Mapping instructional leadership in Thailand

Abstract

Over the past two decades a growing body of international research suggests that instructional leadership from the principal is essential for the improvement of teaching and learning in schools. However, in many parts of the world, the practice of instructional leadership remains both poorly understood and outside the main job description of the principal. Thus, in many nations, the expectation for principals to act as instructional leaders represents a major change from traditional practice. The current study explores the principal's changing role as an instructional leader in Thailand, where education reforms adopted in 1999 sought to change modal approaches to teaching and learning as well as school management. The study employed surveys of principal instructional leadership conducted prior to and following adoption of Thailand's National Education Act 1999 to assess change in principal practice. The results suggest that despite new system expectations for principal to act as instructional leaders, the predominant orientation of Thai principals remains largely unchanged. The authors recommend that more systematic and substantial steps are needed to train and support principals in making this change in their role.

Effectiveness of Instructional School Leadership in Public Secondary Schools in Buea

“…For example, , found that the overall profile of 1195 primary and secondary school principals suggested a moderate level of engagement in two dimensions: 'Creating a School Mission' and 'Developing a Positive School Learning Climate', and a lower level of activity on the dimension: 'Managing the Instructional Program'. Moreover, in a more recent study by Hallinger & Lee (2014), Thai principals placed significantly greater emphasis on their role in defining school mission and promoting a positive school learning climate than to managing instructional program. These results relate to literature by Smith and Andrews (1989); Waters, Marzano, and McNulty (2003) and Hallinger and Murphy (1985) list framing and communicating school goals as a primary function of instructional leadership.…”

Binary Logistic Regression Analysis of Instructional Leadership Factors Affecting English Language Literacy in Primary Schools

“…Of significance is their determination to assess the achievement of fundamental objectives related to student achievement (Hallinger & Murphy 2012). Instructional leaders are assertive, strong disciplinarians whose primary foci lay in building the school culture, academic press and high expectations for student achievement (Hallinger & Lee 2014). Empirical connections between instructional leadership and student achievement abound in literature; and has become the object of several studies.…”

An Evaluation of School Principals’ Instructional Leadership Behaviours from the Perspective of Teachers

“…This study focused on teachers' evaluation of Turkish principals' instructional leadership behaviours based on the conceptual framework developed by Hallinger and Murphy (1985) by using a qualitative approach. Only few studies investigated how the instructional leadership model by Hallinger and Murphy was perceived and practiced in a centralized education system (Alsaleh, 2018;Hallinger & Lee, 2014;Harris, Jones, Cheah, Devadason & Adams, 2017). Therefore, it is of great importance to analyse the extent to which this model overlaps with the Turkish education system that has a centralist structure.…”

“…The studies of this period concentrated on the characteristics of the school environment such as school climate, collective efficacy, trust in and commitment to the school, and school quality and development as well as student achievement. (Hallinger, 2015;Lee, Hallinger & Walker, 2012;Hallinger & Lee, 2014;Kaparou & Bush, 2015). After all, it is obvious that current research on instructional leadership mostly focuses on teacher performance and commitment, collective teacher competencies, roles and responsibilities of teachers, professional learning community and professional attitudes (Al-Mahdy, Emam, & Hallinger, 2018;Brandon, Hollweck, Donlevy, & Whalen, 2018;Hallinger, Walker, Nguyen, Truong and Nguyen;2017;Hallinger, Hosseingholizadeh, Hashemi & Kouhsari, 2018;Zheng, Yin & Li, 2018).…”