School Leadership Practices Research Articles

The role of shared leadership practices in schools on organizational synergy

The aim of this research is to reveal the level of importance of the role of shared leadership practices in schools on organizational synergy. The research was designed correlational model. The population of the research consists of teachers working in Eyüp Sultan, Fatih, Gaziosmanpaşa, Bayrampaşa and Beyoğlu districts of Istanbul province in the 2023 - 2024 academic year, and the sample consists of 330 teachers determined by the convenience sampling method. Istanbul in the 2023 - 2024 academic year. The sample of the study was determined by convenience sampling. The data were collected with the "Shared Leadership Perception Scale" and "Organizational Synergy Scale for Teachers". According to the findings, teachers' perceptions of shared leadership practices and organizational synergy in schools were found to be high. Teachers' views on shared leadership practices in schools showed significant differences according to gender and working time in the same school. It was determined that teachers' perception levels of organizational synergy differed significantly according to the seniority variable. The perceptions of teachers regarding shared leadership practices and organizational synergy levels in schools do not significant differences according to other demographic variables. A significant, positive and strong relationship was found between shared leadership practices in schools and teachers' perceptions of organizational synergy. It was concluded that shared leadership practices in schools are a significant predictor of organizational synergy. Among the dimensions of shared leadership perception, joint completion of tasks, decentralized interaction among employees and emotional support were found to have predictive of organizational synergy. (Extended English summary is at the end of this document) Özet Araştırmada, okullarda paylaşılan liderlik uygulamalarının örgütsel sinerji üzerindeki rolünün belirlenmesi amaçlanana araştırma ilişkisel tarama modelindedir.Araştırma evreni, 2023- 2024 eğitim öğretim yılında İstanbul ilindeki Eyüp Sultan, Fatih, Gaziosmanpaşa, Bayrampaşa ve Beyoğlu ilçelerindeki ortaöğretim kurumlarında görev yapan öğretmenlerden, örneklemi ise kolay ulaşılabilen 330 ortaöğretim öğretmenden oluşturmaktadır. Araştırma verileri “Paylaşılan Liderlik Algısı Ölçeği” ve “Öğretmenlere Yönelik Örgütsel Sinerji Ölçeği” ile toplanmıştır. Elde edilen sonuçlara göre, okullarda paylaşılan liderlik uygulamalarına ve örgütsel sinerji düzeyine ilişkin öğretmen algıları yüksek bulunmuştur. Okullarda paylaşılan liderlik uygulamalarına ilişkin öğretmen algılarının, cinsiyet ve aynı okulda çalışma süresine göre anlamlı olarak farklılaştığı belirlenmiştir. Öğretmenlerin örgütsel sinerjiye ilişkin algı düzeylerinin ise, kıdem değişkenine göre anlamlı olarak farklılaştığı görülmüştür. Okullarda paylaşılan liderlik uygulamaları ve örgütsel sinerji düzeylerine yönelik öğretmen algıları diğer demografik değişkenlere göre, anlamlı farklılıklar göstermemektedir. Okullardaki paylaşılan liderlik uygulamaları ile öğretmenlerin örgütsel sinerji algıları arasında anlamlı, pozitif yönde ve yüksek düzeyde bir ilişki tespit edilmiştir. Araştırmada okullarda paylaşılan liderlik uygulamalarının örgütsel sinerjinin anlamlı bir yordayıcısı olduğu sonucuna da ulaşılmıştır. Öğretmenlerin paylaşılan liderlik uygulamalarına yönelik görevlerin ortak tamamlanması, çalışanlar arasında merkezi olmayan etkileşim ve duygusal destek algıları, örgütsel sinerjiyi algılarını yordamaktadır.

The Cost of Excellence: A Critical Commentary on Instructional Leadership Practices in Pakistan’s Elite Schools

In this opinion paper, analysis of the instructional leadership practices in Pakistan’s elite schools is critically analysed by drawing them into their broader societal implications and hidden costs. The paper reveals through a detailed analysis of current practices, power dynamics and stakeholder perspectives, how the aspiration towards educational excellence is always at the cost of enormous social, cultural and psychological costs. These institutions uphold high academic standards and are able to produce globally competitive graduates. However, the practice of leadership in these institutions is concerned with sustainability, equity, and cultural authenticity. The paper discusses how market driven education practices and high-stakes competition influence institutional culture and its impact on the well-being of students and on teacher effectiveness. Specific policy and institutional-level alternative suggestions are presented to reform by balancing academic excellence with social responsibility and cultural integration. It is the suggestion that changing leadership practices in elite schools could lead to positive change all over Pakistan’s education sector, by helping to develop more sustainable, equitable educational models that will nevertheless uphold high standards of academic quality.

An Applied Approach to Transformational Leadership for Whole School Communities: Perspectives of Primary School and System Leaders

This paper examines the vision, strategy and leadership support structures for Irish primary schools where leadership is specifically referenced, with focus on links to transformational and distributed school leadership. Of particular interest is how transformational and distributed leadership models could aid effective and sustainable leadership enactment in times of exceptional change. This article offers new insights into primary school and system leaders’ perceptions of transformational school leadership and the factors that facilitate and/or inhibit transformational school leadership for the whole school community with a qualitative study. The overarching research question comprised: what are the perceptions of primary school and system leaders relating to the facilitating and inhibiting factors affecting the implementation of transformational school leadership, and is this model perceived to build relations with parents and the wider school community? The data highlight several factors that transcend both transformational and distributed leadership and, with previous research by these authors, inform the construction of a synthesised model of transformational and distributed school leadership for the whole school community aligned with the most recent Irish primary school policy document—‘Looking at Our School 2022: A Quality Framework for Primary Schools and Special Schools (LAOS)’. The authors also accompany this model with a roadmap that may support approaches to school leadership practice for the whole school community, at the primary and post-primary levels, in Ireland.

The Importance of School Leadership Practices in Social-Emotional Learning of Elementary and Secondary Schools

The Importance of School Leadership Practices in Social-Emotional Learning of Elementary and Secondary Schools

Quality assurance in higher education: Trends and insights from a systematic literature review

Quality assurance in higher education is vital for ensuring institutional accountability, improving educational standards, and meeting stakeholder expectations. However, few studies offer clear directions for future research, highlighting the need for further exploration. To address this, this study uses a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) approach to map key research topics in quality assurance. A total of 2,578 Scopus-indexed articles published between 2013 and 2023 were analyzed, employing keyword co-occurrence mapping to identify thematic clusters. The data analysis was conducted using VOSviewer to uncover trends and advancements in the field. The results reveal four distinct clusters: The red cluster focuses on institutional and policy frameworks, highlighting the role of teaching, policy, and standards. The green cluster emphasizes student perceptions, satisfaction, and service quality, reflecting the growing importance of the student experience. The blue cluster examines accreditation processes, emphasizing their role in maintaining academic standards and ensuring compliance. The yellow cluster explores leadership and engagement, focusing on the relationship between school leadership, stakeholder involvement, and quality assurance practices. These findings offer a strong foundation for advancing both scholarly discourse and practical applications in quality assurance and provide valuable insights to guide future research in addressing emerging challenges in higher education.

Caring leadership practices in Chilean educational communities: Perceptions of school principals and teachers

Caring leadership has emerged as an approach that can help strengthen school leadership practices to promote the cognitive and social-emotional development of the school community. Therefore, our goal is to study the differences between how school principals perceive their practices to promote the development of a school culture of care and teachers’ perceptions of those same practices. For this purpose, the Caring School Leadership Questionnaire (CSLQ) by author Van Der Vyver (2014), was translated and validated statistically and subsequently applied to 332 school principals and 333 teachers in the Metropolitan Region of Chile. The results of the questionnaire reveal different perceptions among the two types of actors, varying across each dimension. Most differences are seen around the practices related to psychological well-being, with fewer noticeable differences in relation to practices associated with the workplace.

The complexity of leading for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students' success in schools

ABSTRACT School leaders in Australia have responsibilities to support First Nations student engagement. In Australia, where Reconciliation is unfinished business, this work requires leaders to negotiate a complex set of arrangements that are often associated with deficit approaches. This paper attempts to disrupt these deficit discourses by researching the management of school reforms for success in student engagement. We analyze survey and interview responses of 40 participants who reflect on their school leadership practices using a framework of Leading for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander student success. The findings reveal that school leaders can be agents of decolonizing agendas to position schools as allies for the aspirations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

Navigating the Shadows: Exploring the Impact of Self-Centered Leadership on Teacher Emotional Exhaustion

ABSTRACT Researchers studying educational leadership theory tend to examine positive leadership behaviors and their outcomes far more frequently than their opposite. Such a lopsided approach, while admirable in its intent, has undermined efforts to identify and excise the continuation of poor leadership attributes currently extant. This study aims to address the latter issue by investigating how, and under what conditions, a school principal’s self-centered leadership style contributes to the proliferation of teacher emotional exhaustion amongst school faculty. Data collected from 855 teachers in 72 Kuwaiti public schools were analyzed via regression analysis and bootstrapping tests to evaluate a moderated mediation model of self-centered leadership effects on teacher emotional exhaustion; teacher diffident silence acted as the mediator, while teacher ambivalent identification served as the moderator. The results showed that diffident silence partially mediates the relationship between self-centered leadership and teacher emotional exhaustion. Additionally, ambivalent identification mitigates the positive relationship between self-centered leadership and diffident silence as well as the indirect effects of self-centered leadership on teacher emotional exhaustion via diffident silence. Our discussion highlights the benefits of understanding the roles of diffident silence and ambivalent identification in the relationship between self-centered leadership and teacher emotional exhaustion, and offers recommendations for improving school leadership practices.

Factors Influencing Teacher Enthusiasm: A Qualitative Study in Turkish Context

This study explores the factors influencing teacher enthusiasm in Turkish public schools through a qualitative, exploratory case study design conducted in two provinces in the northwestern region of Türkiye. Data were collected from 28 teachers using semi-structured interviews, with participants selected through convenience and maximum variation sampling methods. Content analysis was employed to analyze the data. The research identified three primary themes: personal factors, contextual factors, and external factors. Personal factors include motivation, affection for teaching and job satisfaction. Contextual factors encompass students’ academic performance and behaviors, school leadership practices, relationships with colleagues, and working conditions. External factors involve parental attitudes, educational policies, the value perception of the teaching profession, and incentives and rewards. The findings emphasize the critical role of personal motivation, affection for teaching, and job satisfaction in fostering teacher enthusiasm. Additionally, supportive leadership, positive student interactions, and a collaborative work environment are crucial contextual factors. External factors such as positive parental attitudes, consistent educational policies, societal recognition of the teaching profession, and appropriate incentives and rewards also play a vital role in fostering teacher enthusiasm. These results suggest that policymakers should prioritize consistent educational policies as well as recognition and rewards for teachers, while school principals should create supportive and collaborative environments. By addressing these areas, stakeholders can enhance teacher enthusiasm, ultimately improving teaching quality and student outcomes.

A Review of the Conceptual Structure and Evolution of Digital Leadership Research in Education

With the advent of digital technologies that have rapidly changed the functioning of societies, digital leadership has also become a novel imperative for the effective functioning of organizations. As the backbone of societal development, educational institutions have not been exempt from the influence of these new trends, which has ignited a growing research interest in the digital leadership roles of school administrators. This study aims to map the conceptual and thematic evolution of this research on digital leadership in the education field to offer a better insight into the strategic themes that are sufficiently or insufficiently addressed; that is, to identify aspects that are clearly defined or left shrouded in shadow. This study employed science mapping methodology and used SciMAT software (version 1.1.04) to map the evolution of thematic strands across three periods of the field’s development. The analysis was conducted using metadata obtained from 174 articles that are indexed on WoS and Scopus. The results indicated that with a growing focus on technology or e-leadership, considering the developments in the world of computers and the internet, research into digital leadership has gained momentum in recent years, particularly following the COVID-19 pandemic. Digital leadership is regarded as a broader concept for application in investigating the knowledge, skills, competencies, and perspectives of school leaders to facilitate the healthy integration of digital technologies into education, school administration, and student learning. The field seems to require investigations into the many aspects of digitalization in education to build a more solid and insightful knowledge base to guide the effective practice of digital leadership in schools.

A critical race feminist research-informed agenda that centres African American girls in school principal research and practice

ABSTRACT The purpose of this article is to present five areas for research and school leadership practice that centre African American girls. An analysis of critical race feminist research published in peer-reviewed articles yielded five themes for inclusive and affirming leadership research and practices: (1) Centring African American girls’ and their families’ voices, identities and lived experiences in school visioning and decision-making; (2) Enacting a school culture to ensure access to rigorous curriculum that centers African American girls’ lived experiences; (3) Cultivating emotionally safe school environments; (4) Dismantling inequitable discipline policies and practices and creating physically safe school environments and (5) Ensuring professional learning that centers critical race feminisms and builds educator capacity to affirm African American girls. To underscore the importance of centring African American girls in principal practice, these areas are aligned with culturally responsive school leader behaviours.

The Relationship between Principal's Distributive Leadership Practices and Teacher Job Satisfaction in Secondary Schools in Pasir Mas District, Kelantan

The Relationship between Principal's Distributive Leadership Practices and Teacher Job Satisfaction in Secondary Schools in Pasir Mas District, Kelantan

A Fight to Survive in Crisis: A Qualitative Search of the Secondary School Leadership Practices During the Pandemic

A Fight to Survive in Crisis: A Qualitative Search of the Secondary School Leadership Practices During the Pandemic

Why School Bus Drivers Stay in Their Jobs

With the current shortage of school bus drivers in many states, access to education is at risk for the many students who get to and from school by bus. Despite the critical role drivers play, little is known about why they stay in their jobs, and what can be done to keep them. To learn more about school bus driver retention, 301 drivers in 32 districts in New York were surveyed. Drawing on an overarching model of person-environment fit, perspectives of job satisfaction, meaningful work and public service motivation were used to explore what aspects of the driver role relate to turnover intention. Findings indicated lower turnover intention when drivers reported higher extrinsic satisfaction, when they found their work to hold personal significance, and when they saw their work as a source of broader meaning for their lives. Drivers also viewed themselves as making a difference in the lives of students and considered themselves a significant part of their education. They also indicated that pay and benefits were important in their decision to stay or leave. Findings are discussed in terms of implications for school leadership practice and future research.

A Structural Equation Model on Interpersonal Trust in the Context of School Climate, Collaborative Behavior and Leadership Practices of School Heads

A Structural Equation Model on Interpersonal Trust in the Context of School Climate, Collaborative Behavior and Leadership Practices of School Heads

WHO LEADS THE PACK? PROFILING SCHOOL LEADERS’ DEMOGRAPHIC BACKGROUNDS FOR INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERSHIP PRACTICES IN GHANAIAN PUBLIC BASIC SCHOOLS

The extent to which demographic characteristics of educational heads differentiate their instructional leadership practices has been a contentious matter for several decades. The aim of this study was to investigate the instructional leadership practices of school heads as well as examine the extent to which headteachers’ gender, professional qualification, and work experience differentiated their instructional leadership practices in public basic schools in Ghana. This was a quantitative study underpinned by the positivist paradigm. The study employed the descriptive survey research design where 127 headteachers and 643 teachers were selected through census and proportionate stratified random sampling techniques respectively. The Principal Instructional Management Rating Scale (PIMRS) was adapted from Hallinger and Murphys (1985) and used to collect numerical data for the study which was analysed using descriptive statistics like mean and standard deviation as well as inferential statistics including independent samples t-test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). The findings revealed that defining school mission dimension of instructional leadership practice was most prevalent among the headteachers as compared to managing the instructional programme and protecting school climate respectively. Additionally, the findings established that gender accounted for differences among headteachers in promoting a positive school climate where male headteachers rated higher than their female peers. Furthermore, the study established that work experience of the headteachers led to significant differences in defining school mission, managing instructional programme, promoting a positive school climate as well as the overall instructional leadership practice. Therefore, the study concluded that headteachers’ gender matters in promoting a positive climate in the schools while the work experience of the headteachers is a determinant of differences in their instructional leadership practices in the schools. Based on these findings, the study recommended that Ghana Education Service through the Regional and District Directorates of Education should liaise with instructional leadership specialists to organise in-service and refresher training programmes for headteachers on instructional leadership practices so as to sustain, improve, and intensify its practice in public basic schools.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/soc/0841/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

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

The relationship among culturally responsive leadership and PLC practices in small schools in Peninsular Malaysia

The relationship among culturally responsive leadership and PLC practices in small schools in Peninsular Malaysia

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.

Transformational leadership: an examination of South Kalimantan School Principals' Leadership Style

The headmaster plays a crucial part in ensuring the school's advancement and caliber. transformational school leaders are crucial in advancing educational innovation and Restructuring. The survey was designed to get information on their opinions regarding the practice of transformational school leadership. 335 teachers at private schools who participated in this study were chosen freely due to the wide distribution of the population in South Kalimantan, as demonstrated by their willingness to complete an online survey via Google Forms. The questionnaire is used to measure transformational leadership and builds on Bass's theory (1985). It is clear from the results that transformational leadership fell into the high category. Individualized consideration, intellectual stimulation, inspirational drive, and idealized influence are all high categories, as demonstrated by the four components outlined by Bass (1985).