Learning leadership matters: The influence of innovative school leadership preparation on teachers’ experiences and outcomes
- 2014.
- Educational Management Administration & Leadership
- 21 pages.
School leadership has been shown to exert a positive but mostly indirect influence on school and
student outcomes. Currently, there is great interest in how quality leadership preparation is
related to leadership practice and improved teacher outcomes. The purpose of the study was to
understand the moderating influence of leadership preparation on leadership practices and
teachers’ job collaboration, leadership and satisfaction. The study features a non-experimental
design that combined data from a US study of exemplary leadership preparation and a nationally
representative sample of elementary school principals. The sample consists of 175 teachers whose
principals were prepared in an exemplary leadership program and 589 teachers whose principals
were traditionally prepared. Data were analysed with structural equation techniques and results
have shown that innovative leadership preparation exerts a statistically significant direct effect
on principalship leadership practices and a significant indirect effect on teacher collaboration and
satisfaction. The results provide important policy implications. Investments in leadership preparation influences leadership practices that yield more positive teacher work conditions, which are
essential for improve student learning and as a result leadership preparation program design and
improvement can play an important role in district reform and school improvement.
Leadership Educational leadership School leadership Innovation