Session Information
26 SES 03 C, School Leadership and COVID-19: The Aftermath Experiences
Paper Session
Contribution
The years of COVID-19 pandemic have challenged principals’ work and forced them to find new ways to manage their duties and cope as leaders. Leithwood (2012) has discussed the concept of “personal leadership resources'' that covers cognitive resources (e.g. problem-solving expertise, ability to perceive and manage emotions) and psychological resources (e.g. optimism, self-efficacy, resilience). Later Leithwood et al. (2020) have pointed out that these personal resources may provide a framework that explains a large amount of variation in the principals’ practices. In stressful events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, psychological resources become crucial. Principals were managing emotional responses to the crisis such as anxiety, frustration, loss, and anger that can cause emotional exhaustion (Mahfouz, 2020). Research has shown how the years of pandemic brought up principals’ feelings of loneliness and inadequacy, and feelings of uncertainty regarding the future and the wellbeing of their students and staff (Ahtiainen et al. 2022). The Finnish principals have reported how their ability to distinguish the crucial duties from the ones that they needed to postpone was of importance. Moreover, principals who worked in small schools (less than 150 students) and had double roles as principals and teachers, talked about the need to prioritise duties, as their workload increased tremendously (Ahtiainen et al. 2022).
Self-efficacy refers to an individual’s perception of their capability to execute the actions required to successfully complete a certain task (Bandura, 1997; Goddard et al., 2020). Principal efficacy for leadership entails assessment of their personal competence in relation to the core task of a leader; leading practices that enhance student learning in the school (Tschannen-Moran et al., 1998). Self-efficacy is an important factor in an individual's persistence when dealing with challenges, thus contributing to their commitment to educational goals even in difficult situations (Klassen et al., 2011). Principals with strong efficacy-beliefs for leadership have shown to experience less strain and to less often report turnover intentions (Skaalvik, 2020). Principal’s turnover intentions refer to a consideration of changing to another profession (Heikonen et al., 2017) whereas work-related stress is defined as an unpleasant situation in which the principal feels nervous, restless, tense or anxious due to some aspect of work as a principal (Elo et al., 2003).
Principal’s efficacy for leadership is also a central factor in constructing collaboration between teachers and collective efficacy in the teacher community (e.g., Goddard et al., 2015; 2020), which may have further helped teachers together meet the requirements and changes related to schooling during the COVID-19 pandemic (Heikonen et al., under review; Hargreaves & Fullan, 2020). Leading a supportive collaborative climate played a role in supporting teachers during the pandemic (Westphal et al., 2022). In this study, leading collaborative professional climate refers to principal’s efforts to create opportunities for teachers to share practices and support co-operative interaction between them (Honingh & Hooge 2014).
Yet, research on principals’ efficacy for leadership is scarce (Goddard et al., 2020) and not much is known about its association with leading collaborative professional climate, principal’s work-related stress and turnover intentions after the COVID-19 pandemic.
This study aims to gain a better understanding of the associations between principal’s efficacy for leadership, their perceptions of leading collaborative professional climate, their work-related stress and turnover intentions after COVID-19 pandemic. Based on prior literature, three hypotheses were set:
HY1. Principal’s efficacy for leadership is positively associated with perceptions of leading collaborative professional climate and negatively related to work-related stress and turnover intentions.
HY2. Principal’s perceptions of leading collaborative professional climate are negatively associated with work-related stress and turnover intentions.
HY3. Principal’s work-related stress is positively related with their turnover intentions.
Method
The data were collected with a nationwide electronic survey from principals working in comprehensive schools in Finland in spring 2022. Altogether 441 principal answers were included, which represents approximately 20% of the Finnish comprehensive schools. Participants worked in 176 different municipalities, which covers over half of the 310 municipalities in Finland. They were mostly female (59%) or male (40%) and represented the Finnish comprehensive school principal population also in terms of age ( 7% between 20–39, 24% 40–49, 57% 50–59 and 12% 60 or older). The principals were leading primary schools (grades 1-6, 62%), lower secondary schools (grades 7-9, 10%) or a combination school (grades 1-9, 26%). Principal efficacy for leadership was measured with a translated and contextualised version of Principal Efficacy Beliefs for Instructional Leadership (Goddard et al., 2020). The scale measured principals’ perceptions of being able to lead school in a way that students achieve learning objectives set in the curriculum. The scale showed good internal consistency (4 items, Cronbach’s α = .85). Leading collaborative professional climate was examined with a 4-item scale developed based on a Teacher collaboration scale (Honingh & Hooge 2014) to measure principal’s perceived efforts of managing opportunities for teachers to share practices and support teachers’ co-operative interaction. The scale showed good internal consistency (4 items, Cronbach’s α = .90). Teacher work-related stress was measured with a three item scale developed to investigate teachers’ stress, recovery from workload and ability to work. The item measuring stress (Elo, Leppänen & Jahkola, 2003) was accompanied with two other items to get a more nuanced picture of teachers' work-related strain. The scale showed good internal consistency (Cronbach’s α =.86). Turnover intentions were measured with a single item “I have frequently considered changing to another profession” indicating principals willingness to work in other occupations than as a principal (see also, Heikonen et al., 2017). Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) will be conducted with MPLUS, whereas the descriptive analyses will be analysed with SPSS. Robust maximum likelihood procedure (MLR) will be used in SEM to produce unbiased standard errors.
Expected Outcomes
The preliminary confirmatory factor analyses showed a good fit with the data providing support for the factor structures. Descriptive statistics with summated scales showed that on average Finnish principals perceived a relatively strong sense of efficacy for leadership (M=5.55, SD=0.90, scale 1-7) and reported to actively lead collaborative professional climate (M=5.94, SD=0.92, scale 1-7). Furthermore, principals showed relatively low levels of stress with noticeable amount of variance (M=2.70, SD=0.90, scale 1-5). Principals’ turnover intentions seemed mediocre on average (M=4.70, SD=2.03), but the group seemed to be divided in the distribution of answers: almost half of principals (47%) agreed to have turnover intentions (chose 6 or 7), which requires further investigation. The structural equation model with the reported factor structures and the hypothesised regression paths showed a good fit with the data (χ²(53, N = 427) = 188.10, p < .001, CFI = .96, TLI = .94, RMSEA = .05, SRMR = .04). The results showed that principal’s efficacy for leadership was positively associated with perceptions of leading collaborative professional climate and negatively related to work-related stress. However, the relationship between self-efficacy for leadership and principal’s turnover intentions was not statistically significant, only partly supporting hypothesis 1. Principal’s perceptions of leading collaborative professional climate showed no statistical relations with either work-related stress or turnover intentions, providing no support for hypothesis 2. Principal’s work-related stress was positively associated with their turnover intentions as hypothesised in H3. The results suggest in line with Skaalvik (2020) that principal efficacy for leadership may buffer work-related stress and protect principals from changing to another profession especially now after the straining COVID-19 pandemic.
References
Ahtiainen, R., Eisenschmidt, E., Heikonen, L., & Meristo, M. (2022). Leading schools during the COVID-19 school closures in Estonia and Finland. European Educational Research Journal. Bandura. (1997). Self-efficacy: the exercise of control. Freeman. Elo, A. L., Leppänen, A., & Jahkola, A. (2003). Validity of a single-item measure of stress symptoms. Scandinavian journal of work, environment & health, 444-451. Goddard, R. D., Bailes, L. P., & Kim, M. (2021). Principal efficacy beliefs for instructional leadership and their relation to teachers’ sense of collective efficacy and student achievement. Leadership and Policy in Schools, 20(3), 472-493. Goddard, R., Goddard, Y., Kim, E., & Miller, R. (2015). A theoretical and empirical analysis of the roles of instructional leadership, teacher collaboration, and collective beliefs in support of student learning. American Journal of Education, 121(4), 501–530. Hargreaves, A. & Fullan, M. (2020). Professional capital after the pandemic: revisiting and revising classic understandings of teachers’ work. Journal of Professional Capital and Community 5(3/4), 327-336. Heikonen, L., Pietarinen, J., Pyhältö, K., Toom, A., & Soini, T. (2017). Early career teachers’ sense of professional agency in the classroom: Associations with turnover intentions and perceived inadequacy in teacher–student interaction. Asia-Pacific Journal of teacher education, 45(3), 250-266. Honingh, M. & Hooge, E. 2014. The effect of school-leader support and participation in decision making on teacher collaboration in Dutch primary and secondary schools. Educational Management Administration & Leadership 42 (1), 75–98. Klassen, R. M., Tze, V., Betts, S. M., & Gordon, K. A. (2011). Teacher efficacy research 1998–2009: Signs of progress or unfulfilled promise? Educational psychology review, 23(1), 21-43. Leithwood K (2012) Strong Districts and Their Leadership. Toronto: Council of Ontario Directors of Education. Leithwood K, Harris A. and Hopkins D (2020) Seven strong claims about successful school leadership revisited. School Leadership & Management 40(1): 5-22. Mahfouz J (2020) Principals and stress: Few coping strategies for abundant stressors. Educational Management Administration & Leadership 48(3): 440–458. Skaalvik, C. (2020). School principal self-efficacy for instructional leadership: relations with engagement, emotional exhaustion and motivation to quit. Social Psychology of Education, 23(2), 479-498. Tschannen-Moran, M., Hoy, A. W., & Hoy, W. K. (1998). Teacher efficacy: Its meaning and measure. Review of educational research, 68(2), 202-248. Westphal, A., Kalinowski, E., Hoferichter, C. J., & Vock, M. (2022). K-12 teachers' stress and burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review. Frontiers in psychology.
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