The Role of the Principal in School Development Projects.

Author(s):

Anne Berit Emstad(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2013

Network:

26. Educational Leadership

Format:

Paper

Session Information

26 SES 08 A, School Culture and School Development

Paper Session

Time:

2013-09-12

09:00-10:30

Room:

D-306

Chair:

Lawrence Drysdale

Contribution

The purpose of the text is to highlight and discuss various aspects of “the role of the principal in school development projects” in order to increase knowledge on this phenomena. I study how school leaders lead the leadership process, and how the role of the principals is experienced both by principals and teachers. My research question is: What kinds of experiences have school leaders and teachers with the role of the principal in school development? The basis of the paper is my point of departure, that development work aims to improve teaching and learning in the school.

The theoretical framework is related to leadership of the leadership process(Johnsen, 2005. The framework of analysis on which this paper is based defines leadership as a type of influence that can be embedded within different tasks or situations and disseminated to many individuals. This means that the term leadership includes influence of people with leadership positions exercised both formally and informally (Johnsen 2002). The framework also includes the theory of leadership dimension related to student learning (Robinsson,2011).

Johnsen(2002)claims that leadership behavior is practiced when one participates in a simultaneous goal-setting, problem-solving, and language-creating interaction with relevant others (p. 12). He developed the model called: “The ideal leadership process”, and to “Lead the leadership process” implies that leadership behavior is attached both to the actions of formal leaders, as well as to general human behavioral patterns. He points out that the essence of leadership is the “leadership behavior” of the individual. Those in formal leadership positions perform tasks in cooperation with others, which requires both the mutual exchange of information as well as an open dialogue regarding the goals to be set and the necessary steps involved in achieving them. One formal leader, the school principal, is empowered to delegate authority that fulfils a more specified function.

Robinson (2011) point at leadership dimensions, which are of importance in working with improvement of practice in schools. The five dimensions are about Establishing Goals and Expectations, Resourcing Strategically, Ensuring Quality Teaching, Leading Teacher Learning and Development and Ensuring an Orderly and Safe Environment. Her conclusion is: The more leaders focus their relationships, their work and their learning on the core business of teaching and learning the greater their influence on student outcomes.

Due to the principal as the formal leader of the leadership process of the development projects, and the aim of the development projects – increasing teaching and learning, this framework forms the theoretical framework of this paper.

Method

The study is a qualitative case-study using phenomenological interviews with three principals, and nine teachers in three Norwegian primary schools that were working with a school development project. In addition to the interviews, the empirical material consists of observations of meetings and document analyses. The data consists mainly of individual interviews (Kvale, 1997). The purpose of the qualitative interviews was to capture the thoughts and experiences principals had in connection with the work done in the aftermath of school evaluations. The interviews were conducted from a phenomenological perspective, where the research participants’ experiences were explored (Moustakas, 1994). The purpose of the interviews was to find a common essence that could provide a better understanding of phenomena. The interviews were transcribed and then analyzed. Data was structured through coding and categorization (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). The analysis started with coding the data, but theory has also influenced the analysis. This alternation between data based inductive analysis and theory-based deductive analysis described as abduction. Denzin (1978, s.110) defines abduction as: The method of abduction combines the deductive and inductive models of proposition development and theory construction it can be defined as working from consequence back to cause or antecedent.

Expected Outcomes

The main finding is that both the principals and the teachers experience that leadership is important for setting direction for the project. The three principals state that they are strongly involved in the leadershipprocess both by participating together with the teachers and being involved in the whole process across the whole school. At the same time the teachers regards the principal as central in matter of getting everyone to participate and take part. For one of the principal the project was seen as an opportunity to gather the teachers, to become a collective oriented school, and not a school with different individual practices. The paper argues that the teachers expects the principal to set the direction, after listening to the opinion of the teachers. The teachers express that discussion among teachers never ends, and discussions takes too much time off from the time used to develop teaching and learning. Another finding is that some teachers express dissatisfaction with using too much time reading or being presented theory, they want recipes. I argue that this is an important aspect to consider, in this study the principals makes a difference whether theory is brought into the discussions during the developmentprojects or not.

References

. Elmore, R. (2000). Building a new structure for school leadership. American Educator, 23(4), 6–13. Fullan, M. (2001). Leading in a culture of change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Johnsen, E. (1993). Strategisk analyse og syntese. En kvalitativ metode. Copenhaven: Handelshøjskolens forlag. Johnsen, E. (2002). Managing the managerial process: A participative approach. Copenhagen: DJØF Publ. Johnsen, E., Vanebo, J. O., & Busch, T. (1995). Ledelse av ledelsesprosessen. Oslo: TANO. Robinson, V. M. J. (2007). School leadership and student outcomes: Identifying what works and why. The University of Auckland Centre for Educational Leadership: Monograph & Resource Pack (available from www.education.auckland.ac.nz/uacel) Robinson, V. M. J. & Timperley, H. S. (2007). The leadership of the improvement of teaching and learning: Lessons from initiatives with positive outcomes for students. Australian Journal of Education, 51 (3), 247-26. Robinson, Viviane (2011). Student-centered leadership. San Francisco: Jossey BassStake, R. E. (1995). The art of case study research. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Strauss, A. L., & Corbin, J. M. (1998). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Author Information

Anne Berit Emstad (presenting / submitting)

The Norwegian University of science and tecnology

Department of teacher education

Ranheim

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