Examining relationships among elementary schools' contexts, leadership, instructional practices, and added-year outcomes: a regression discontinuity approach

Abstract

This study proposes and tests a multilevel structural model of school context, composition, and school leadership on school instructional practices and outcomes in elementary schools in a western state in the United States. We focus on direct and indirect relationships implied in our proposed model using an ''added year of schooling'' in reading and math as our primary school-level outcomes. Added-year effects, which result from a regression discontinuity design, represent a relatively new approach for describing how school factors influence outcomes. Our results suggest that, net of context and composition factors, improvement-focused school leadership directly affected subsequent school instructional practices and, in turn, instructional practices affected addedyear outcomes. We discuss the findings in terms of their theoretical and practical implications for conducting further educational effectiveness research.

Direction-setting school leadership practices: a meta-analytical review of evidence about their influence

“…A major exception to the lack of specification in instructional leadership models is the model developed by Hallinger and his colleagues, along with the instrument the Principal Instructional Management Rating Scale (PIMRS), used to measure the enactment of this model (see, e.g., Hallinger & Heck, 1996;Hallinger & Murphy, 1985;Heck & Hallinger, 1999;Heck, Larsen, & Marcoulides, 1990;Heck & Moriyama, 2010;Leithwood & Montgomery, 1982). Defining the school mission is one of the three dimensions of this model of leadership (managing the instructional program and promoting a positive school culture aimed at improvement of teaching and learning being the other two dimensions).…”

The Pedagogical Leadership of the Mathematics Faculty: A Systematic Review

“…Some of these studies highlighted the implementation of leadership in schools, collaboration, or the creation of a climate of trust [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. Other have carried out specific training programs to improve teaching [18][19][20][21][22]. Some have focused on the analysis of the figure of teachers based on educational policies and reforms promoted by the state [23,24].…”

“…Increasing concern about the need to become more involved staff were observed to achieve initiatives for internal change and strengthen distributed and pedagogical leadership in educational institutions. Related to that, Heck and Moriyama [22], based on a structural and multilevel model in primary schools, examined the impact of leadership on teaching practices and, therefore, on students' school results. Similar to Opdenakker and Van Damme [17], they found that contextual characteristics influence school outcomes, especially when there is room for a collaborative working context.…”

School, teaching, and system effectiveness: some comments on three state-of-the-art reviews

“…Interesting examples are provided in indirect effect models of school leadership, where instructional conditions gradually become better integrated as important intermediary factors (cf. Heck & Moriyama, 2010;Scheerens, 2012).…”