Summary and Limitations of the Findings
The results of this study can be summarized as follows.
The national profile of instructional leadership suggests that Thai principals give significantly
greater emphasis to their role in defining a school mission and promoting a positive
school learning climate than to managing instructional programme.
When compared with peers in primary and K–12 schools, secondary school principals are perceived
to engage their instructional leadership role more actively on two dimensions: Defining
a school mission and promoting a positive school learning climate. No differences were found
with respect to engagement on the dimension of managing instructional programme.
Analyses of the 2008 principal self-report data indicated that Thailand’s principals are engaging
in all three facets of instructional leadership at a moderate (instructional management)
to high level (mission and climate). However, alternate analyses suggested that comparable
data obtained from teachers would have likely yielded a similar pattern of leadership across
the three dimensions, but at substantially lower level.11
The results of our analysis of data collected during the pre- and post-reform eras found no
increase in the level of engagement in instructional leadership among Thailand’s secondary
school principals during the years following passage of the NEA in 1999.
The comparative analyses conveyed a picture of considerable stability in the patterns of principal
instructional leadership practice, even in the face of a major change in the institutional context.