The role of school leader support on teacher’s engagement during intervention implementation

Abstract

ABSTRACT Teacher engagement in the implementation phase of educational interventions has been demonstrated as fundamental to the success of an intervention. However, less is known about what resources or processes can support teacher’s work engagement at this critical time period. In this study, we investigated the role of school leader support on teacher engagement during the implementation of a complex co-teaching intervention for literacy improvement. Data were collected from 150 elementary classrooms from 53 municipalities in southern Norway. Grounded in the Job-Demands Resource model, we used structural equation modeling to investigate associations between leader support, teachers’ perceived usefulness of the co-teaching intervention, and teachers’ work engagement. Contrary to our hypothesis, school leader support was not directly associated with teachers’ work engagement. However, school leader support was positively associated with teachers’ perceived usefulness of co-teaching, and the perception of usefulness was positively related to teachers’ work engagement. In summary, the perceived usefulness of co-teaching fully mediated the association between leader support and teachers’ work engagement. These findings suggest that effective school leaders should inquire and prioritize about teachers’ belief systems when launching change efforts. Ideally, we recommend that teachers be part of the conversation and decision-making in the early stages of interventions.