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doi: 10.1177/1741143215597234pmid: N/A
Teacher appraisal has been widely practised in China for decades. With the introduction, in 2009, of the teacher performance pay system, however, teacher appraisal has undergone certain changes. This study explores the practice of teacher appraisal, using a qualitative approach and taking public schools in Shanghai as its research sites. The methods adopted include interviews with teachers and school administrators, observation of relevant activities and document analysis. The study reveals that teacher appraisal in schools in Shanghai is not a one-off event. Although the procedure for generating appraisal results occurs at the end of each year, data collection activities for appraisal – including lesson observation, student evaluation of teachers and checking teachers’ tasks – are conducted throughout the whole year. The current teacher appraisal system has been a success, and this study identifies four factors contributing to that success. First, administrative and developmental appraisal coexist as one single appraisal system. Second, teacher appraisal is integrated with other aspects of schools’ business. Third, teacher appraisal is perceived by teachers as credible and fair. Fourth, non-technical aspects of appraisal, such as teachers’ psychology and social dynamics, are taken into account during the appraisal process.
Zhang, Jia; Yuan, Rui; Yu, Shulin
doi: 10.1177/1741143215617945pmid: N/A
Using qualitative data collected from three high schools in Shanghai, this study explored the barriers to the development of professional learning communities (PLCs) in Chinese schools from the perspectives of school leaders and teachers. Results indicate that the barriers identified by teachers in the development of PLCs include insufficient collaborative time, ineffective school leadership, unfavourable accountability policy, and lack of collaborative professional culture. By contrast, school leaders regard the absence of financial power, passive teachers, an unfavourable accountability system, and shortage of external resources as the major impediments to PLCs. Moreover, both similarities and differences are observed in the perceptions of teachers and school leaders regarding the barriers to PLC development. Practical implications for the effective implementation of PLCs and suggestions for future research are also presented.
Liu, Shujie; Xu, Xianxuan; Grant, Leslie; Strong, James; Fang, Zheng
doi: 10.1177/1741143215587304pmid: N/A
This article presents the results of an interpretive policy analysis of China’s Ministry of Education Standards (2013) for the professional practice of principals. In addition to revealing the evolution of the evaluation of principals in China and the processes by which this policy is formulated, a comparative analysis was conducted to compare it with the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Standards 2008 (ISLLC 2008). The analysis was conducted on the specific standards and indicators across the two documents. The results indicate the presence of both significant similarities and differences in performance expectations for principals: differences are explained by the cultural and national contexts within which school leaders work in both countries. In February 2013 the Ministry of Education in China issued for the first time the national Professional Standards for Compulsory Education School Principals, which provide the specific expectations of quality school leadership. The unprecedented interest in international benchmarking of student academic performance has led to the belief that there are common elements in education policy and school leadership practices. It is hoped that this research sheds new light onto the current thinking on the expectations and evaluation of principal leadership.
doi: 10.1177/1741143215578448pmid: N/A
Using a convenience sample of 289 teachers in Singapore, this study examined: (1) whether there were significant differences between teachers’ perceptions of principal’s and immediate supervisor’s empowering behaviours; and (2) teachers’ perceptions of principal’s and immediate supervisor’s empowering behaviours in relation to teachers’ psychological empowerment. Results indicated that teachers perceived their principals and immediate supervisors as exercising empowering behaviours in their daily practices, but they also perceived their principal and immediate supervisor differing in magnitude in some specific dimensions of empowering behaviours such as delegation of authority, providing individualised concern and support, articulating a vision and fostering collaborative relationships. Results also indicated that teachers’ perceptions of principal’s and immediate supervisor’s empowering behaviours were positively associated with teachers’ psychological empowerment, and that they added unique variance to each other in predicting teachers’ psychological empowerment. This study suggests the importance of considering teachers’ perceptions of principal’s and immediate supervisor’s empowering behaviours as two distinct constructs in empirical research so that their unique predictive power could be more aptly captured. From a practical standpoint, it suggests the importance for school leadership developers to enhance school leaders’ awareness and capacity in exercising empowering behaviours towards their teachers in their daily practice. Essentially, schools may stand to gain from developing empowering leaders at different levels of management to promote teachers’ psychological empowerment.
You, Sukkyung; Kim, Ann Y.; Lim, Sun Ah
doi: 10.1177/1741143215587311pmid: N/A
This study applied multilevel modeling to examine how individual characteristics, such as gender and teaching experience, and contextual characteristics, such as principal leadership and perceived colleague support, influenced Korean secondary school teachers’ sense of job satisfaction. Previous research identified teachers with high job satisfaction to have positive influences on their students, making it important to understand teacher job satisfaction not only for teachers but also for students. Using data from a nationally representative sample of 2908 teachers from 150 middle schools, the results indicated that (1) among teachers’ individual characteristics, teacher efficacy had significant effects on teacher job satisfaction, and (2) among institutional, school-level characteristics, perceptions of academic climate, support from colleagues, and supportive principal leadership had significant impacts on teacher job satisfaction. The findings of this study provide reason for individual teachers to reflect on their sense of efficacy and the influence it can have on their professional practice. The study also suggests ways to create better education policies on the basis of its empirical data.
doi: 10.1177/1741143215617944pmid: N/A
Leadership is recognised in both policy and research as a key enabler of innovation in schools. Numerous researchers have focused on how school leaders formally narrate their experiences of leading innovations including their observations of effect; however, modest attention has been paid to the processes through which leaders engage in innovative work. This study focuses on the work of project teams running Norwegian school projects that aim to advance teaching and enhance student learning using information and communication technologies. By employing cultural-historical activity theory, leadership is examined as enactment that is consequential to the directions of the work. The findings demonstrate that the locus of agentive actions change from moment to moment within sequences of interactions. Thus, leadership in this kind of work is not under the control of any of the actors involved or any specific individual: the centre does not hold. The study contributes to understanding leadership in innovative work by demonstrating how leadership is an outcome in emergent multi-voiced work processes. Moreover, the study indicates that the ‘making of newness’ involves innovative work at collective and individual levels, and suggests that projects conducted between loosely coupled partners would profit from adopting routines for the management of interactions.
doi: 10.1177/1741143215617947pmid: N/A
The present study aims to examine whether principals’ emotional intelligence (specifically, their ability to recognize emotions in others) makes them more effective transformational leaders, measured by the reframing of teachers’ emotions. The study uses multisource data from principals and their teachers in 69 randomly sampled primary schools. Principals undertook a performance task to allow assessment of their emotion recognition ability; half the teachers’ sampled (N = 319) reported on principals’ leadership behaviors and the other half (N = 320) on teachers’ subjective perceptions of principals as promoting teachers’ reframing of negative emotions into more positive ones. Data were analyzed through multilevel structural equation modeling. Findings indicated a cross-level relationship between principals’ transformational leadership behaviors and teachers’ emotional reframing, as well as a relationship between principals’ emotion recognition ability and their transformational behaviors. Furthermore, the study revealed that principals’ emotion recognition ability has an indirect effect on teachers’ emotional reframing through principals’ transformational leadership behaviors. The results provide empirical support for the claim that transformational leadership promotes emotional transformation. The theoretical and practical implications of the study are discussed.
Grobler, Bennie; Moloi, Connie; Thakhordas, Sunita
doi: 10.1177/1741143215608197pmid: N/A
This quantitative study investigates teachers’ perceptions of how Emotional Intelligence (EI) was utilised by their school principals to manage mandated curriculum change processes in schools in the Johannesburg North district of Gauteng in South Africa. Research shows that EI consists of a range of fundamental skills that could enable school principals to facilitate the curriculum changes that are mandated by the Department of Basic Education and implemented by teachers in their classrooms. Researchers argue that principals could simply instruct teachers that the Curriculum Assessment Policy Statements, for example, are mandated by top management and that they have to implement them, or they could use EI skills to obtain teachers’ collaboration and commitment to implement the mandated changes. Using a quantitative research method, a structured questionnaire was administered to a sample of 600 Foundation Phase and Grade 10 teachers to probe their perceptions about the extent to which leadership utilised EI to manage mandated curriculum change. The results of this investigation show that there is a strong correlation between the utilisation of EI by school principals and the implementation of the mandated changes.
doi: 10.1177/1741143215595417pmid: N/A
This study explores the funding variations by English local authorities (LAs) in January 2014 for pupils with special educational needs and disability (SEND). Two quintile groups (n = 30) are used for comparing LAs with low and high levels of statements and case studies are presented to further explore the allocations. The research findings provide a baseline for LA critical self-reviews and benchmarking of any revised funding formulae. Authorities that make limited use of statements are found to have significantly lower budgets for SEND pupils with and without statements, are more inclusive and make use of statements to primarily access special settings. Evidence is presented to affirm that the government’s current allocation methods, in part based on past levels of funding, can seriously challenge and undermine those LAs with a policy of inclusion and controlled use of statements, as these latter LAs may also wish to make vigilant use of education, health and care plans from September 2014.
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