Does Distributed Leadership Support Principal's Instructional Leadership?

Jiangang Xia

University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Dr. Jiangang Xia is an assistant professor of educational administration in the Department of Educational Administration at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). He received his B.S. of mathematics and M.A. of education both from East China Normal University, and earned his Ph.D. of Educational Leadership from Western Michigan University. Before he joined UNL, he worked seven years as a high school math teacher in China, and one year as an evaluation specialist at a large urban school district in US. He teaches courses in (a) educational organization theories, (b) educational leadership theories, (c) intermediate quantitative research methods, (d) advanced quantitative research methods, and (e) dissertation proposal development. He conducts research in school leadership theory and policy, and his specific interests include (a) decision-making power relationships between principals and teachers and between districts and schools, (b) school autonomy, (c) schools as loosely coupled organizations, (d) school processes and teacher job satisfaction, (e) school processes and student engagement, and (f) distributed leadership. He also conducts international comparative studies. Dr. Xia’s major research approach is quantitative that is based on some advanced statistical modeling methods and large-scale national and international data. His current interests include applying the cutting edge multilevel structural equation modeling (MSEM) methods (paradigm) to several research projects. He has published eight journal articles and four book chapters, and presented about 30 research papers in national/international conferences in the area of P-12 educational leadership.

Cailen O'Shea

University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Cailen O’Shea is a second year graduate student in the educational leadership and higher education PhD program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He previously taught for six years in a Title I elementary school in Lincoln, Nebraska as a behavior interventionist working with at-risk populations, a 5th grade classroom teacher, and an instructional technology coach. He received master’s degrees in educational administration and in mathematics education for teachers.His research interests include bridging the gap between research and practice in order to apply research findings to inform classroom decisions. He incorporates the use of large scale data sets in order to investigate educational practice to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the relationships that exist between theory and practice. Some of his work centers around distributed leadership, and innovative schools.

Sarah Zuckerman

University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between distributed leadership (DL) and principal leadership (PL). Based on the literature (see Gronn, 2009; Hallinger & Heck, 2009; Leithwood et al, 2009), Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (2013) claimed that DL does not diminish PL. Spillane (2014) also found no evidence that DL undermines PL. However, it is not clear whether and if so to what extent that DL supports PL. We also noted that the measure of DL was mainly from principal perspective and rarely from teacher perspective. And thus it is not clear whether teacher perceived DL supports or undermines PL. Another issue is that most studies on DL were based on small-scale data from a single country and thus it is not clear whether DL associates with PL consistently across countries or cultures. The issues might be due to the lack of international data that contains measures of both DL and PL and of perspectives of both principals and teachers and the lack of analytical approach that could use teacher level data to predict principal level data. To address the data issues, we used the large-scale Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) 2013 data set that for the first time OECD developed measures of distributed leadership in addition to measures of instructional leadership and that was based on both principals and teacher’s perspective. The samples include about 136,000 teachers and 6,800 principals in 34 countries and economies surveyed in 2013. To address the method issue, we applied the cutting-edge multilevel structural equation modeling (MSEM) approach that combines the advantages of multilevel modeling (MLM) and structural equation modeling (SEM), particularly it allows outcome at school-level while predictors at either school or teacher-level (Preacher et al., 2010). Two specific research questions guide this study: (a) whether and if so to what extent that principal perceived DL supports principal’s instructional leadership, and (b) whether and if so to what extent that teachers perceived DL supports principal’s instructional leadership? The preliminary analysis of research question (a) showed that principals who perceived higher DL also perceived higher instructional leadership (the analysis of research question (b) is still undergoing). The study contributes to the literature by providing evidence that DL supports principal’s instructional leadership. It also contributes to the literature by viewing DL from teacher perspective and estimating its association with principal leadership using an innovative bottom-up approach.

Authors

Jiangang Xia (University of Nebraska-Lincoln)
Cailen O'Shea (University of Nebraska-Lincoln)
Sarah Zuckerman (University of Nebraska-Lincoln)

Topic Area

Project

Session

S1I » Theatre Presentation (15:30 - Friday, 6th July, Lancaster 1)

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