A Study on Principal's Instructional Leadership Effectiveness and Influencing Factors in Senior Secondary Schools of Amhara Region
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Date
1998-05
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to assess the current status of instructional leadership
effectiveness and to investigate some of the factors that affect its provision in senior secondary
schools of Amhara Region.
Leader's engagement in defining the school mission, managing curriculum and instruction,
supervising instruction, monitoring student progress and promoting school learning climate
were used as indicators to assess instructional leadership effectiveness. The context in which
instructional leadership is held like personal characteristics, organizational characteristics and
district/zone administrative characteristics were treated as influencing factors .
To this end, the study was conducted in 14 senior secondary schools selected from 6 zones by
using a combination of stratified and quota sampling techniques. Twenty six school leaders,
192 teachers and 6 supervision staff were used as the subjects of the study to obtain the
necessary data. Questionnaire, document analysis and unstructured interview were the
instruments used for data collection. The data collected through the questionnaire were
analyzed using percentage, Pearson's correlation coefficient and t-test statistical instruments.
Findings from the data analysis revealed that most school leaders are strong (etIective) neither
in each dimension nor in their overall instructional leadership role. Of the personal
characteristics treated, only experience as department head, number of credit hours taken in
educational fields and level of education appeared to have significant relationship with ILE.
And hence, longer experience,more credits and higher level in the above characteristics,
respectively contributed positively to the success of leaders in their instructional leadership
role. Of the organizational characteristics, greater availability of instructional resources,
professional norm that greatly value leaders' participation in curricular and instructional
issues, and larger teaching staff size contributed positively to ILE, whereas greater role
diversity lowered their ILE. Among the district/zone education department characteristics,
generally, the manifest emphasis of expectations of higher officials on activities other than
instructional leadership or matters that are secondary to ILE as well as high degree of
fmancial and supply delivery problems, untimely teacher transfer and delay substitutes to and
deployment of teachers have significantly influenced ILE in the negative direction. In sum,
these findings indicated that ILE is a function of personal, organizational and districtlzone
education department characteristics (factors).
Following the findings and conclusions drawn, it is recommended that REB in collaboration
with zone and district education departments should define the instructional leadership roles
of leaders clearly in terms of the five dimensions, provide trainings in the area, revise and
improve the selection and appointment criteria of leadership positions, reduce and improve
the organizational and district/zone factors debilitating instructional leadership role of the
leader.
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Keywords
A Study on Principal's Instructional, Leadership Effectiveness and Influencing