Abstract
Research and practice are often regarded as rather different constructs. Research is thought to be the preserve of universities and research institutes while practice is the domain of schools and colleges. While many forward-looking leaders take account of research findings when formulating policies and making decisions, the generation of research usually takes place outside schools. This model remains dominant but there is increasing recognition that teachers and school leaders should also conduct research into their own practice. One obvious rationale for this change is that research generated in one context may not be applicable to another setting, especially where the study was conducted in a different country or educational sector or where the research findings do not ‘fit’ the particular circumstances of the school or college.
Chris Brown and Dell Zhang note, in the first paper in this issue, an impetus for teachers to engage in research activity. This may take the form of ‘action research’, where teachers instigate and evaluate change in their classrooms, or the use of existing research to improve current pedagogic practices. The authors note four factors that may support evidence-informed practice: teacher capacity to engage in research; school cultures attuned to using evidence; schools promoting research use as a cultural norm; and the existence of effective structures and resources to facilitate research use. They conducted an electronic survey focused on each of these four areas, with 797 responses from 79 English primary schools. They identify three clusters of factors likely to increase research use and conclude that trust is important if schools are to develop a capacity to use evidence.
In the second paper, Peter Grootenboer and Ian Hardy explore the relationship between leadership and school outcomes through a case study of a small school, with 250 diverse students, serving a low socio-economic community in Queensland, Australia. Their focus is on leadership which is likely to be beneficial for the most marginalized in society. They carried out 27 interviews with a range of participants, including the current and previous school principals, teachers and leaders, students and community members. They note that leadership at this school was conceived as a ‘group’ activity and conclude that, while positional authority remained important, such leaders also facilitated their colleagues to act as teacher leaders.
The Principal Instructional Management Rating Scale (PIMRS) is widely used, by scholars and students, to assess the nature and extent of instructional leadership in schools. Like much of the research and literature on educational leadership, it was developed and refined in the United States but subsequently deployed in many other settings. The next article, by German Fromm, Philip Hallinger (the instigator of PIMRS), Paulo Volante and Wen Chung Wang, reports on a systematic approach to validate a Spanish version of the PIMRS. The authors acknowledge the ‘interpretative challenge’ of translating the PIMRS instrument and adopted a ‘back translation’ model (Brislin, 1986). The translated teacher-form was applied to 641 teachers in Chile and the results showed a stronger perceived performance in the ‘defines school mission’ dimension than for the other two dimensions. The authors compared their findings with outcomes in Turkey, the Maldives, the USA, and Malaysia, and conclude that the attempt to validate a Spanish language version of PIMRS for use in Chile was successful.
Natallia Yakavets, in her paper, provides a rare contribution to the research on school leadership in Kazakhstan. She examines how school leaders learn about leadership and management within an education system that has undergone substantial change in the post-Soviet era from 1991. The author’s paper reports the findings of research conducted with 12 principals, followed by case studies of schools, local education authorities and in-service teacher education institutions in three regions. She notes that most school leaders learn through an apprenticeship model and add that many are reluctant to become principals and have to be ‘directed’. She concludes that there is an urgent need to provide support for current and aspiring leaders through mentoring and coaching.
Leadership and administration are generally regarded as beneficial aspects of education and most research focuses on effective leadership. However, Peter Milley’s paper explores the rarely studied phenomenon of maladministration, with evidence from the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Ontario. He examined 64 reports from disciplinary hearings of superintendents, assistant superintendents, principals and vice-principals arising from complaints filed with regulators. The complaints related to incompetence, dishonesty, financial transgressions, sexual misconduct, and mistreatment of students and staff. He concludes that maladministration is infrequent among school and district level leaders, notably among women leaders, who comprise only 19% of all reported cases.
The next article, by Aimee Maxwell and Philip Riley, examines the emotional demands associated with links between educational leaders and stakeholders. They conducted a web-based survey of Australian principals to assess burnout, well-being and job satisfaction, with a substantial participation rate of 20%. The data show that school leaders report significantly increased emotional demands compared to the general population, although the authors recognize the limitations of self-reported data, and link this to the reform agenda. They conclude that there are potentially serious health consequences through increasing emotional demands.
The main focus of school leadership research is on the behaviour of leaders and there is much less attention to followership. This issue is explored, in the under-published context of Serbia, by Darko Hinic, Jelena Grubor, and Lida Brulic. They surveyed 206 teachers in six schools in three Serbian towns, drawing on Kelley’s (2008) followership theory. They argue that schools are too complex to be led by head teachers alone and conclude that leadership preparation is required for followers as well as leaders.
Teacher retention is a problem facing education systems in many countries, and it may be a particular challenge in special education. Sharon Conley and Sukkyung You explore this issue with a nationally representative sample of 2060 secondary school special education teachers in the USA. They examined four related factors: intentions to leave; work commitment; career commitment; and job satisfaction. They found that positive administrative support, and teacher team efficacy, were more likely to keep special education teachers in their current schools, and in the profession. They conclude that principal support and collegial work relations are important to promote teacher retention.
The final paper in this issue, by Marlies Honingh and Marieke van Genugten, explores school inspector judgements about relationships between school boards and school leaders in vocational education in the Netherlands. The authors conducted case study research with four schools, two of which were deemed to have school boards ‘in control’, and two that were not in control. They surveyed middle managers, team leaders and teachers in these four schools and note that participants who report positively about the ethical organizational culture, school climate, and the frequency and quality of social relations, do not necessarily work in schools where the board is deemed to be in control. They conclude that the inspection methods used in the Netherlands do not seem to be fully applicable in the vocational sector.
This issue of the journal comprises nine papers from eight countries on five different continents, further under-scoring the global importance of educational leadership and management.