Teacher Leadership Practices Research Articles

Investigating links between teacher leadership, collective efficacy and teacher commitment in Egyptian schools: a mediated-effects analysis

PurposeResearch investigating the impact of school leadership on teachers’ emotions and practices has mostly focused on the leadership behaviors of school principals, thus ignoring the potential leadership qualities of other school members, especially teachers. The current study aimed to bridge this gap by providing further insight into the link between teacher leadership and teacher outcomes in Egyptian schools. Specifically, the study examined the mediating role of collective teacher efficacy in the relationship between teacher leadership and teacher commitment.Design/methodology/approachThe study employed structural equation modeling and bootstrapping to analyze survey data collected from 497 teachers in primary and middle schools in Damietta city, Egypt.FindingsThe results supported our proposition that teachers’ leadership practices have more indirect than direct effects on teacher commitment through collective teacher efficacy. That is, teacher leadership practices positively affect teachers’ efficacy beliefs, which, in turn, increase their sense of commitment to school.Originality/valueThe study adds a new aspect to the literature by investigating the potential role of teacher leadership in promoting positive teacher attitudes that can have a positive impact on student learning. This is significant given the growing emphasis that educational systems place on enhancing school effectiveness. Specifically, understanding the factors that contribute to teacher commitment can inform strategies for retaining effective teachers and improving the overall quality of the teaching workforce. Additionally, since most of the empirical research on teacher leadership has been produced in Western contexts, it is important to enrich the field with studies conducted in other societies, especially in the Arab region.

Exploring Teacher Leadership’s Effect on Teacher Burnout: Does School Rurality Make a Difference?

In literature, both teacher leadership and teacher burnout have been heavily studied. However, it is unknown to what extent teacher leadership makes a difference in teacher burnout, and whether school rurality makes a difference in between. This study fills the research gaps by conceptualising teacher leadership from both instructional and non-instructional dimensions and applying a quantitative method to large-scale national data. Findings revealed that (a) rural teachers presented higher levels of teacher leadership practices; (b) rural and non-rural teachers presented the same levels of burnout; and (c) both instructional and non-instructional dimensions of teacher leadership practices helped reduce teacher burnout in general, but rurality moderated the two effects differently, where instructional teacher leadership had a larger effect in non-rural schools while non-instructional teacher leadership presented a larger effect in rural schools. Discussion and recommendations for further research of teacher leadership and teacher burnout in rural schools are presented.

Teachers’ leadership in inclusive education in Johor Bahru, Malaysia

A strong foundation of teacher leadership is crucial in determining the effectiveness of inclusion practice in schools. The recent implementation of inclusive education in the educational settings has garnered a widespread attention by countries all over the world including Malaysia in 2010. The embracement of inclusive education concept is one of the effort in ensuring the equality and equity of education for all students. It gives students with special educational needs students’ equal opportunities to advance academically and socially like students from regular classes. This study aimed to explore the challenges in teachers’ leadership practices faced by Malaysian teachers in inclusive education settings and to study the strategy of teachers’ leadership in inclusive education. This study addressed the challenges based on the Katzenmeyer and Moller’s Teacher Leadership Model (2001). The study employed a qualitative method with case study design through face to face interviews with six (6) experienced teachers from two (2) public secondary schools. The instrument with semi-structured interview questions was used as an interview guide along with observation. The respondents of this study has been selected through non probability purposive sampling. The findings of the research had explored strategies and challenges of teacher leadership practice in depth and hopefully, the finding can be used as a reference to the teachers in inclusive education settings in Malaysia.

Re -Assessing the School Factors Hindering the Application of Teacher Leadership in Improving School Performances

The purpose of this study was to re-evaluate the school-related factors that are impeding the application of teacher leadership in an attempt to improve academic rural performance of learners. The study included 8 purposely chosen schools that used a qualitative case study design. In the data collection process, interviews, observations, and various documents were used as instruments. Previous studies on factors, as well as the theoretical frameworks of Distributed leadership theory and symbolic interactionalism theory, were used to compare and contrast the study findings. The findings re- assured that teacher leadership practices even in rural schools compared to urban schools were hindered by the lack of cooperation and collaboration, lack of incentives and recognition and the lack of motivation and support. However, the study finds arising factors such as ; negative attitude, ignorance, lack of self-esteem and self-confidence, time limitation, traditional leadership structure and lack of leadership skills as new hindering factors as contribution to the discourse of teacher leadership.

Exploring the Application of Teacher Leadership Practices in Namibia

The significance for teacher leadership has received great attention, however its application received minimal attention, hence this study explored the application of teacher leadership practices at secondary schools in Namibia. Using a qualitative research approach, the study interviewed forty-five (45) participants who were chosen purposively selected from three (3) secondary schools in Namibia. Key findings revealed that teachers practice leadership roles across six spheres of Kentucky’s teacher leadership model. In Sphere One: teachers lead in the classroom, in Sphere Two: teachers lead through modelling and coaching. Further, in Sphere Three: teachers lead groups and teams; in Sphere Four: teachers lead to increase teachers’ voice and influence, in Sphere Five: teachers leading to professionalise teaching and in Sphere Six: teachers lead to connect the school to the entire community or world.

MOROCCAN TEACHERS TRAINEES' ATTITUDES TOWARDS TEACHER LEADERSHIP

Teacher leadership has become an important aspect of the modern education system. Teacher leadership involves teachers assuming leadership roles and responsibilities, with the aim to drive improvement and positively impact student’s learning outcomes. Effective teacher leaders possess a combination of instructional expertise, collaboration skills, vision and initiative, communication ability, adaptability, advocacy, and ethical and professional dispositions. This qualitative study aims at examining teachers’ trainees’ perspective on teacher leadership. The study employed online semi-structured interviews of 37 teacher trainees from three teacher colleges in Morocco. The findings indicated that though most participants could not define teacher leadership in a broader manner, they are still super-conscious that teacher attitude is the most influential factor in teacher leadership practice. Regardless of those lopsided findings, there is a need for further investment in this field as teacher leadership is becoming increasingly important for teachers to contribute to driving change and making a positive impact on the education system as a whole.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/soc/0059/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Exploring Head Teacher Leadership as Instructional Resource for Staff: Stories from a School of South Asia

At present, head teachers’ role as an instructional resource for the staff has been given a great emphasis to be carried out worldwide. However, a number of false practices of head teachers are often narrated by the school staffs which have hindered the creation of a motivating working environment. Hence, this paper aims at exploring what experiences the head teacher and teacher have assembled in the course of head teacher leadership practices as an instructional resource for the staff. The paper is based on narrative inquiry where a head teacher and the teacher from the same school were selected purposively as research participants for in-depth interview. From prolonged engagement with the participants, this study explored that head teacher leadership practice which was expected to act as an instructional resource for the staff was found counter-practiced though they narrated their awareness about the discourse. These pitfalls were narrated so considering the head teacher leadership’s major engagement in administrative tasks rather than in instruction pedagogy, instruction practice and CAS evaluation and implementation as inculcated by the three indicators of Step II of Effective Instructional Leadership. Moreover, failure of the head teacher to monitor and supervise the team’s performance was also recounted. Hence, the study implies the practices of head teacher leadership as an instructional resource for the staff as inevitable to help school prosper and strive towards excellence in teaching and learning setting.

Teachers’ Perceptions about Leadership: Towards an Innovative Collaborative Teacher Leadership Development Framework for Schools

The development of the literature on teacher leadership in the academic realm has been exponential, but the quest for more leadership knowledge seems to be inexhaustible. The purpose of this paper is to analyze teachers’ perceptions with respect to their leadership abilities. Email interviews were conducted with nine teachers from two primary and two secondary schools to obtain their views regarding teacher leadership, whilst affording them opportunities to make suggestions for collaborative teacher leadership development. Having employed a phenomenological approach and thematic analysis as method, this paper proposes a collaborative teacher leadership development framework (CTLDF). Significant about the CTLDF is that teacher leaders should consider ausgang as a way of opening the door for collaboration, homo economicus as a collaborative act and parrhesia as autonomy towards collaborative teacher leadership. The findings reveal that teacher leaders should cultivate a readiness to create opportunities for collaborative leadership development. The study recommends that teacher leaders should first have to be cognizant about their own individual strengths, whilst slowly starting initiatives to collaborate in order to sustain improvements in teacher leadership practices.

Perceptions of Teachers About Teacher Leadership: A Systematic Literature Review

Teacher leadership is pivotal for the development of educational institutions. However, teachers’ perceptions about teacher leadership have been under explored. In this study, the researchers review sixteen studies conducted in the USA, South Africa and other European, Asian, and Middle Eastern countries. Four themes emerged after analysis of the texts: perceptions of teachers about teacher leadership practices, factors influencing teacher leadership, teacher leadership development, and barriers to teacher leadership. Results show that teacher leaders are engaged in mentoring teachers, coordinating with administration, curriculum development and implementation, and subject matter development. The physical environment of the school, teachers’ age, experience, qualification, and support from the administration also influences teachers’ perceptions about teacher leadership. Teacher leadership development is influenced by teachers’ own beliefs, principals’ support and teachers’ professional development. Some barriers to teacher leadership are also discussed in this paper.

Implementing teacher leadership in Malaysian schools: Exploring secondary principals’ perspectives

Objective: The purpose of this study is to explore principals’ perspectives on the concept of teacher leadership, the strategies that they employed to support teacher leadership practice and the challenges and issues that principals faced while implementing teacher leadership. Methodology: This qualitative case study uses interview sessions with 10 purposely selected principals from various types of secondary schools. All schools are public schools that are administered and funded by the Ministry of Education, Malaysia. Findings: The study reveals that principals had a comprehensive understanding of the concept of teacher leadership; in fact, principals were able to list teacher leaders’ characteristics and provide definitions for the concept of teacher leadership. In exploring principals’ strategies to support teacher leadership practice, five themes emerged: developing future leaders, a mentoring programme, involving more teachers as teacher leaders, practising an ‘open door’ policy and providing more opportunities for teachers to offer mutual assistance. In terms of the challenges for teacher leadership practices, principals shared particular issues such as the unwillingness of teachers to become teacher leaders due to their heavy workloads and challenges in eading senior teachers. Significance: This study supplements the literature that explores teacher leadership within the Malaysian schooling context, which has hitherto been understudied. Thus, the concept of teacher leadership needs more in-depth investigation and evaluation to ascertain its suitability within Malaysia's educational system. For the Ministry of Education, this study notes some practical implications for improving teacher leadership in Malaysian schools.

Leading as boundary crossing: How teacher leaders lead across a professional learning network in Shanghai China

This paper explores how teacher leaders enact leadership practice across a regional learning network, Master Teacher Studios, an officially initiated teacher learning program in Shanghai. It investigates the leadership strategies that are employed for cross-boundary endeavors in the network. The concepts of boundary and boundary crossing, as expounded by Wenger and others, are used to guide an examination of the process of teacher leadership enactment across a network, which is elucidated as interpreting the boundaries, selecting/designing boundary objects, and participating in communities of practice. The paper fosters an understanding of teacher leadership practice as boundary work in a network context, and delineates a process of teacher leadership enactment, as well as the importance of teacher leader identity in the process.

Taiwanese elementary school english teachers’ practice of teacher leadership in professional dialogue

ABSTRACT This study uses document, observation, and interview to analyze ten Taiwanese elementary school English teachers’ practice and exercise of leadership among other colleagues during professional dialogue and to examine what influenced the practice of leadership. This study has the following major findings. First, participants’ leadership was mainly centered on improving colleagues’ teaching and learning practices, rather than traditional leadership in terms of power and authority. Secondly, lack of time, negotiating with administrators, consensus among teachers, and expertise in English instruction affected participants’ effectiveness in leading the meetings and discussions. Suggestions on effectively exercise leadership in professional dialogue are provided.

Examining the practice of elementary mathematics specialists through narratives: implications for professional learning and development

ABSTRACT This study analysed elementary mathematics specialists’ stories of work to examine how these disciplinary-specific teacher leaders engage in their practice. This paper examines the ways in which elementary mathematics specialists conceptualise their leadership roles and the impact of their work on other school stakeholders. Using narrative inquiry, we conducted semi-structured interviews in order to capture participant stories that described specific tasks, actions, context, intent and reflections. Findings suggest that the ways participants articulated their agenda, enacted their agency and positioned themselves and others provide a lens for viewing the range of ways they approached their work as elementary mathematics specialists and ultimately resulting in the categorisation of participants into two profiles based on similarities and differences in these themes. While all participants described challenges and successes, their stories differed in how they engaged in leadership practice and how they engaged others in leadership. We argue that, while having deep knowledge of mathematics content and pedagogy is crucial to elementary mathematics specialist work, to maximise the impact of these disciplinary teacher leaders, the exploration of teacher leadership knowledge, practices, and tools must be a crucial aspect of elementary mathematics specialist preparation and professional development.

Issues and Challenges in Teacher Leadership

Teacher leadership significantly promotes development and efficiency at schools. However, the practice of teacher leadership is slammed with challenges that impact its progression and effective implementation in schools. Therefore, the present study focused on the key terms, problems, and obstacles of teacher leadership based on domestic and international works of literature on teacher leadership practices. The study discussed the notion of teacher leadership before it addressed the challenges in the practice. Hence, the present paper helped school leaders to establish teacher leadership tasks in schools and help researchers to carry out more studies on teacher leadership.

Understanding teacher leaders’ behaviours: Development and validation of the Teacher Leadership Inventory

The current paper aims at developing and validating a Teacher Leadership Inventory (TLI). Adopting the theoretical-empirical strategy of instrument development, the procedure consisted of taking a sample of panel experts and undertaking six sequential empirical studies with sufficient samples of teacher leaders from China. After verifying content validity, structural validity, criterion validity, and cross-validity, a 25-item multi-dimensional model on teacher leadership behaviours with five factors was identified. The resulting TLI could provide a validated instrument for future research investigating the nature of teacher leadership behaviours as an independent construct and their relations with other relevant constructs. It is expected that the TLI could serve as a more robust means for promoting the research and practice of teacher leadership.

Principals supporting teacher leadership: The effects of learning‐centred leadership on teacher leadership practices with the mediating role of teacher agency

AbstractTeacher leadership has attracted scholarly interest over the past decade because of its potential to build internal capacity for sustainable school improvement. However, the existing studies have mostly been descriptive and limited to qualitative studies, lacking in terms of showing whether and to what extent principal leadership might influence teacher leadership. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of principals' learning‐centred leadership in fostering teacher leadership and the mediating role of teacher agency in Turkey. The study conducted a cross‐sectional survey design. Structural equation modeling was used for estimating relationships among variables in the conceptual model. Findings demonstrated that principals' learning‐centred leadership had a moderate but statistically significant direct effect on teacher leadership and a significant and moderate effect on teacher agency. Findings also highlighted teacher agency as a significant mediator in the relationship between principals' learning‐centred leadership and teacher leadership. The research confirmed that principals' leadership practices with specific emphasis on teaching and learning were important for enhancing a school culture in which teachers' participation in decisions and their enthusiasm for undertaking leadership practices are supported.

Becoming a Teacher Leader: Exploring Malaysian In-Service Teachers’ Perceptions, Readiness and Challenges

The ever growing demand for educational transformation in Malaysia has placed greater responsibilities upon school leaders to improve school performance. This brings to light the need to explore alternative approaches of school leadership where teachers can be roped in to help, lead and manage the operational tasks of the school. This study explores in-service teachers’ perceptions of teacher leadership within their contexts. The study also investigates teachers’ readiness and the challenges they face while practising informal teacher leader roles. The study employs a mixed-methods design and data were collected through questionnaires from 587 primary and 189 secondary in-service teachers and semi-structured interviews with eight selected teachers. In-service teachers have positive perceptions towards teacher leadership with most acknowledging familiarity with the concept. They admitted that they were ready to be selected as informal teacher leaders, for professional reasons. The findings further reveal that in-service teachers face challenges from various parties within the school community in executing their role as teacher leaders. Moreover, the findings recommend a framework for policy and school based initiatives for improving teacher leadership practices in Malaysian school context.

The effect of talent management factors on teacher’s leadership at the secondary schools

Talent management is one of the roles in human resources management and there has been a long debate about talent management for years. This study aims to identify the relationship between talent management and teacher leadership development. In addition, the study also analyzes the talent management and teacher leadership levels. The data are analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences Software (SPSS) version 23 and Partial Least Squares Structural (Smart PLS) version 3 are also applied to analyze the data. The survey study involves 473 teachers in Malaysia residential school. The findings reveal that talent management and teacher leadership practices were at high levels. There is a significant positive relationship between talent management and teacher leadership development. The results of the study promote the role of talent management that can lead to positive changes in teacher leadership at schools. It is hoped that through this study various stakeholders such as schools, district education offices and the ministry of education of Malaysia will be able to assist in planning and organizing efforts in order to produce good leaders in future. It is hoped that through this study, various stakeholders such as school, district education offices as well as the Ministry of Education will be able to assist in planning and organizing efforts to address the role of teacher leadership to produce highly talented future leaders at schools.

Teachers’ perceived teacher leadership practices: A case of private secondary schools in Lahore, Pakistan

Abstract With the realisation that leadership is not confined to only a position, the concept of teacher leadership has been gaining increasing attention among academics and practitioners. However, we lack any knowledge on how this ideally portrayed concept unfolds in Pakistan. This research explored secondary school teachers’ perceptions of their leadership practices in Lahore, Pakistan. One teacher each from four private secondary schools was invited to take part in the interview process. The analysis of data suggested that the participant teachers practise some aspects of teacher leadership such as taking instructional decisions, helping novice teachers, leading school events and connecting to the community. However, in comparison with Kentucky Teacher Leadership Framework (2015), which guided this research as a conceptual framework, all the participant teachers lacked any role to increase teacher influence and to professionalise teaching. The significant outcome of the research is a four-dimensional situated model which illustrates contextually situated practice of teacher leadership.

Student teachers’ development as teacher leaders during the practicum experience

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of student teachers’ development as teacher leaders during a 12-week practicum experience at Qatari government schools. Design/methodology/approach The investigation involved a qualitative research methodology entailing multiple data generation methods, including pre/post interviews, weekly journals, mid- and post-reflective essays, classroom observations and multiple assignments. Data analysis was carried out using deductive and inductive methods, by adapting the conceptual framework of teacher leadership practices, identity and views, but allowing for new analytical themes to emerge. Findings Upon initiating leadership practices, two pathways to leadership development were revealed, mediated by the presence or absence of supportive factors. Both pathways, however, led to the development of divergent teacher leadership identities and varying views toward teacher leadership. Originality/value The study includes implications for the design of initial teacher preparation programs designed to prepare student teachers as teacher leaders.