A Case Study of High School Principal's Instructional Leadership and Physical Education Teacher's Professional Development

    School principal’s leadership plays a crucial role for school improvement. Teacher’s professional development is also highly related to school improvement. Some research studies indicated that there is a need for... [ view full abstract ]

    School principal’s leadership plays a crucial role for school improvement. Teacher’s professional development is also highly related to school improvement. Some research studies indicated that there is a need for developing school principal’s instructional leadership in order to encourage teacher’s professional development.  The study studied, therefore, the influences of high school principal’s instructional leadership and physical education teachers’ professional development. The main purpose of this study was to explore of the principal’s instructional leadership, physical education teacher’s professional development, and the influences of principals’ instructional leadership on physical education teacher’s professional development. Participants were composed by 2 high school principal and 2 Director of Student Affairs, and 2 physical education teachers. They were purposively selected from a public high school in Taipei City(Taiwan). Qualitative research method was adopted, including observations, interviews, focus group interviews. All data gathered were transcribed and then analysed with the inductive method. The results showed that the high school principal’s instructional leadership had influenced school teachers’ professional development in the following ways: (1) constructing vision of the school as the core goal; (2) promoting friendly teaching environment; (3) keeping positive attitude towards the professional development of physical education teachers; (4) providing administrative support and innovative teaching. In conclusion, principal’s instructional leadership was a very important initiation to teacher’s professional development in order to improve students learning quality in physical education. 

Keywords: leadership, learning community, PE curriculum and teaching