadership has evolved through school effectiveness around the 1980s and considers school leaders important in promoting teacher knowledge to student learning. However, instructional leadership cannot be implemented to the maximum due to constraints of practising the function of instructional leadership, lack of practice and unpreparedness in carrying out their role as instructional leaders. This study aims to validate an instructional leadership instrument utilising exploratory factor analysis (EFA). The questionnaire used in this study was modified from Hallinger and Murphy's (1985) study. There were 137 teachers from public primary schools who replied, representing all subjects and levels. Respondents at schools were chosen based on clustered random sampling. The results of the EFA indicated three components of instructional leadership: 1) defines the mission, 2) manages the instructional program, and 3) promotes the school climate. Clearly, the three components explained 66.164% of the total variance explained. Note that Bartletts' Test of Sphericity is highly significant (sig. 000), and the sampling adequacy (Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO)=0.934) is excellent. Other than that, the three components have Cronbach's Alpha values greater than 0.7, significant addition to measuring instructional leadership, particularly in the Malaysian context. The EFA results generated a configuration that extracts three components, which may be measured by 42 items established in this research, indicating that the elements apply to this study.