Effective instructional leadership
Teachers' perspectives on how principals promote teaching and learning in schools
Few studies have directly examined teachers' perspectives on principals' everyday
instructional leadership characteristics and the impacts of those characteristics on teachers. In
this study, over 800 American teachers responded to an open-ended questionnaire by identifying
and describing characteristics of principals that enhanced their classroom instruction and what
impacts those characteristics had on them. The data revealed two themes (and 11 strategies) of
effective instructional leadership: talking with teachers to promote reflection and promoting
professional growth.
In recent years, the restructuring of schools to empower teachers and to
implement school-based shared decision making has resulted in a move away
from bureaucratic control and toward professionalization of teaching (Louis
et al., 1996). In many schools, teachers are developing a collaborative practice of
teaching which includes coaching, reflection, group investigation of data, study
teams, and risk-laden explorations to solve problems (Dowling and Sheppard,
1976; Glanz and Neville, 1997). The emergent discourse is one of critique, not
criticism, and it exists within a ``community of learners'', professionals who
provide academic and moral service to students.
We report here the findings of a study designed to determine teachers'
perspectives on effective instructional leadership. We asked the question:
What characteristics of school principals positively influence classroom
teaching, and what effects do such characteristics have on classroom
instruction?
Method
To examine teachers' perspectives on effective instructional leadership, we
used the Blumer (1969)-Mead (1934) approach to symbolic interaction theory.
This approach to research focuses on understanding the meanings human
beings construct in their social settings. We developed an open-ended
questionnaire, the Inventory of Strategies Used by Principals to Influence
Classroom Teaching (ISUPICT), to investigate the question: What
characteristics (e.g. strategies, behaviors, attitudes, goals) of school principals
positively influence classroom teaching, and what effects do such
characteristics have on classroom instruction?
We pilot tested an initial version of the questionnaire before constructing the
final form of the instrument. The ISUPICT introduced the research topic,
requested background information, asked respondents to provide detailed
descriptions of one characteristic of a principal with whom they worked that
had a positive impact on their classroom teaching, and requested descriptions of one characteristic of a principal with whom they worked that had a negative
impact on their classroom teaching. We also asked respondents to describe the
effects of principals' behaviors on classroom instruction, the principals'
apparent goals, and the effectiveness of the principals' behaviors. Professors
from a variety of disciplines in education administered the Inventory to a total
of 809 full-time public school teachers taking courses at both on- and offcampus
sites at three major universities located in the south-eastern,
midwestern, and north-eastern USA. Involvement in the study was voluntary
and anonymous.
Respondents included 25l males and 558 females; 275 rural, 291 suburban,
and 243 urban teachers; 380 elementary, 177 middle/junior high, and 252 high
school teachers. They averaged 37 years old, with 11 years in teaching. The
sample included 606 tenured and 203 nontenured teachers, 598 married and 211
single teachers holding 218 bachelor's, 459 master's, 97 specialist's, and 35
doctoral degrees. Their responses included descriptions of 398 male and 411
female principals. The mean number of years with the current principal at the
time of this study was four.
Data from the 809 teachers who participated in the study (about 500 words
from each respondent) were coded according to guidelines for inductiveexploratory
research and comparative analysis (Glaser, 1978, 1992; Glaser
and Strauss, 1967; Strauss and Corbin, 1990). Line-by-line analysis produced
categories and subcategories for principal characteristics (e.g. strategies,
behaviors) teachers identified with both effective instructional leadership and
ineffective instructional leadership, as well as impacts on teaching (i.e.
teachers' thoughts, behaviors, and feelings related to teaching, and
effectiveness of each leadership characteristic). To check the researchers'
analysis, coders inspected segments of the research data, reaching a high
degree of consistency (0.90).
Owing to space limitations, only very brief excerpts (with names omitted)
from the data are presented here to illustrate selected ideas. Also because of
space considerations, this article focuses on the strategies teachers identified
with effective instructional leadership and their impacts on teachers. A report
of the negative principal behaviors and their adverse effects on teachers is
forthcoming (Blase and Blase, forthcoming).
Results
We found that in effective principal-teacher interaction about instruction,
processes such as inquiry, reflection, exploration, and experimentation result;
teachers build repertoires of flexible alternatives rather than collecting rigid
teaching procedures and methods. Our model of effective instructional
leadership was derived directly from the data; it consists of the two major
themes: talking with teachers to promote reflection and promoting professional
growth.