Search results

The primary purpose is to present empirical measures of variables relating to practices engaged in by site‐based teams, and then to use these variables to test a model predicting significant outcomes of site‐based decision making. The practice variables of site‐based management (SBM) teams are essential in promoting research within a distributed leadership framework.

A path model is computed to test the relationships between factors relating to the support received by site‐based teams; site team communication and decision‐making practice, and perceived outcomes of SBM. Measures are based on survey data collected from 367 team members in 50 schools from fifteen school districts in a northeastern state in the US.

Results show that different factors relating to the support provided to site‐based teams and practices employed by these teams emerge as statistically significant predictors of various outcomes. Results suggest that the resources provided to support site teams, e.g. the devolution of decision‐making power, results in enhanced stakeholder influence, but whether this influence results in better decisions or improvement in teaching and learning depends on the communication and decision‐making practices site teams employ within a distributed leadership framework.

This study sought to identify site team decision making and communication processes that reflect how site teams conduct their work, defining how members of site teams perceive the “rules of the game.” In doing so, it offers a new and different perspective on how such processes impact outcomes associated with shared decision‐making processes, and thus a better understanding of the complex dynamics of school‐site decision making and the distribution of leadership in schools.

Using sociolinguistic methods and ethnography, looks at the continuous and in process relationship between everyday talk and school leadership. Through close discourse analysis of three distinct situations, demonstrates how administrative talk shapes and is shaped by a school’s contexts, creating constant possibilities for educational leaders. Discusses implications for understanding how and why moral leadership is tenuous and problematic using Dewey’s notion of mortality as the nurturing of educational ideas: that is, in practice, moral leadership is not always reflexive or progressive.

Despite general agreement that shared decision making is a desirable component of school restructuring, reform efforts have failed to emphasize the importance of information use in decision processes. Consequently, teacher decision authority is unlikely to result in new and creative approaches to practice. Reports on a study in which teachers and principals in 24 restructuring schools responded to surveys assessing their level of involvement in shared decision making, the kinds of information they used in reaching collaborative decisions, and their perceptions of the usefulness of various sources of information in their school improvement efforts. Results revealed a generally high level of involvement but little valuing of information beyond the collective knowledge of the group. However, where multiple information sources were sought and utilized, satisfaction with collaborative decision making was greater. Sketches of decision processing in two schools contrast the efficacy of collaboration when information is or is not valued. Discusses implications for school restructuring and presents a model for information use in school improvement.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a model in which leadership styles (transformational or transactional leadership) directly and indirectly (through occupation perception) affect teacher performance (in-role performance and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB)).

The research hypothesis holds that the leadership style (transformational or transactional) has a direct and indirect effect on teacher performance (through occupation perception). These hypotheses have been tested on data collected from 630 Arab Israeli teachers.

Teachers’ in-role performance increases as they perceive their principals’ leadership style as more transformational and less transactional. In addition, the results reveal that the effect of transformational principals’ leadership style on OCB is expressed only by indirect effect (through occupational perception).

The results of the study contribute to the understanding of the way leadership style and performance interact in schools, and the importance of teachers’ occupational perception in explaining this relationship. Future research should further investigate the teachers’ occupational perceptions and its effect on their performance as little research has been conducted to date.

The field of educational systems has witnessed an increase in studies of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) as it contributes to the effectiveness and success of schools and achieving their objectives and goals. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between principals’ leadership style, occupational perceptions and OCB.

The research hypothesis holds that the leadership style (transformational or transactional) have a direct and indirect effect on OCB (through occupation perception). These hypotheses have been tested on data collected from 620 Arab Israeli teachers.

The results reveal that: transformational and transactional leadership have no direct effect on OCB, an indirect effect of occupational perception on the relationship between transformational leadership and OCB, occupational perception did not mediate the effect between transactional leadership and OCB.

The results of the study contribute to the understanding of the way leadership style and OCB interact in schools, and the importance of teachers’ occupational perception in explaining this relationship. Future research should further investigate the teachers’ occupational perceptions and its effect on their performance as little research has been conducted to date.

School managerial control is derived from perceptions of behavioural interactions between teachers and administrators along two dimensions: regular patterns of formal and informal structures and rules; and discretionary behaviours reflecting the quality of managerial performance. Analyses the interactive effects of these two dimensions across processes of control labelled as standards, information processing, assessments and incentives – all within the task domain of curriculum and instruction. The discussion of structure and discretion is significant in terms of the relationship, seemingly contradictory, between uniform guidelines of administrative practice and qualitative discretion.