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Relationships in distributed leadership, inquiry-based working, and realizing educational change in Dutch primary education: teachers’ and their school leader’s perceptions
Abstract
Although distributed leadership and inquiry-based working are relevant topics to primary education, there has been little discussion about how team members perceive these practices as meaningful in their day-to-day work. Following on from prior quantitative studies, the present study conducted a case study in which semi-structured interviews were employed to collect data. The findings suggested that teachers and their principal perceive distributed leadership and inquiry-based working as crucial to realizing educational change. More specifically, the case study showed how inquiry-based working could support distributed leadership and teachers’ ability to take the initiative to create educational change. Specifying the relationships could help teachers and school leaders to consciously leverage distributed leadership and inquiry-based working techniques to fully meet students’ needs.
... It is likely that these two pedagogical practices express deep learning and best application of the constructivist approach to learning. The relationship we found in the present study to inquiry learning reinforces the finding of Amels et al. (2020a) that inquiry-based work strongly and positively mediated the effect of distributed leadership on the capacity for school change. Although their research examined the teachers' own experience in inquiry learning, we assume that an inquiry habit of mind, which includes curiosity, question posing, and engagement in deep learning, is central to both personal experience and student guidance. ...
In recent years there has been growing need to adopt pedago-gical changes and design new learning environments. A sustainable school change is challenging to achieve and depends on a variety of factors. This study aimed to explore the factors that predict the application of best pedagogical practices by focusing on the relationship between distributed leadership, the level of assimilation of the pedagogical school vision, and the variables that moderate this relationship. A questionnaire was completed by 221 teachers from ten schools undergoing pedagogical change. A significant positive correlation was found between distributed leadership and the level of assimilation of the pedagogical school vision. Three sub-dimensions moderated this relationship significantly. Extensive application of formative assessment and inquiry learning by teachers strengthened the relationship; personal characteristics related to resistance to change demonstrated in short-term discomfort weakened it. The results contribute to an understanding of the process of leading a school change. The research demonstrates an important new methodological tool to assess the application of best pedagogical practices, which can contribute to research linking organizational, personal, and pedagogical characteristics in educational change.
... Namun, hasil kajian Mei Wei et al. (2016) menunjukkan terdapat hubungan antara pengetahuan mengenai integrasi teknologi dan kemampuan pengetua untuk memotivasikan diri mereka untuk melaksanakan perubahan keseluruhan sekolah. Amels et al. (2020) juga berpendapat bahawa pengetua merupakan pemimpin yang perlu memulakan dan menyokong integrasi teknologi dalam pendidikan dengan memodelkan dan memasukkan teknologi ke dalam amalan kepimpinan instruksional mereka. Menurut (Karahan et al., 2015), adalah menjadi keperluan pemimpin sekolah mengikuti perkembangan teknologi bagi memastikan kelestarian pendidikan terutamanya dalam norma baharu pendidikan. ...
Amalan kepimpinan instruksional dan pengintegrasian teknologi dalam pengajaran dan pembelajaran merupakan dua amalan yang memberi impak dalam memastikan kelestarian proses pendidikan. Kedua-dua elemen ini diadaptasi bagi memastikan kesinambungan pendidikan diteruskan dengan menggunakan sumber sedia ada bagi mencari solusi baharu dengan meminimumkan risiko dan juga mengurangkan kos. Oleh itu, kertas konsep ini bertujuan mengenal pasti amalan kepimpinan instruksional dalam mempengaruhi pengetahuan teknologi pedagogi kandungan (PTPK) di kalangan guru-guru sekolah menengah di Malaysia. Tiga dimensi dalam amalan kepimpinan instruksional (mentakrif matlamat sekolah, mengurus program instruksional, menggalakkan iklim sekolah yang positif) dikenal pasti mempunyai hubungan yang signifikan terhadap amalan mengintegrasikan teknologi dalam pengajaran dan pembelajaran iaitu merujuk kepada kerangka PTPK. Justeru, analisis kajian ini mencadangkan struktur model hubungan menggunakan Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). Hipotesis kajian dibentuk berasaskan literatur dan cadangan kerangka konseptual. Kajian ini keseluruhannya memberi implikasi berkaitan kepentingan menyediakan pemimpin sekolah dengan kemahiran mengurus program instruksional bagi membina pengetahuan teknologi pedagogi kandungan (PTPK) di kalangan guru serta menggalakkan iklim sekolah yang positif.
Research on data-based decision making has proliferated around the world, fueled by policy recommendations and the diverse data that are now available to educators to inform their practice. Yet, many misconceptions and concerns have been raised by researchers and practitioners. To better understand the issues, a session was convened at AERA’s annual convention in 2018, followed by an analysis of the literature based on misconceptions that emerged. This commentary is an outgrowth of that exploration by providing research, theoretical, and practical evidence to dispel some of the misconceptions. Our objective is to survey and synthesize the landscape of the data-based decision making literature to address the identified misconceptions and then to serve as a stimulus to changes in policy and practice as well as a roadmap for a research agenda.
Background: Data-based decision-making in education often focuses on the use of summative assessment data in order to bring about improvements in student achievement. However, many other sources of evidence are available across a wide range of indicators. There is potential for school leaders, teachers and students to use these diverse sources more fully to support their work on a range of school improvement goals.
Purpose and sources of evidence: To explore data-based decision-making for school improvement, this theoretical paper discusses recent research and literature from different areas of data use in education. These areas include the use of formative assessment data, educational research study findings and ‘big data’. In particular, the discussion focuses on how school leaders and teachers can use different sources of data to improve the quality of education.
Main argument: Based on the literature reviewed, an iterative model of data use for school improvement is described, consisting of defining goals for data use, collecting different types of data or evidence (e.g. formal data, informal data, research evidence and ‘big data’), sense-making, taking improvement actions and evaluation. Drawing on the literature, research insights are discussed for each of these components, as well as identification of the research gaps that still exist. It is noted that the process of data use does not happen in isolation: data use is influenced by system, organisation and team/individual level factors.
Conclusions: When it comes to using data to improve the quality of teaching and learning, it is evident that some of the most important enablers and barriers include data literacy and leadership. However, what is less well understood is how we can promote the enablers and remove the barriers to unlock, more fully, the potential of data use. Only then can data use lead to sustainable school improvement.
Educational improvement projects are increasingly focused upon the significant role of data in determining student performance, teachers’ learning, and schools’ ability to initiate local reforms. Thus, schools are moving toward a new approach to learning, progressing from the routine to the non-routine through inquiry-based working. In addition, educational improvement requires teachers to exhibit the capacity to change, namely, to implement the innovations proposed by government agencies or the schools themselves. Therefore, the current study investigates the extent to which the inquiry-based working of primary school teachers predicts their capacity to change. Furthermore, the study identifies which aspects of inquiry-based working are the critical drivers in the capacity to change. A mixed model analysis of questionnaire data collected from a sample of 787 teachers at 65 Dutch elementary schools revealed that the central aspects of inquiry-based work (i.e., working with an inquiry habit of mind, demonstrating data literacy, using data in the classroom, and using data at the school level) are significant in promoting an increased capacity to change. Working with an inquiry habit of mind emerged as the most critical aspect. Data use in the classroom and at the school level are complementary factors that also enhance a teacher’s capacity to change.
There has been little discussion about distributed leadership through the lens of beliefs. Principals and head teachers of two case-study kindergartens in Hong Kong were invited to be participants to examine how leaders think and act. Semi-structured interviews and shadowing were employed to collect data. The findings suggest that leaders’ beliefs can be categorized into five dimensions: “understandings”; “what,” “how,” and “why” leadership is distributed; and “to whom leadership is distributed.” It is suggested that the beliefs of leaders make a difference in leadership style, practices, and the assignment of duties to their followers.
School leaders are assumed to be important for the implementation of data-based decision making (DBDM), but little is known about changes in leadership during this implementation. Educational leadership was measured before, during, and after a two-year, school-wide DBDM intervention in 96 primary schools. Advanced analysis techniques were applied: educational leadership was classified based on multilevel latent class analysis, changes were modeled using multi-state modeling. Results indicate that leadership was stable (44%) or improved (40%) during DBDM implementation. Stability was primarily found for schools with initial high leadership for DBDM, whereas improvement was most likely in schools with lower initial leadership
The concept of employees’ commitment is one of the most challenging concepts in the management, organizational behaviour and human resource management literatures and research. The current study focuses on the construct of commitment as an emotional attitude, and expands the concept of general organizational commitment to a new more specific form of commitment, commitment to safety. Furthermore, commitment theorists commonly identify leadership as an important contributing factor to the development of organizational commitment. We aim to explain an underlying motivational mechanism, self-regulatory foci, through which leadership styles foster followers’ commitment. Results of three studies that used different methods (field and experimental), within different samples, demonstrated that transformational leadership was positively associated with followers’ promotion focus, which in turn was positively associated with both followers’ general and affective commitment to safety. Prevention focus mediated the positive relationship between a transactional active leadership style and both followers’ general and continuance commitment to safety. The implications of the findings for theory and practice are further discussed.
Background: Data-based decision-making (DBDM) and research-informed teaching practice (RITP) are key to teacher and school improvement. Currently, however, DBDM and RITP represent two distinct approaches to developing evidence-informed practice (EIP) and do not correspond to the all-encompassing notion of EIP envisaged by many academics and commentators.
Purpose: DBDM and RITP are usually employed independently of each other. Each is associated with its own theoretical perspectives and research base, and each has its own pitfalls and strengths. Yet the approaches employed appear to be complementary, suggesting that there might be value in combining DBDM and RITP into one overarching process for achieving EIP. This paper presents the conceptual analysis and arguments for this proposal.
Sources of evidence: Drawing from literature and previous research in the fields of DBDM, RITP and EIP, we describe both DBDM and RITP, before comparing and contrasting the integral aspects of each.
Main argument: Our analysis leads us to suggest that not only is there overlap between these two approaches, but the strengths of each appear to mirror and compensate for the weaknesses of the other. As such, we argue that it is important that decisions in education are based on a combination of personal judgement, research evidence and local school data. This is because such a combination is likely to lead to equitable, effective and efficient decisions that are informed by values and preferences, grounded in context and steeped in practices that have been shown to be effective elsewhere.
Conclusions: We suggest that an effective strategy for EIP might be to achieve ‘the best of two worlds’ by integrating DBDM and RITP. In line with evidence-informed practices in medicine and management, this means EIP in education can finally be engaged in as a holistic approach to educational decision-making that critically appraises different forms of evidence before key improvement decisions are made. Our proposed approach, Evidence informed School and Teacher Improvement, is thus designed with the aim of enhancing the quality of educational provision by employing these evidence types as part of a systematic cycle of inquiry, focused on continuously improving the quality of learning in schools.
Teacher leadership lies at the heart of school improvement. Leadership development among beginning teachers, however, is often neglected. This paper examines the role of principal–teacher interactions in the leadership development of a group of beginning teachers. Using a case study design, interviews were conducted and documentary evidence was collected. The results showed that the beginning teachers were able to take up leadership roles in schools both formally and informally. Development of teacher leadership requires constructive and regular communication with teachers and encouragement of their continuing professional development. Three types of effects on principal–teacher interactions in developing teacher leadership were identified: ‘inspirational’, ‘empowering’ and ‘allowing’. These interaction patterns contribute to the international knowledge on teacher leadership development in schools. Implications for school leadership are discussed.
Principals’ responsibilities have escalated in quantity and complexity. Mandates to increase student achievement and improve school grades overwhelm one person. Hence, principals are obliged to enlist teachers to serve in leadership roles. This research sought to determine whether there is a relationship between distributed leadership and teacher affective commitment. One hypothesis, null and alternative, was formulated, and data were collected from 230 teachers. Results revealed that distributed leadership correlated with teachers’ affective commitment.
This article reviews the literature and explores the institutional and systemic factors that help and/or hinder change and innovation across school systems, with a focus on evidence from England. A number of authors have argued that schools and school systems need to become more innovative and adaptive if they are to meet the needs of 21st-century societies and economies. Quasi-market models premised on school autonomy, parental choice and vertical accountability have been seen as the best way to secure innovation, but the evidence of success remains thin. The article analyses four examples of change and finds that system-wide change is possible, but requires strong and sustained political support and capacity building within a values-based framework that allows for local agency and adaptation. It concludes by drawing out three implications: the need to prioritise ‘professional’ as well as ‘structural’ autonomy; the potential for vertical accountability frameworks to condition the ways in which parents perceive and value innovation; and the need to enhance the legitimacy of innovation in the eyes of education’s key stakeholders.
Inquiry-based working by teachers includes working with an inquiry habit of mind, being data literate, contributing to a culture of inquiry at the school level, and creating a culture of inquiry at the classroom level. Inquiry-based working has been found to contribute to educational improvements and the professionalisation of teachers. This study investigates the relationship between psychological factors – attitude, experienced social pressure, self-efficacy and collective efficacy – and inquiry-based working by teachers. Questionnaire data were collected from a representative sample of 249 Dutch teachers. The results show a significant relationship between self-efficacy and all aspects of inquiry-based working. In addition, collective efficacy, attitude and experienced social pressure are all related to aspects of inquiry-based working. School leaders and teacher educators who aim to stimulate inquiry-based working should not only focus on increasing teachers’ inquiry skills, but also on psychological factors related to inquiry-based working.
Data-driven decision making continues to be a growing educational reform initiative across the globe. The effective use of data requires that teachers develop the knowledge and skills to analyze and use data to improve instruction. The purpose of this article is to examine teachers’ capacity for and beliefs about data use. These issues are examined through a review of research in the past decade. We find that teachers’ beliefs about and capacity for data use are often not connected within the literature or in practice, but we argue they are the heart of the connection between data and instructional change. Teachers’ capacity to use data and their beliefs about data use are shaped within their professional communities, in training sessions, and in their interactions with coaches, consultants, and principals. However, efforts to develop teachers’ capacity for data use often fall short of their goals. Correspondingly, teachers have varied beliefs about data use, and some feel they lack the ability to use data to inform instruction. In order to be more successful, capacity building should directly address teachers’ beliefs, and data use must be decoupled from external accountability demands and involve a variety of information on student learning.
The purpose of this study was to examine the possible effects of the simultaneous inclusion of self and other ratings of principal instructional leadership on teachers' self-efficacy beliefs. Special attention was given to the case where principal and teacher ratings were incongruent and exhibited a self-other rating disagreement regarding the principals' effectiveness in instructional leadership. The data used in the analyses were taken from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD's) Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) conducted in 2008 and involved information from 672 principals and 11,323 teachers in four OECD countries located in the broader Asia-Pacific region. The study tested a set of hypotheses based on a multi-source assessment framework for the analysis of leadership performance. Results indicated that principal–teacher incongruence regarding principal instructional leadership was significantly and negatively associated with teacher self-efficacy across all four countries. The findings suggest that multi-source assessment can provide unique performance-relevant information about leadership that would not be captured by traditional single-source ratings alone.
In this study we examined the relative importance of teachers' psychological states, school organizational conditions (teacher collaboration and participative decision making), and the leadership practices (vision, individual consideration, and intellectual stimulation) of principals at their schools in explaining variation in teachers' professional learning. We examined teachers' learning by focusing on their participation in the following professional learning activities: keeping up to date (or collecting new knowledge and information), experimentation, reflective practice, and innovation. The data we used came from the Dutch School Improvement Questionnaire consisting of 54 items administered to teachers from 18 Dutch primary schools (grades 1-8). To test our theoretical model, data from 328 teachers were analyzed using structural equation modeling. As expected, results showed that psychological factors (teachers' sense of self-efficacy and internalization of school goals into personal goals) had strong effects on teachers' participation in the professional learning activities. Furthermore, differential effects of leadership practices and organizational conditions on the 2 psychological factors and the professional learning activities were found. To better understand change mechanisms in schools and based on our findings, we stress the need to conduct research using models that contain factors at both the school and teacher levels.
This article provides a meta-analysis of research conducted on distributed leadership from 2002 to 2013. It continues the review of distributed leadership commissioned by the English National College for School Leadership (NCSL) (Distributed Leadership: A Desk Study, Bennett et al., 2003), which identified two gaps in the research during the 1996-2002 period. The review found that the studies had been unable to conceptualise distributed leadership or empirically outline its application. The two research gaps identified by Bennett et al. (2003) constitute the focus of the present review, which attempts to determine whether recent research has been able to fill these gaps. Based on the findings of the present meta-analysis, the authors recommend directions for future studies on distributed leadership.
Despite the growing volume of research on data use systems or data use activities in which teachers engage, micro-process studies—investigations of what teachers and others actually do under the broad banner of “data use” or “evidence-based decision making”—remain substantially underdeveloped. Starting with a review of the extant research on teachers’ data use practice in workplace and professional development contexts, this article argues for a more conceptually robust, methodologically sophisticated, and extensive program of micro-process research on data use that also anticipates the ways in which local practice both instantiates and constructs institutional and organizational structures, processes, and logics.
A distributed perspective on school leadership and management has garnered considerable attention from policy makers, practitioners, and researchers in many countries over the past decade. However, we should be skeptical of its appeal as a measure of worth. While optimism is high with respect to taking a distributed perspective, we urge caution by arguing for more attention to research fundamentals in the form of study operations and research measures before seeking causal inferences. The question is not, does distributed leadership work? but rather, how are leadership and management related to school and classroom conditions and school outcomes? To answer this question from a distributed perspective, we need to engage study operations and measures when taking a distributed perspective in school leadership and management research. This article attempts to extend that conversation.
"Data use" and "data-based decision making" are increasingly popular mantras in public policy discourses and texts. Policy makers place tremendous faith in the power of data to transform practice, but the fate of policy makers' efforts will depend in great measure on the very practice they hope to move. In most conversations about data use, however, relations between data and practice have been under conceptualized. In this essay, I identify and discuss some conceptual and analytical tools for studying data in practice by drawing on work from various theoretical traditions. I explore some ways in which we might frame a research agenda in order to investigate data in everyday practice in schools. My account is centered on schoolhouse work practice, but the research apparatus I consider can be applied to practice in other organizations in the education sector and indeed to interorganizational practice, a critical consideration in the education sector.
Purpose: Although it is expected that building schoolwide capacity for teacher learning will improve teaching practices, there is little systematic evidence to support this claim. This study aimed to examine the relative impact of transformational leadership practices, school organizational conditions, teacher motivational factors, and teacher learning on teaching practices. Research Design: Data were collected from a survey of 502 teachers from 32 elementary schools in the Netherlands. A structural model was tested on the within-school covariance matrix and a chi-square test taking into account nonindependence of observations. Findings: Results suggest that teachers’ engagement in professional learning activities, in particular experimenting and reflection, is a powerful predictor for teaching practices. Teachers’ sense of self-efficacy appeared to be the most important motivational factor for explaining teacher learning and teaching practices. Motivational factors also mediate the effects of school organizational conditions and leadership practices on teacher learning and teaching practices. Finally, transformational leadership practices stimulate teachers’ professional learning and motivation and improve school organizational conditions. Conclusions: For school leaders, to foster teacher learning and improve teaching practices a combination of transformational leadership behaviors is required. Further research is needed to examine the relative effects of transformational leadership dimensions on school organizational conditions, teacher motivation, and professional learning in schools. Finally, conditions for school improvement were examined at one point in time. Longitudinal studies to school improvement are required to model changes in schools’ capacities and growth and their subsequent effects on teaching practices.
Semistructured interviews with 105 teachers and 14 administrators, supplemented by observation, provide data for a focused ethnography of the school as a workplace, specifically of organizational characteristics conducive to continued "learning on the job." Four relatively successful and two relatively unsuccessful schools were studied. More successful schools, particularly those receptive to staff development, were differentiated from less successful (and less receptive) schools by patterned norms of interaction among staff In successful schools more than in unsuccessful ones, teachers valued and participated in norms of collegiality and continuous improvement (experimentation); they pursued a greater range of professional interactions with fellow teachers or administrators, including talk about instruction, structured observation, and shared planning or preparation. They did so with greater frequency, with a greater number and diversity of persons and locations, and with a more concrete and precise shared language. Findings suggest critical social organizational variables that lend themselves to quantitative study.
School leaders are faced with the daunting task of anticipating the future and making conscious adaptations to their practices, in order to keep up and to be responsive to the environment. To succeed in a rapidly changing and increasingly complex world, it is vital that schools grow, develop, adapt and take charge of change so that they can control their own futures.This paper will examine the tension that exists for school leaders in relation to data about their schools and their students, arguing that the explicit connections between data and large-scale reforms make it impossible to avoid a critical approach to data, drawing on research in Ontario and Manitoba in Canada, and examining parallels with evidence from research in England, to highlight the challenges involved in using data effectively in different political contexts and mandated policies on the uses of data.
Although there has been sizable growth in the number of empirical studies of shared forms of leadership over the past decade, the bulk of this research has been descriptive. Relatively few published studies have investigated the impact of shared leadership on school improvement. This longitudinal study examines the effects of distributed leadership on school improvement and growth in student math achievement in 195 elementary schools in one state over a 4-year period. Using multilevel latent change analysis, the research found significant direct effects of distributed leadership on change in the schools' academic capacity and indirect effects on student growth rates in math. The study supports a perspective on distributed leadership that aims at building the academic capacity of schools as a means of improving student learning outcomes.
Education policies for greater accountability of schools assume that schools are capable of building their capacity for continuous improvement. While policy-makers, scholars, and practitioners acknowledge the importance of building school-wide capacity for continuous improvement, empirical evidence to this effect remains thin. In this study, we examine the extent to which school improvement capacity develops over time in a sample of elementary schools in The Netherlands. Leadership practices, school organizational conditions, teacher motivation, and teacher learning were used to measure school-wide capacity for improvement. Mixed-model analysis of longitudinal data from 1,010 teachers of 32 Dutch elementary schools showed that schools are capable of building school-wide capacity, and that sustaining a high level of capacity seemed to be more difficult. The findings suggest that improving leadership may be an important first step in the process of building school-wide capacity.
Focusing on the school principal's day-to-day work, we examine who leads curriculum and instruction- and administration-related activities when the school principal is not leading but participating in the activity. We also explore the prevalence of coperformance of management and leadership activities in the school principal's workday. Looking across a range of administration-related and curriculum and instruction-related activities school principals participate in, we show that who takes responsibility for leading and managing the schoolhouse varies considerably from activity to activity and from one school to the next.
This meta-analysis reviews research on the achievement effects of comprehensive school reform (CSR) and summarizes the specific effects of 29 widely implemented models. There are limitations on the overall quantity and quality of the research base, but the overall effects of CSR appear promising. The combined quantity, quality, and statistical significance of evidence from three models, in particular, set them apart. Whether evaluations are conducted by developers or by third-party evaluators and whether evaluators use one-group pre-post designs or control groups are important factors for understanding differences in CSR effects. Schools that implemented CSR models for 5 years or more showed particularly strong effects, and the benefits were consistent across schools of varying poverty levels. A long-term commitment to research-proven educational reform is needed to establish a strong marketplace of scientifically based CSR models.
This article studies the relationship between teachers’ perceptions of distributive leadership and inquiry-based work in primary schools and the resulting impact on those teachers’ capacity to contribute to educational change. The path analysis that tests the proposed model relies on questionnaire data collected from 787 teachers in 65 primary schools. The results indicate a direct, positive effect of distributive leadership on teachers’ collaboration and collegiality, as well as on their motivation to contribute to educational change. Inquiry-based work positively mediates the effect of such leadership styles on three aspects of teachers’ capacity to change: collaboration, professional learning activities, and motivational factors. Therefore, all three promising aspects can be reinforced if teachers adopt leadership roles and combine these roles with inquiry-based work practices.
Increasingly, research suggests that successful professional learning communities (PLCs) worldwide need effective principals to strengthen pedagogy and develop skills that facilitate team planning to increase student achievement. Using immersive simulations to help teachers build skills and increase self-efficacy is also supported in research. Few studies, however, address using immersive simulations as a pedagogical tool to build skills and increase self-efficacy for educational leaders at the state, national, or international levels. This study examined the application of immersive simulations to increase leader capacity and self-efficacy for 46 K-12 school and district leaders in Georgia, USA. Leaders identified improvement in three critical skill areas all leaders need to build and support highly engaged PLC teams: conscious communications, active listening, and authentic engagement.
Teacher Design Teams (TDTs) are professional learning communities in which teachers collaborate to (re)design educational materials. Although studies have indicated that leadership is vital for TDTs’ functioning, providing adequate leadership is challenging. Both shared and vertical leadership are needed, and how to combine them is not obvious. TDT participants and coaches might benefit from insight into what shared and vertical leadership look like in practice. In this study, we monitored two TDTs that used a stepwise method that integrates shared and vertical leadership. Findings reveal that combining shared and vertical leadership in TDTs is possible, but remains a challenging balancing act.
The study examines the correlation between collective innovativeness of the teaching staff and the principal’s leadership style as well as additional school structure characteristics. The construct of collective innovativeness is examined as a precondition of successful school improvement processes driven by the teaching staff. Based on theoretical interdisciplinary analyses and empirical findings, the examined hypothesis was that the principal’s leadership directly and positively influences the collective innovativeness of the teaching staff. The results of the structural equation modeling (partial least squares regression) indicate that the principal’s leadership style is the strongest predictor of teachers’ collective innovativeness and, together with the teaching staff’s perception of hierarchical structures and autonomy within the school, explained 51% of variance in the construct. The paper highlights important aspects of principals’ leadership styles that can encourage collective innovativeness among teachers.
Purpose
The aim of this study is to investigate the association between perceptions of leader emotion regulation strategies and followers’ organizational commitment. In particular, this study using Social Exchange Theory as a framework examines the association between leader surface and deep acting and followers’ affective, normative and continuance organizational commitment.
Design/methodology/approach
Survey data were collected from 323 employees of five service sector organizations in Anhui province, China. Further, PLS-SEM technique was used to perform quantitative analysis.
Findings
The findings suggest that leader surface acting has a negative influence on followers’ affective commitment, normative commitment, and continuance commitment. In contrast, leader deep acting has a positive influence on followers’ affective commitment, normative commitment, and continuance commitment.
Practical implications
The findings suggest that leaders should be careful in managing their affective display. They may like to improve their followers’ affective commitment, normative commitment and continuance commitment by using deep acting. In contrast, leader surface acting may weaken their followers’ affective commitment, normative commitment and continuance commitment.
Originality/value
This study extends Social Exchange Theory in the context of emotional labor by examining the link between perceptions of leader surface and deep emotional strategies and followers’ affective, normative and continuance organizational commitment.
Inquiry-based working contributes to teacher professionalization and educational improvements. This article presents the key findings of a qualitative case study carried out in three primary schools in the Netherlands. That study focused on the inquiry-based working of school boards, school leaders and teachers, with the goal of better understanding how schools establish an inquiry-based culture. As a follow-up to a nationwide survey, this case study used semi-structured interviews, observations and document analysis to gain insight into the interplay between school boards, school leaders and teachers regarding inquiry-based working. It identified multiple ways in which educators can encourage others to work in an inquiry-based manner. These approaches are not only top-down (i.e., from school board to school leader, and from school leader to teacher) but also bottom-up (i.e., from teacher to school leader, and from school leader to school board).
Research considers collaboration to be a significant factor in terms of how teachers use data to improve their practice. Nevertheless, the effects of teacher collaboration with regard to teachers’ individual data use has remained largely underexplored. Moreover, little attention has been paid to the interplay between collaboration and the personal factors that influence teachers’ data use. This paper addresses this research gap by defining factors that affect collaboration, and by investigating the impact of collaboration on teachers’ individual data use. The resulting research questions were answered by drawing on questionnaire data from 1,472 primary and secondary school teachers in Flanders. The findings indicate that collaboration is the main explanatory factor for teachers’ individual data use compared to teachers’ self-efficacy and attitude. Therefore, this study demonstrates the value of collaboration for future research and for creating a supportive environment for teachers’ individual data use.
Educational activity among adults is not only a key factor of social development but also one of the most important priorities of public policies. Although large sums have been earmarked and numerous actions undertaken to encourage adult learning, many people remain educationally passive, a particularly acute problem in Poland. We point to the main cultural and economic determinants of educational passivity: the family environment, education, low earnings and job. Based on several years of research conducted within the Study of Human Capital in Poland project, we conclude that the Matthew effect is visible in the field of adult learning: better-educated people increase their educational capital, moving further away from those with a lower level of education. Comparison of the levels of self-evaluation of competences between educationally active and non-active adults of various levels of education indicates that the highest increase in evaluation occurs among less educated people. Owing to this group’s very low level of education, however, the scale of using the potential for educational activity is very low. The outcome of this is that the opportunities created by adult educational activity are not exploited to reduce social differences and instead it sometimes reinforces these differences.
This article offers a theoretical discussion on the current problems and future challenges of school capacity building in early childhood education (ECE), aiming to highlight some key areas for future research. In recent years, there has been a notable policy shift from monitoring quality through inspection to improving quality through school capacity building in early childhood institutions in the global discourse for quality. Reflecting this policy shift and its implications on school development, ECE in Hong Kong is used as an illustrative example to deliberate the issues of school capacity building in Chinese educational contexts. We identify three challenging contexts: (1) low professional qualification and minimal teacher education resulting in a deficit approach to processional development, (2) absence of school-based professional learning culture for empowering teachers as internal agents of change, and (3) hierarchical culture within a school and between university and school hindering the process of school capacity building. Corresponding to these challenges, we aim to propose two suggestions, including (1) empowering teachers in ECE through school-based professional learning community and (2) promoting authentic external support in the process of university–school collaboration. Finally, we further propose specific directions for future research on school capacity building in ECE in Hong Kong. In doing so, it will contribute to knowledge-based development in school capacity building in Chinese educational contexts.
Despite growing international interest in the use of data to improve education, few studies examining the effects on student achievement are yet available. In the present study, the effects of a two-year data-based decision-making intervention on student achievement growth were investigated. Fifty-three primary schools participated in the project, and student achievement data were collected over the two years before and two years during the intervention. Linear mixed models were used to analyze the differential effect of data use on student achievement. A positive mean intervention effect was estimated, with an average effect of approximately one extra month of schooling. Furthermore, the results suggest that the intervention especially significantly improved the performances of students in low socioeconomic status schools.
This editorial sets out the context and agenda for this special issue of School Effectiveness and School Improvement, which brings together accounts of initiatives from diverse national contexts around the world. The overall purpose is to explore the possibilities and challenges of using inquiry-based approaches to school improvement, focusing in particular on the challenge of equity. The editors begin by outlining some of the important considerations for researchers working in collaborative projects that specifically place equity, and educational and social change, at the center of the development work. They then indicate themes for readers to keep in mind as they consider the arguments developed in the papers.
Literature about school improvement and educational change includes both inside and outside views. Focusing on the capacity of schools to transform themselves into supportive environments for teacher learning and change, the inside view is represented in this article by concepts and theories about organizational learning. The outside view, concerned with the implementation of innovations or new practices developed by reformers and policymakers, is illustrated in this article by the comprehensive school reform (CSR) movement. While literature associated with both inside and outside views of change often inform each other, they look at change through opposite ends of the telescope. This article offers a synthesis of these views.
School leaders and teachers are increasingly required to use data as the basis for their decisions. But what does using data for decision-making mean? What counts as “data”? In this chapter, the authors address what is meant by the word “data” and what kinds of data are available and needed. The latter should overlap, but sometimes the available data are not needed and sometimes needed data are not available. In this chapter, we also discuss why teachers and school leaders should use data. Finally, the process of using data and the different ways data can and should be used is described.
This paper is based on a multiple case study of schools which have been identified as improving their performance for about a decade. We proposed different criteria by which to characterize and study these improvement processes and, by applying them to our sample, we elaborated a typology of school improvement trajectories: we identified 4 different trajectories of school improvement. We called the first type restricted improvement because at its center is the management of processes that mainly target academic achievement tests; the second is incipient improvement, which is based on changes that restructure the school processes; the third identified trajectory are cases where school improvement is moving toward institutionalization, while the last are those cases where improvement has been already institutionalized and the schools have achieved high levels of educational effectiveness. We identified challenges that schools face at different stages of school improvement and discussed some related policy issues.
Principals are being encouraged to distribute leadership to increase schools’ organizational capacities, and enhance student growth and learning. Extant research on distributed leadership practices provides an emerging basis for adopting such approaches. Yet, relatively less attention has been paid to examining the principal’s role in fostering the leadership capacities of others to create the capacity for distributed leadership. In this article, we examine the specific practices of six high school principals who fostered the leadership capacities of 18 other leaders in their respective schools. Our findings illustrate the key steps these principals undertook in identifying potential leaders, creating leadership opportunities for them, facilitating their role transitions and providing them with continuous support.
As accountability systems have increased demands for evidence of student learning, the use of data in education has become more prevalent in many countries. Although school and administrative leaders are recognizing the need to provide support to teachers on how to interpret and respond to data, there is little theoretically sound research on data-driven decision making (DDDM) to guide their efforts. Drawing on sociocultural learning theory, extant empirical literature, and findings from a recent study, this paper develops a framework for understanding how to build teacher capacity to use data, specifically informing what practices administrators might employ, when in the DDDM process to employ these practices, and how these mechanisms may build teacher knowledge and skills. Given the global economic climate, administrators face difficult choices in how to invest scarce resources to support data use and once invested, how to ensure that teachers gain, and sustain, the needed capabilities once the supports are removed. The framework provided herein presents a set of concepts that may be useful in guiding these decisions. Implications for leadership practice, as well as suggestions to guide future research and theory development, are discussed.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to present the author's commentary on the special issue of Journal of Educational Administration entitled “Systemwide reform: examining districts under pressure”.
Design/methodology/approach
– In framing her reflections, the author has looked across the five articles in the special issue, pulling out a number of themes from the perspective of her interest in capacity for learning. This interest stems from involvement over many years in research and development in school improvement and its leadership, and the conclusion that real and meaningful educational change requires much more than superficial tinkering with structures and practices in schools and districts.
Findings
– The author's comments draw heavily from her own context, England where, it could be argued, an educational policy “experiment” is taking place but she also refers to other countries’ approaches and experiences.
Originality/value
– The author's own work is underpinned by social and organizational learning theories, and so she welcomes the diversity of theoretical and methodological perspectives taken by the authors in this special issue in helping to view the special issue topic from different angles.
Schools are increasingly responsible for their own future. Therefore, it is fruitful to examine these organizations' potential for innovation and their capacity to realize large-scale innovations in particular. With this goal in mind, a strategy for the study of the innovative capacity of schools was developed. In a previous article for this journal, a preliminary study of the innovative capacity of secondary schools was reported. The results of this research were then used to create a conceptual model of the innovative capacity of schools. In the present study, the innovative capacity of primary schools in The Netherlands was examined. The purpose of the present study was to validate the model developed in the previous study and go one step further by examining the possible relation between the innovative capacity of schools and intensity of concern among the teachers and school leaders. A number of high-innovation and low-innovation primary schools were selected for study. A questionnaire was administered and two interviews were undertaken with the teachers, internal supporters, and school leaders in these primary schools (N=64). The results of the questionnaire and the interviews provide a better understanding of the innovative capacity of schools.
Real professional learning is about making changes to thinking and practice. Data-use has the potential to yield real professional learning when it interrupts the status-quo. However, people have a natural propensity to avoid new learning by transforming the world to fit what is already in their minds, rather than changing their mental structures to fit new information. Cognitive biases work to preserve the status-quo and impede new learning. Data-use can interrupt the cognitive biases, but only if informed by knowledge of how these biases work. This article describes a number of cognitive biases, how they emerge in a professional learning context, and how data-use within a culture of inquiry can intentionally interrupt the biases to lead to authentic professional learning.
Data-driven decision making has become increasingly important in education. Policymakers require educators to use data to inform practice. Although the policy emphasis is growing, what has not increased is attention to building human capacity around data use. Educators need to gain data literacy skills to inform practice. Although some professional development opportunities exist for current educators, fewer formal courses and opportunities for data literacy development in schools of education have been developed and implemented. This article explores issues around the growing need for data-driven decision making in programs in schools of education. The issues are complex and the actors needed to bring about change are multiple. A systems perspective to explore course and programmatic implementation is presented.
This editorial article briefly examines the importance of data-based decision making. It discusses the definition as well as rationale for data-based decision making, its purposes, the use of data at different levels of the educational system, and possible promoting and hindering factors of effective data use. It also examines the effects of data use, intended effects (e.g., increased student achievement), as well as unintended consequences (e.g., cheating with tests). We end with suggestions for new research priorities.
The growing knowledge society has caused a change in the meaning of knowledge and learning. In Dutch schools, this creates a demand for evidence-based innovation and school development and a need for working with data. This chapter focuses on leadership in changing schools including the difference between management (organizing, structuring, and budgeting things that already work); leadership (adapting things that do not run smoothly, stimulating, motivating and empowering people, and communicating vision); and relationship with interactional and transformational leadership. Consequently, inquiry-based leadership is becoming the center of interest internationally (Geijsel, Krüger, & Sleegers, 2010; Luo, 2008). The author presents a conceptual framework for deeper understanding of school leadership in the 21st century – that to be effective in their roles, they must learn how to create inquiry-based cultures in their schools and to continuously learn from data. Finally, the author identifies some challenges for school leaders in coming years and proposes ways that help strengthen their leadership including the professionalization for all leaders oriented to instructional leadership, inquiry-based leadership, higher order thinking and distributed leadership.