Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the relative impact of different types of leadership on students' academic and nonacademic outcomes. Research Design: The methodology involved an analysis of findings from 27 published studies of the relationship between leadership and student outcomes. The first meta-analysis, including 22 of the 27 studies, involved a comparison of the effects of transformational and instructional leadership on student outcomes. The second meta-analysis involved a comparison of the effects of five inductively derived sets of leadership practices on student outcomes. Twelve of the studies contributed to this second analysis. Findings: The first meta-analysis indicated that the average effect of instructional leadership on student outcomes was three to four times that of transformational leadership. Inspection of the survey items used to measure school leadership revealed five sets of leadership practices or dimensions: establishing goals and expectations; resourcing strategically; planning, coordinating, and evaluating teaching and the curriculum; promoting and participating in teacher learning and development, and ensuring an orderly and supportive environment. The second meta-analysis revealed strong average effects for the leadership dimension involving promoting and participating in teacher learning and development and moderate effects for the dimensions concerned with goal setting and planning, coordinating, and evaluating teaching and the curriculum. Conclusions and Implications for Research and Practice: The comparisons between transformational and instructional leadership and between the five leadership dimensions suggested that the more leaders focus their relationships, their work, and their learning on the core business of teaching and learning, the greater their influence on student outcomes. The article concludes with a discussion of the need for leadership research and practice to be more closely linked to the evidence on effective teaching and effective teacher learning. Such alignment could increase the impact of school leadership on student outcomes even further.

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Diverse claims have been made for and about action research in a variety of contexts. In this article, we first trace the origins of this approach to Kurt Lewin and provide a synopsis of his views. We then compare Lewin's views on action research with those of contemporary exponents. In the third section, we review and systematize the claims of 11 action researchers to determine the extent to which their claims constitute a shared conception. While most authors characterize action research as a methodology, a few also attempt to link action research to a particular interpretation or theory of social science. We build on this distinction in the final section and distinguish a weak from a strong version of action research, concluding that, at this time, neither version enjoys the status of a paradigm.

Purpose -Several arguments have been put forward about why distributed leadership in schools should contribute to the improvement of teaching and learning. This paper aims to investigate the extent to which conceptual and empirical research in the field is aligned to this goal. Design/methodology/approach -The discussion of alignment was structured around two differing and overlapping conceptions of distributed leadership. The first conception examines the distribution of the leadership of those tasks designated by researchers as leadership tasks. The second conception examines the distribution of influence processes. Findings -The paper finds that the first conception has the advantage of giving leadership educational content by embedding it in the tasks and interactions that constitute educational work. The selected leadership tasks are typically not specified, however, in ways that discriminate the qualities required to make a positive difference to student outcomes. The knowledge base needed to make such discrimination is found in outcomes-linked research on the selected educational tasks rather than in research on generic leadership and organisational theory. There is also little attention to the influence processes that are at the heart of leadership. While the second approach pays more attention to these influence processes, its generic treatment of leadership limits the possibility of finding and forging stronger links to student outcomes. Originality/value -The paper highlights that research which integrates both concepts of distributed leadership, in suitably modified form, is likely to be a productive way of making stronger links between distributed leadership and student outcomes. The linkage requires more explicit use of the evidence base on the improvement of teaching and learning.

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