Session Information
26 SES 14 B, School Leadership Development: Emerging Trends and Topics (Part 2)
Paper Session continued from 23 SES 08 B
Contribution
Different educational research traditions have shown that the quality of school leadership is one of the factors with the greatest impact on student performance (Hattie, 2015). Therefore, for decades, school leadership has been one of the most flourishing lines in educational research, concluding that leaders who set common goals, promote teacher development and establish satisfactory relationships with their school community achieve better outcomes (Day et al., 2016). Diverse studies indicate that in high-performing and excellent schools, principals adapt their leadership practices according to specific needs and situations (Rehman, Khan & Waheed, 2019). Bastian and Henry (2015) described that some personal traits of the principals improve students’ achievement, as they influence teacher retention and development, as well as school’s working conditions. Pietsch and Tulowitzki (2017) estimated the effects different leadership models have on the instructional practices of teachers, finding the significance of being focused on the quality of teaching in classrooms. However, it is necessary to analyze from the evidence which are the practices developed by principals that have a more substantial impact on student's performance.
Likewise, Izquierdo (2016) emphasizes the need to increase school management autonomy and students' academic objectives monitoring. Recently, Huang et al. (2020) studied the relationships between principal leadership, teacher-related factors (job satisfaction, teaching self-efficacy, and collaboration), and student performance in science. Therefore, it is essential to analyze the practices of principals.
Thus, there are different models in the management career. In this study, four different models, from four different countries, were chosen. In the UK, previous experience is required to become a principal. But other merit like being senior managers or deputy managers are part of the competition. In addition, some professional development training, such as the National Professional Qualification for Management, accredited by the Department of Education, is desirable. Something similar happens in France, where headteachers are recruited by competition, aptitude list, or secondment. There is no compulsory training, but several years of experience are required. In Spain, in addition to the necessary skills and experience, principals must develop a school project that will be implemented. Likewise, another legal requirement is an aptitude evaluation for the position. This is like the States, principals must have a master's degree in educational leadership or educational administration, as well as several years of teaching experience.
Moreover, the roles and practices are different in these countries. In the U.K., headteachers will typically distribute leadership and management with their workforce, so all the roles are played, while they maintain a strategic supervision or monitoring (Day & Armstrong, 2016). In France, though, pedagogical decision making is carried out by school principals, as their responsibilities lie on management, evaluation and on teachers’ motivation (Ortega-Rodriguez, 2022). However, in practice, they share a static vision of leadership, culminating in the pure management of schools (Normand, 2016). Also, teachers benefit from great pedagogical autonomy, due to just accounting to their inspectors and not to their principals (Normand, 2016). Conversely, López-Rupérez et al. (2020) observed that a significant proportion of Spanish principals carry out leadership practices related exclusively to management. When asked about their roles and responsibilities, U.S. principals stated to give their priority to providing a safe and nurturing environment “for students to make effective academic, emotional and social progress” (Chang et al, 2019; pp 49), although their roles are more related to the instructional leadership.
This study aims to analyze the effect of certain principal practices on the academic performance of 15-year-old students in science, comparing four different models in four countries: United States, United Kingdom, France and Spain.
Method
This project is part of the R&D&i Project "Working conditions of school directors and impact on their emotional economy. Analysis from a national and international perspective", of the State Program for the Promotion of Scientific and Technical Research of Excellence (Ref.: RTI2018-094851-B-I00). In this research, we present a secondary analysis of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2015 database. Hence, it is an ex post facto design aiming to study the impact on the level of performance of 15-year-old students of some leadership practices of principals. First, a multilevel regression analysis was performed, to understand the relation between the models and students’ performance. Each performance value is composed of ten plausible values, which offer a distribution for each individual in the sample. To be able to use these plausible values, we used the SPSS macros offered in the PISA Data Analysis Manual (Tourón et al., 2019). Later, to better understand the effect of different practices have on performance, each practice was studied separately. The frequency and average of impact on performance were calculated. As a dependent variable, we chose performance in the Science test, because in 2015 PISA was focused on this discipline. As independent variables, the answers that the principals gave in the school questionnaire. The questions related to leadership (SC009Q##TA) were selected, specifically to the questions related to the index of teacher participation in leadership, as described in the technical report (LEADTCH; OECD, 2017): • I provide staff with opportunities to participate in school decision-making. • I engage teachers to help build a school culture of continuous improvement. • I ask teachers to participate in reviewing management practices.
Expected Outcomes
When comparing the impact that the practices have in students’ outcomes and the frequencies principals execute them, the first idea that emerges is that they are not always adjusted. For example, in the USA the most common frequency when principals allow teachers to participate in school decision making and promote the culture of improvement is 3 or 4 times a year. However, this frequency triggers the biggest decreases in the outcomes. Something similar happens in the UK when promoting the culture or in France when reviewing the management practices. The reasons for these differences may be based on the educational systems, as all of them allow different roles and practices to principals. But it can also be related to the principal career and previous formation of principals. Many countries, as USA, are considering forcing principals to have previous formation, instead of just considering it something desirable, like the UK or France. Other countries, as Spain, do not even consider it when applying for the role, being fundamental the years of expertise and the project to the school they apply for. Moreover, it is important to allow principals to have access to these studies. Under the thinking of “the more the better”, some principals do not reflect on their own about the best moment to develop certain practices and believe they should perform them as much as possible. In general, we can see this is so just in one of our four countries of study. Each practice has an appropriate frequency in each country. We should also take into consideration the point of view of teachers when principals perform these practices. Some teachers may feel it is positive to be considered in school decision-making, but others may consider it is not their role. Therefore, further analysis in this direction is necessary.
References
Bastian KC, Henry GT. The Apprentice: Pathways to the Principalship and Student Achievement. Educational Administration Quarterly. 2015;51(4):600-639. Chan, T. C., Jiang, B., Chandler, M., Morris, R., Rebisz, S., Turan, S., Shu, Z & Kpeglo, S. (2019). School Principals' Self-Perceptions of Their Roles and Responsibilities in Six Countries. New Waves-Educational Research and Development Journal, 22(2), 37-61. Day, C. & Armostrong, P. (2016) England: School leadership research in England. In H. Ärsletig, C. Day & O. Johanson. (Eds.) A decade of research on school principals. Cases from 24 countries. (pp 245-268). Springer. Day, C., Gu, Q., & Sammons, P. (2016). The Impact of Leadership on Student Outcomes: How Successful School Leaders Use Transformational and Instructional Strategies to Make a Difference. Educational Administration Quarterly, 52(2), 221–258. Hattie, J. (2015). What Doesn’t Work in Education: The Politics of Distraction, Londres, Pearson. Huang Wu, Jianping Shen, Ya Zhang & Yunzheng Zheng (2020). Examining the effect of principal leadership on student science achievement, International Journal of Science Education, 42(6), 1017-1039 Izquierdo, D. (2016). ¿Qué hacen los directores de centros escolares? Las prácticas de dirección en España a partir de los estudios internacionales PISA y TALIS. Revista complutense de educación, 27(3), 1193-1209. López Rupérez, F., García García, I., & Expósito-Casas, E. (2020). School Leadership in Spain. Evidence from PISA 2015 assessment and Recommendations. Leadership and Policy in Schools, 1–20. Marcus Pietsch & Pierre Tulowitzki (2017) Disentangling school leadership and its ties to instructional practices – an empirical comparison of various leadership styles, School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 28:4, 629-649 Normand, R. (2016). France: Between civil service and Republican ethics – The statist vision of leadership among French principals. In H. Ärsletig, C. Day & O. Johanson. (Eds.) A decade of research on school principals. Cases from 24 countries. (pp 365-374). Springer. OECD (2017). PISA 2015 Technical Report. Ortega-Rodríguez, P. J. (2022). La autonomía escolar en Europa: aportaciones para la innovación educativa. Revista Española de Educación Comparada, (41), 10-27. Rehman, A. U., Khan, M. I. & Waheed, Z., (2019). School heads’ perceptions about their leadership styles: A qualitative study. Journal of Education and Educational Development, 6(1), 138-153 Tourón, J., Navarro-Asencio, E., Lizasoain, L., López-González, E., & García-San Pedro, M. J. (2019). How teachers’ practices and students’ attitudes towards technology affect mathematics achievement: results and insights from PISA 2012. Research Papers in Education, 34(3), 263–275.
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