Perceptions Of School Leadership Research Articles

Australian senior‐secondary teachers’ perceptions of leadership and policy for differentiated instruction

AbstractDifferentiated instruction (DI) is an educational praxis that is built on the premise that all students can be engaged in learning and achieve positive academic outcomes. Previous research in secondary schools has shown promise in the success of DI practices and outlines the importance of sustained professional development (PD) for teachers. There is, however, little research on DI within senior‐secondary classrooms in the Australian context. This research is part of a larger study which recruited 12 participants from three schools across two states in Australia, and aimed to investigate teachers’ perceptions of school leadership and support in implementing DI in their classrooms as well as awareness of relevant policies. Findings indicated that when teachers were aware of policies involving DI, they tended to describe policies relating to special education. This suggests that DI is viewed by these teachers as an approach for students with additional needs rather than seen as a whole class philosophy. Similarly, the results indicated that when teachers said that leadership supported them in using DI, this support was commonly reported as isolated professional development in supporting students with additional needs. Discrepancies around awareness of DI policies were also found between teachers at the same school, with those in leadership roles indicating that requirements to utilise DI were embedded in their general teaching and learning policy. Implications for future practice and policy are discussed.

The Mediating Role of Social Motivation on the Relationship between School Leadership and Social Justice

This research aims to examine the relationship between school leadership, social motivation and social justice based on perceptions of the teachers at public schools and to reveal whether the perceived social motivation of the teachers have a mediating role in this relationship. 1222 teachers at public schools in Pendik district of Istanbul province in 2022-2023 academic year who were selected using the stratified sampling method based on the number of teachers per school grades participated in the study. In this quantitative study, School Leadership Scale for measuring teachers’ perceptions regarding school principals’ leadership behaviors, Social Motivation Scale for measuring participants’ perceptions regarding social motivation, and Social Justice Scale for measuring participants’ perceptions regarding social justice were used. Pearson correlation analysis, Independent sample t-test and structural equation model were used for descriptive analyses. Finally, whether the direct and indirect effects obtained in the structural equation model are significant was examined by bootstrapping analysis. The results of the research showed significant relationships between teachers’ perceptions of school leadership, social motivation, social justice besides social motivation’s mediating role on the relationship between school leadership and social justice. Finally, the findings obtained in the research were discussed in line with the relevant literature and suggestions were presented.

The Influence of Educators' Perceptions of Principal Leadership and School Culture on Digital Teacher Literacy Services at School

This study was conducted to determine the effect of digital literacy services on educators' perception regarding the leadership of school principals and the influence of digital literacy services on school culture and the influence of school culture on educators' perceptions of principal leadership. Researchers chose a quantitative method with a path analysis technique, and with a total population of 152 teachers and up to 110 respondents. Data were collected through questionnaires distributed to each respondent and analyzed using SPSS 25. The results show a direct influence of teachers' perceptions of school leadership on digital teacher literacy services with a correlation of 0.518 and a path coefficient of 0.306, contributing to 15.84 percent. There is also a direct influence of school culture on digital teacher literacy services with a correlation of 0.586 and a path coefficient of 0.439, contributing to 25.75 percent. Meanwhile, an influence of educators' perceptions regarding principal's leadership and school culture on digital teacher literacy can be viewed from a correlation of 0.483. In other words, there is a joint influence of educators' perceptions of principals' leadership and school culture on digital teacher literacy services with a correlation of 0.64 and a contribution of 41.59 percent. This means that teachers' perceptions of principal leadership and school culture have a significant influence of 41.59 percent on teacher digital literacy services.

School leadership, teacher’s psychological empowerment and work-related outcomes

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating effect of teacher’s psychological empowerment between school leadership style and teachers’ work-related outcomes.Design/methodology/approachA total of 711 teachers from 31 Estonian schools were surveyed with a questionnaire measuring four dimensions of psychological empowerment (competence, meaning, self-determination and impact), school leadership characteristics (leadership style, leader’s empowering behavior and trust in leader) and teacher’s work-related outcomes (job satisfaction and workplace attachment). AMOS path analysis was used to investigate the direct and indirect relations between the teachers’ perceptions of school leadership, their psychological empowerment and their workplace attachment and job satisfaction.FindingsThis study found that psychological empowerment (subscales meaning and impact) mediates the relationship between perceived leadership empowerment behavior and teachers’ work-related outcomes. Also, the psychological empowerment (meaning and impact) mediates the relationship between perceived leadership style and teachers’ work-related outcomes. Trust in the principal has direct and indirect effect (through psychological empowerment) on job satisfaction, whereas there only seems to be indirect effect on workplace attachment through two components of psychological empowerment.Practical implicationsThe mediating role of psychological empowerment includes an important message for school principals – in order to empower employees it is not sufficient to merely delegate formal power and decision-making rights. To facilitate the development of psychological empowerment, it is important to provide employees with an opportunity to experience agency, to experience that their voice and opinions are taken into account (perceived impact) and the purpose and targets of the whole organization are discussed with the employees and formulated in collaboration with them (perceived meaning).Originality/valuePsychological empowerment as a mediating variable has not been widely researched, especially in school environment. The results will provide important signals for school principals, where and how to find leverage to improve teachers’ job satisfaction and workplace attachment.

KEPEMIMPINAN KEPALA SEKOLAH DAN KUALIFIKASI AKADEMIK GURU TERHADAP KINERJA GURU (Studi Kasus di SDIT Ulul Albab Purworejo)

This study aims to reveal the influence of teachers' perceptions of school leadership and academic qualifications of teachers on teacher performance SDIT Ulul Albab 1 and 2 Purworejo. The approach used in this study is the quantitative approach. The research sample is determined by the formula nomogram Herry King. A population of 58 people with 95% confidence interval, are used to determine 56 people. Based on the results of the descriptive statistical analysis of the variables of school leadership gained a mean of 3.1379, academic qualifications obtained by mean of 2.4483 and teacher performance obtained by mean of 3.8276. There is a positive and significant impact of school leadership on teacher performance of 5.5%. There are no significant negative influence and academic qualifications of teachers on teacher performance of (-) 2.1%. There is the influence of positive and significant impact of school leadership and teachers' academic qualifications together on teacher performance by 0.4%.

Breaking Up Isn’t Hard to Do: Exploring the Dissolution of Teachers’ and School Leaders’ Work-Related Ties

Purpose: School leaders are central to the development of work-related ties among school staff. Although prior work has examined the predictors of the presence of work-related ties, little is known about the breakup or dissolution of ties among school staff. This study examines the extent of tie dissolution among school staff, as well as both the individual- and organizational-level predictors of the breakup of ties. Research Methods: This study uses social network analysis of 4 years of survey data from 14 elementary schools in one suburban U.S. district. Social network models predict the likelihood of the breakup of a tie between school staff in three types of networks: close colleague networks, and instructional advice networks in mathematics and language arts. Findings: Work-related ties between school staff dissolve at high rates from year to year, and ties that dissolve generally do not re-form. Aspects of the formal school organization—particularly changing grade levels and losing leadership positions—predict the breakup of ties, while individual-level factors such as commitment to the school, perceptions of school leadership, and beliefs about instruction generally do not predict tie dissolution. Implications for Research and Practice: School leaders should carefully consider grade reassignments and changes in leadership positions, as these changes strongly predict the breakup of ties between school staff. School leaders should also invest in the promotion and maintenance of cross-grade ties after changes to grade-level assignments.

Understanding the Relationship Between Urban-Centric Locale and Teachers’ Perceptions of School Leadership as a Working Condition

Using the 2012 North Carolina Teacher Working Conditions Survey data, school demographic information, and school’s urban-centric locale census designation, hierarchical linear modeling was conducted to examine the relationship between locale and teachers’ perceptions of school leadership as a working condition and explore any variance in the relationship between school contextual factors and teachers’ perceptions of school leadership associated with locale. After controlling for school contextual factors, the results showed urban-centric locale is not a predictor of teachers’ perceptions of school leadership, and most of the variance in teachers’ perceptions of school leadership is explained by factors within, not between, schools.

The Uncertainty of High Expectations

Teacher turnover continues to be a chronic problem for low-income schools and is especially high in urban charter schools. New evidence shows that teachers’ perceptions of school leadership and trust are two of the most powerful predictors of turnover. Using interviews with former No Excuses charter school (NECS) teachers, this study seeks to better explain the mechanisms influencing teacher turnover by analyzing teachers’ perceptions of what principals do to influence relational trust and describing how this influences teachers’ decisions to leave. Findings show how high and often-implicit expectations principals have for teachers affect teacher-principal trust relationships in ways that lead to turnover.

The effects of student violence against school employees on employee burnout and work engagement: The roles of perceived school unsafety and transformational leadership.

Victimization of school staff by students is a serious topic that receives scant attention. In this study, we quantified acts of student violence against school staff in one large school district in the Northeastern U.S. and examined the extent to which this type of victimization is associated with burnout and work engagement. We also examined a potential mediator (staff members' perceptions of safety at school) and moderator (staff member's perceptions of school leadership) of the relationship between victimization and both burnout and work engagement. These research questions were considered using cross-sectional, self-report data from 728 employees who responded to an anonymous, online survey. Consistent with our hypotheses, victimization was positively associated with burnout and negatively associated with work engagement. In addition, staff perceptions of school unsafety partially mediated the relationship between victimization and both burnout and work engagement, whereas transformational leadership buffered the effect of student violence against school employees on perceived school unsafety and work engagement. These results support the notion that student violence against school employees can be considered a job demand, whereas transformational leadership may act as a job resource. Moreover, our findings suggest that workplace safety perceptions can be a mediating mechanism between job demands and well-being outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved) Language: en

Organisational learning approaches to school leadership and management: teachers' values and perceptions of practice

In this article, we report results of a survey of 1,397 teachers in 26 primary and 17 secondary schools in England as part of the Learning How to Learn project. We consider how school self-evaluation can be understood within an organisational learning frame. Factor analysis of teachers' responses helped us identify 4 dimensions of organisational learning approaches to school leadership and management. Comparisons were made between teachers' perceptions of school leadership and management practices and the values they placed on those practices. We discuss the usefulness of analysing values-practice gaps for furthering understanding of organisational learning approaches to school leadership and management. Analysis of gaps between teachers' values and practices reveals significant inconsistencies between perceptions of current practices and values across a broad spectrum of school leadership and management practices. Perceptions of practice were significantly behind the values that teachers place on each of the 4 dimensions of practice.