This study was driven by two related research questions – firstly, we ask how can curriculum leadership efficacy (CLE) be measured? The second, is what predicts curriculum leadership efficacy?

These are important questions given the prevalence and ambitiousness of curriculum change across jurisdictions internationally. Curriculum reform and other curriculum changes are a constant. Educators are always either in the midst of it, looking toward it, or having recently gone through it (Sinnema et al, 2023).  

They are also important questions given the unique curriculum changes present for curriculum leadership; the limitations of pre-existing tools for measuring efficacy of various types and the need for such measurement in order to design and deliver well targeted support to educational leaders and to attend to the conditions that support leaders to develop their curriculum leadership efficacy.

The first question lead us to develop a measure of curriculum leadership efficacy. While there are many validated measures of efficacy, leadership efficacy and teaching efficacy, none focus on the particular demands of curriculum leadership. Generic measures of self-efficacy (Baroudi & Hojeij, 2020; Bellemans & Devos, 2023) and general leadership efficacy (Bergman et al., 2021; Liou & Daly, 2020) have their place, but we advocate here for a more precise measure of efficacy that reflects the particularities of curriculum leadership when leading curriculum changes that are ambitious and challenging. Given curriculum change demands quite particular capabilities of leaders in educational settings, our intention here is to take a domain specific approach to efficacy, and describe curriculum leadership efficacy specifically by presenting a validated tool for its measurement.

We drew on prior theoretical/empirical work on curriculum realisation (Sinnema & Stoll, 2020), problem-solving in educational leadership (Mumford et al., 2019; Sinnema et al., 2023) and interpersonal capabilities of leadership problem solving (Robinson et al., 2020 ;  to develop our curriculum leadership efficacy measure. We also foregrounded the leadership of collaboration in educational networks (Sinnema et al., 2023).

Our second question investigates how leaders’ curriculum leadership efficacy is influenced by the social infrastructure surrounding them and their work (Daly, 2020), including social connectedness, wellbeing, network intentionality and trust perceptions.

We draw on theories of trust given the importance of educators  feeling comfortable sharing ideas, seeking feedback, and collaborating on curriculum matters (e.g., Banwo et al., 2021; Tschannen-Moran, 2014). It follows that high collegial trust can enhance educators’ willingness to engage in curriculum leadership roles, as they feel supported by their peers.

Theories of wellbeing (Huppert & Johnson, 2010, p. 264) highlight the relationship between educators satisfaction with their work, support of colleagues’ and students’ professional growth within the school environment (Cann et al., 2024). Educators who experience high levels of well-being are more likely to be engaged, motivated, and effective in their curriculum leadership roles. Wellbeing is an important inclusion in the theoretical framing of curriculum leadership given issues of retention, burnout and stress internationally (OECD, 2019b).

Our attention to social connectedness  draws on social capital theory (Coleman, 1997; Lin, 2001), and in particular the idea of knowledge brokers that has been a focus in educational research for decades (Louis, 1977, 1998, 2009) and the concept of network intentionality (Liou et al, 2023). We focus on curriculum leaders’ betweenness centrality as this indicates a strategic position (Sparrowe & Liden, 2005) for accessing and disseminating critical information and best practices related to the curriculum—a position conducive to curriculum leadership efficacy.

There were three stages to our methods. Stage 1: Development and Content Validity of the CLE Scale We first identified the content domains and the items for each domain in the CLE instrument we used in those studies. We drew on a diverse body of literature that presented both theoretical and empirical support for impactful leadership practices, and developed an initial frame of 5 domains on the basis of the literature. We used an iterative consensus process a process of critical dialogue with expert groups of three types. Stage 2: Validation of the CLE Construct All staff from the two communities of learning with any responsibility for curriculum, teaching, learning, and learners—a total of 563 educators—were invited to take part in a survey that included both the curriculum leadership efficacy scale (17 items), and a section of social network items indicating relational ties amongst them. The response rate overall was 84% of the educators surveyed at time 1 (469 responses) and 85% at time 2 (479 responses). We first performed item analysis to determine the extent to which the 17 items were related to each other. We conducted a preliminary principal components analysis from the 17 items to examine the extent to which there might be remaining items that are identified to have problematic loadings on across factors that precluded clear interpretation. We used promax rotation method (oblique solutions) to consider the inter-correlation concern. We used IBM SPSS Amos 28.0 to run CFA using the maximum-likelihood (ML) estimation method as research suggests that ML produces accurate results in most. A number of fit indices were used to evaluate the model and parameter estimates, including ratio of chi-square relative to the degrees of freedom (χ2/df), Comparative Fit Index (CFI), the Normed Fit Index (NFI), the Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI), the Goodness-of-Fit Index (GFI), the Adjusted Goodness-of-Fit Index (AGFI), the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), and the standardized root mean square residual (SRMR). Stage 3: Investigating Factors Contributing to the CLE Scale We used ego-centric social network measures (in-degree, outdegree, and betweenness, to analyse the network data. Using regression analyses we investigated relationships between individual social network, and organisational conditions variables on Curriculum Leadership Efficacy. Finally, using structural equation modelling, we explored how organisational conditions interact with individuals’ capacity in ways that support practice improvement.

We established a four-factor structure for measuring curriculum leadership efficacy - the factors are meeting curriculum learning demands, leading curriculum problem solving, taking a strategic approach and ensuring curriculum collaboration. Our results show that Curriculum Leadership Efficacy is predicted by key dimensions of leaders’ social infrastructure, including them being 1)more sought out by others as a source of curriculum-related resources and materials, 2) more intentional and active in connecting others, 3) more positive in the affective dimensions of wellbeing (contribution) and with close relational ties to others, and 4) having higher levels of trust in the quality of their relationships The significance of this work is the light it shines on the importance of ensuring leaders have opportunities to develop curriculum leadership efficacy, and in particular developing their capability in influencing others' commitment to curriculum improvement, deepening others' knowledge of new curricula and understanding of how to respond to a curriculum and supporting others to develop their teaching capabilities. The validation of this scale provides a tool that can be used diagnostically, surfacing leadership strengths and weaknesses relevant to curriculum change efforts. The breadth and complexity of the curriculum leadership dimensions included in the scale is aligned to the demands of contemporary educational leadership as it occurs in a time of crisis (Stoll & Sinnema, 2024). Our findings about predictors of CLE are important given the reliance on leadership for realising curriculum change, and the regularity with which curriculum reforms are reported to have only partial success. Our hope is that this tool can support leadership capability development conducive to curriculum changes internationally that are ambitious in scale and aspiration, and often subject to high levels of contention or controversy amongst the profession and the wider public.

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