Instructional Leadership Research Articles

Contribution of Principals’ Instructional Leadership on Learners’ Academic Achievement in Public Secondary Schools in Baringo County, Kenya

Contribution of Principals’ Instructional Leadership on Learners’ Academic Achievement in Public Secondary Schools in Baringo County, Kenya

The Barriers that Hinder Effective Implementation of Principals’ Instructional Leadership Practices in Schools

The Barriers that Hinder Effective Implementation of Principals’ Instructional Leadership Practices in Schools

Principal-shared instructional leadership in differentiated instruction classrooms: its effect on pedagogical practices

This article examines the effect of principal-shared instructional leadership, learners’ characteristics, and differentiated instruction strategies support on the quality of pedagogical practices mediated by classroom interventions. This instructional strategy is used along with the implementation of the independent curriculum, and teachers have to pay attention deeply to students’ learning needs. This study was conducted as explanatory research on mover teachers throughout Indonesia, and 890 teachers participated voluntarily. Path analysis is utilized to estimate variables relationships. The study revealed that principal-shared instructional leadership and differentiated strategies positively and directly affect the quality of pedagogical practices, and learners’ characteristics only contribute to an indirect effect. The findings suggest that school principals have significant roles in mobilizing stakeholders and facilitating learning resources for providing classroom interventions appropriately for students to learn. As an implication, accomplishing the quality of pedagogical practices will be able to achieve students’ learning performances.

Exploring Shared Instructional Leadership Strategies to Improve Teacher Professional Learning: A Case Study in a Southeastern School System

ABSTRACT The present study aims to identify shared instructional leadership strategies administered by school principals and instructional coaches to enhance teacher professional learning within a southeastern school system. Using a qualitative case study approach, we collected data through semi-structured interviews with six principals and six instructional coaches from seven elementary schools. Qualitative content analysis was utilized to analyze the data. The results revealed various shared instructional leadership strategies across three key components: structuring the school environment to facilitate professional learning, fostering a culture of ongoing learning, and nurturing interpersonal relationships conducive to teacher development. We discuss implications for policy and practice.

Principals as instructional leaders: an exploration of school context factors that affect principals’ competence at primary schools in Tarcha town, Ethiopia

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to investigate school context-related factors that affect principals’ instructional leadership competence in primary schools in Tarcha Town, Ethiopia. A qualitative case-study research design was used. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews and document analysis. Twelve senior principals were included in the study through purposive sampling. Interviews were used to collect in-depth data. The data was analyzed thematically. The findings of the study indicated that primary school principals face both internal and external challenges. Internally, they face limited knowledge and skills, a lack of courage and commitment, and administrative work overload. Their external challenges included negative attitudes from parents and teachers, a lack of instructional materials, and little support from local education authorities. Consequently, they can’t serve effectively as instructional leaders or resource people. Based on the findings, it is recommended that the Ministry of Education, South West Regional Education Bureau, Dawuro Zone Education Department, and Tarcha Town Administration Education Officers and Cluster Supervisors regularly monitor and support school leaders and prepare and provide pertinent teaching materials and training so that the principals can lead in the capacity that is appropriate for the position.

Federal and State Funding Initiatives in School Improvement: A Texas Focus

This article explores the impact of federal and state funding initiatives on school improvement, focusing on the Texas Education Agency (TEA). It examines the evolution of the Texas Tech University principal preparation residency program, emphasizing the importance of partnerships, research, and continuous improvement in principal preparation. Key TEA initiatives include the Texas Incentive Allotment, Grow-Your-Own Grant, and Principal Residency Grant. These initiatives support teacher retention, recruitment, and leadership development, contributing to the success of instructional leaders across Texas. The program's design integrates practical experience with theoretical knowledge, preparing residents for effective school leadership.

Effect of Distributed and Instructional Leadership of Chinese School Principals on the Job Satisfaction of Teachers: A Conceptual Paper

School principals’ leadership behaviours influence the job satisfaction of the teacher, which in turn, defines the effectiveness of the school climate. Therefore, it is crucial to know how the leaderships styles, specially the distributed and instructional leadership, affect the job satisfaction of the teachers in the Chinese school context. So, the aim of the study is to analyse the effect of distributed and instructional leadership of Chinese school principals on the job satisfaction of teachers along with the mediating roles of reward, motivation, and effectiveness. In order to achieve the aim, the study adopted a “review-style” research method and explored the relevant past literature. The researcher confined the time frame from 2019 to 2024 to include the most recent studies and the theses, books, and discussions were not utilized as they did not fit into the standard of research articles. In the context of educational policy and school management practices worldwide, the implications of this study are significant. Therefore, suitable leadership interventions would improve teachers’ work satisfaction and consequently, the students’ achievements.

Navigating egalitarian culture and accountability pressures: shared instructional leadership practices of Danish school leaders

PurposeOur study presents insights from an exploratory qualitative case study conducted in three primary and lower secondary schools in Denmark, a country renowned for its collaborative and egalitarian culture, to unravel the complexities of shared instructional leadership.Design/methodology/approachInterviews with principals, middle leaders, and teachers and document analysis were used to identify themes according to shared and instructional leadership perspectives.FindingsThe study yielded three major findings. First, Danish principals structure schools to prioritize student learning outcomes and distribute responsibility to middle leaders and teachers. Second, reflection among teachers and leaders better prepares them for future demands and obligations. Third, collaboration underpins principals’ vision of reflection and professional development.Practical implicationsThe research team’s reflection on the data collected can be used to build future strategies to address unpredictable student learning progression and poor-performing teachers.Originality/valueTogether, these findings contribute to the broader understanding of shared instructional leadership and demonstrate how principals face external pressure for accountability and how egalitarian culture influences principals’ practices.

Integrating Instructional Leadership With Social Justice Leadership: Insights From Israel's Principals

Purpose: This study explores how school principals can effectively integrate instructional leadership with social justice leadership, recognizing their dual roles in promoting academic excellence and fostering a socially just school environment. Research Methods: Participants in this qualitative study were 32 principals from elementary schools in Israel. Data collection involved one-on-one interviews and focus groups. Data analysis followed a comprehensive four-stage process, including sorting, coding, categorizing, and theorizing. Findings: The study identified four interrelated perspectives on the relationship between instructional leadership and social justice leadership: (1) instructional leadership and social justice leadership have divergent foci; (2) instructional leadership inherently contributes to social justice; (3) social justice leadership defines the teaching approach required by instructional leadership; and (4) social justice leadership shapes the purpose of instructional leadership. Implications: This study suggests that to encompass the entire range of integration between instructional leadership and social justice leadership, principals must consider two aspects: the influence of social justice leadership on instructional leadership goals and its impact on instructional leadership practices.

How do China’s national-level teacher leaders perceive and improve their instructional leadership? A case study

ABSTRACT Drawing on interviews and textual data generated with six China’s national-level teacher leaders, this study explores the structure and development of instructional leadership in the Chinese context. Two findings emerged from the data analysis. First, the teacher leaders viewed their instructional leadership as a three-level construct, including staying committed to and excellence in teaching, establishing professional learning communities for collaborative improvement in teaching, and engaging with regional and national reform and improvement in teaching. Second, the teacher leaders improved their instructional leadership mainly by conducting research-informed teaching, interacting with crucial stakeholders, and capitalising on professional resources and opportunities. These findings add to the literature a context-specific, levelled conceptualisation of instructional leadership and suggest practical implications for cultivating instructional leadership in the Chinese context and beyond.

Development of Instructional Leadership Indicators of Teachers in Educational Opportunity Expansion Schools under the Primary Educational Service Area Offices in the Northeast

The purposes of this study were to: 1) identify instructional leadership of teachers, 2) develop the Instructional leadership indicators of teachers, 3) investigate the goodness-of-fit between the structural model of instructional leadership indicators of teachers and empirical data, and 4) produce a user manual of the instructional leadership indicators of teachers in educational opportunity expansion schools under the Primary Educational Service Area Offices in the northeast. The study was divided into four phases. The findings were as follows 1. The components of instructional leadership of teachers in educational opportunity expansion schools consisted of seven components, namely 1) self and other teacher development, 2) curriculum development ability, 3) learning management ability, 4) learning assessment and evaluation ability, 5) transformational leadership, 6) learning exchange ability and 7) moral and ethics. 2. The indicators of instructional leadership of teachers in educational opportunity expansion schools comprised seven principal components, 25 sub-components and 98 indicators. All principal components achieved the mean scores at high level of appropriateness 3. The indicator structural model of instructional leadership of teachers in educational opportunity expansion schools was congruent with empirical data. (Chi-Square=202.84, df=176, p=0.08095, GFI=0.97, AGFI =0.95, RMSEA=0.016, CN=668.53) and 4. The user manual of the instructional leadership of teacher indicators in educational opportunity expansion schools under the Primary Educational Service Area Offices in four aspects obtained the Index of item-objective congruence (IOC) at 1.00 indicated that the user manual was appropriated to be implemented.

Distributed pedagogical leadership practice for sustainable pedagogical improvement: A literature review (2010–2023)

AbstractLeadership from a distributed pedagogical perspective involves engaging multiple professionals in implementing shared responsibilities. In educational organizations, leadership responsibility structures have changed, with researchers advancing a more decentralized leadership system for sustainable pedagogical improvement. These global changes in education systems have informed the demand for sustainable quality teaching, the desire for 21st‐century learning skills, and rapid progress in education. As a result, traditional individual ‘heroic leadership’ is no longer tenable in any learning environment that intends to achieve quality pedagogical outcomes. Therefore, this narrative review paper aims to examine the essence of distributing pedagogical leadership responsibilities among multiple professionals to understand how the concept is perceived in diverse educational contexts and settings. This study reviewed relevant empirical research studies conducted to investigate the concept of distributed pedagogical leadership in Finland, Norway and Singapore. The findings revealed some gaps that informed our understanding of the concept and recommended further research studies.

Challenges in implementing instructional leadership: Insights from Turkish school principals

The growing international literature on instructional leadership notes that its implementation often varies depending on cultural and contextual factors. Previous studies have indicated that while Turkish school principals demonstrate some instructional leadership behaviours, they frequently do not practice its key components such as shaping teacher professional development, goal setting, curriculum development and instructional supervision. This study used qualitative research methods, including interviews with 33 school principals, to identify and understand the major barriers hindering the implementation of instructional leadership in Türkiye. Factors such as a lack of authority, beliefs about the profession, workload, community context, inadequate resources and principal competency are key influences affecting the implementation and effectiveness of instructional leadership in Türkiye. The findings contribute to a broader understanding of the nature of instructional leadership in diverse cultural contexts.

Headteachers’ Instructional Leadership Practices: A Comparison of Public and Private Basic Schools in Two Selected Districts in Ghana

ABSTRACT This study compared headteachers’ instructional leadership practices in public and private basic schools in two selected districts in Ghana. The study used a quantitative cross-sectional survey design and a simple random sampling technique to invite 336 teacher participants. The research utilized the teacher version of Hallinger and Murphy’s Principal Instructional Management Rating Scale (PIMRS) as the research instrument and descriptive statistics and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) as analytical tools. Results showed that headteachers in private basic schools enacted instructional leadership functions significantly higher than their counterparts in public basic schools. Among other things, headteachers in private basic schools framed and communicated school goals, supervised and evaluated instruction, monitored student progress, protected instructional time, and promoted teacher professional development significantly higher than headteachers in public basic schools. As the government of Ghana hopes to improve learners’ academic achievements in public basic schools, the study recommends that pragmatic strategies that could improve the instructional leadership practices of the headteachers should be implemented.

Are Superintendents Responsible for Lower Student Performance? How a Superintendent’s Policymaking Affected Student Scores

While research acknowledges the importance of superintendents as instructional leaders, when district leadership falters, a gap persists in the existing literature that does not allow a complete picture of the causes of failed leadership. All too often, we simply blame teachers. The purpose of this study was to better understand how a superintendent’s implementation of policies without a communicated vision and teacher support negatively affected student performance as measured on state standardized assessments. When teachers do not see the value of district policies but are still forced to enact those policies, those teachers lose both autonomy and agency. Consequently, student learning suffers. We found through the results of this study that a superintendent was an influential factor in a reduced student performance on standardized assessments.

Strategic Approaches to Enhancing School Performance through Instructional Leadership in Malaysia

The Nominal Group Technique (NGT) was employed in this study to suggest ways to enhance the performance of Malaysian schools. By relying on the opinions and consensus of experts, the study has tackled the problem of school performance using this technique. The nine suggestions for enhancing the school's performance were outlined in the summary of the experts' recommendations. Given that the NGT approach involves experts debating and voting on components derived from literature reviews, the validation of elements can be achieved straightforwardly.

Preservice teacher education stakeholders' perceptions of distributed pedagogical leadership in nurturing teacher leadership

AbstractThe need for quality teaching and improved student learning outcomes has been an area of interest in educational leadership studies in various contexts. The emergent distributed pedagogical leadership is based on a hybrid of distributed leadership and pedagogical leadership concepts. This study aimed to explore the participants' perceptions and understanding of the enactment of the concept, its influence on pedagogical improvement and its significance in the nurturing of stakeholders as teacher leaders. The study was conducted at a preservice public teacher training college in Kenya. It employed a mixed‐methods research approach with a convergent parallel design to collect, analyse and triangulate data from 294 participants consisting of a principal, teacher–trainers and teacher–trainees. Random purposive sampling was used in identifying the participants. The findings revealed that although the distribution of pedagogical leadership responsibilities was enacted among stakeholders, it was unevenly shared. Furthermore, understaffing, low teacher–trainee enrolment and teacher–trainer workload challenges inhibited effective implementation. The study recommended that further studies be conducted at multiple teacher–trainee institutions to confirm the findings.

Successful School Principals in Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Schools: A Grounded Theory Research from Turkish Context

The purpose of this study was to delve into the characteristics, professional competencies, leadership attitudes, and behaviors of successful school principals (SSPs) in socioeconomically disadvantaged schools. Utilizing a systematic grounded theory method (SGTM), we conducted research in the provinces of Amasya, Çorum, Samsun, and Tokat in Türkiye. Purposeful and theoretical sampling methods were employed to recruit successful school principals, deputy principals, teachers, students, and parents from secondary schools affiliated with the Ministry of National Education (MoNE). The data draws on unstructured individual and focus group interviews, as well as documents and observations. All the data obtained were inductively analyzed through open, axis, and selective coding stages. Based on the codes, sub-categories, categories, themes, and dimensions from the analyses, we designed the Contextual Successful School Principalship Model (CSSPM), which falls into four dimensions as follows: individual, managerial, organizational, and instructional. SSPs in this study mostly tend to display paternalistic leadership attitudes and behaviors in terms of dedication and self-sacrifice, serving, intrinsic motivation, and influencing stakeholders. They exhibit almost all the attitudes and behaviors of servant leadership, act according to some national and moral values, and experience national attitudes such as patriotism and nationalism intensely. By giving importance to the academic socialization of students' mothers, successful school principals exhibit transformational and instructional leadership behaviors. They act strategically to directly involve mothers in enhancing student achievement, demonstrating their commitment to fostering an inclusive and supportive educational environment.

Intersektionales Handeln zwischen Fremderwartungen und pädagogischer Selbstermächtigung

Young imams are confronted with intersectional inequalities in their pedagogical actions. In these relations, the action-guiding and structuring power of socially constructed categories of difference such as language and generation becomes apparent. Against this background, the article focuses on the question of how these relations can be analysed from an intersectional perspective and which self-empowerment strategies professionals use in their pedagogical actions. For this purpose, mosques are considered as pedagogical spaces and imams as pedagogical leaders, which have so far been insufficiently considered in the educa-tional studies. Using intersectionality as an analytical perspective together with the documentary method, the empirical material can be reconstructed and intersectional fields of tension can be described. Based on these insights, the question is discussed how intersectional action can be understood as a specific form of pedagogical action in the sense of a pedagogical self-empowerment strategy.

Guiding the Future: Narrative Stories of Beginner Teachers in the Coaching and Feedbacking as an Aspect of Instructional Supervision

Over the years continuous progress were made to the multi-faceted spectrum of instructional leadership. Each of its layer plays a magnanimous role contributory to supportive learning environment for students, teachers and leaders aimed at fostering significant success stories for each. The purpose of this study is to narrate the stories of beginner teachers as they start their journey in the world of teaching particularly as they undergo one aspect of instructional supervision which is, coaching and feedbacking. The researchers made use of Colaizzi’s Method of Descriptive Analysis after employing the purposive sampling technique to interpret the responses gathered from the five participants who possess the following qualifications: 1) must be a Junior High School teacher of the Department of Education; 2) must be in the public service for 0 to 3 years just yet and 3) must be willing to participate in the whole period of exploration. Two themes emerged rom the main problem which is described as 1) Perceptions and Impressions on Coaching and Feedbacking as an Aspect of Instructional Supervision with a category specified as “The Roller Coaster of Emotions” where sentiments such as “nervous but challenged”, “happy and thankful”, “pure and total adjustments” were shared. All of this according from the participants are the things they felt when undergoing instructional supervision. The second theme that emerged was 2) Challenges and Adversities Encountered where in two categories came up. The responses include “Equipping One’s Self with the Necessary”, “Being prepared at All Times”, “Seeing Help from Colleagues” all under “The Beginner Teacher Coping Mechanisms.” Meanwhile, “Leading by Example”, “Time Allotment is Important” and “Constructive Feedbacking” materialized under the “Instructional Leaders Approach.” This qualitative study contributes to the field by providing colorul narrative stories from beginner teachers of Narvacan National Central High School and Sulvec Integrated School loated at Narvacan, Ilocos Sur, Philippines that an inspire and motivate others towards a positive outlook in the world of teaching.