Influence of distributed leadership on school effectiveness
Transcript of Influence of distributed leadership on school effectiveness
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1 Evaluating Customer Satisfaction for Training Provider in Johor Bahru.
Mohd Saiful Izwaan bin Saadon and Anizan binti Ali 1-11
2 MVAS – Potential Growth Driver For Social And Economic Sector In Rural India.
Sudip Bose and Dr Gagan Pareek 12-22
3 The Application Of Quality Function Deployment For Recruiting New Government Staff.
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4 Integration Of New Technological Developments Into Technical College Auto- Mechanics Course
Curriculum For Enhancing Job Readiness Of Automotive Students.
Abdul Latib , A. B, Inti, M.M, & Ahmad, A.D.
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5 CHANGING CUSTOMER ATTITUDES IN RURAL MARKETS (A Holistic Perspective in changing
Indian Economic Scenario).
Dr.Y. Vinodhini and Azam Khan Mahammed
47-51
6 Innovation In Management Of Foreign Currency Reserves In The Globalisation Era.
Dr.A.Muthuchamy and SRP.Vijaya 52-57
7 A Comparative Study of Non Performing Assets of Public and Private Sector Banks in India.
Dr. ANITA SHARMA 58-74
8 A Performance Analysis of TQM and ISO 9000 for an Organizational Excellence.
Dr.G.Ramadoss and Dr.G.Muthuvel 75-89
9 Analysis of Global Financial Crisis and Its Impact on Indian Economy.
Dr.G.Ramadoss and Dr.G.Muthuvel 90-98
10 Visual Rerank: Applying to Large Scale Image Search as a Soft Computing Approach.
Pushpanjali Chouragade and Dr. Prashant Chatur 99-115
11 Challenges in Initiating Small Enterprises: Lessons from Single Retail Shops in Arusha Municipality
Tanzania.
Isaac Kazungu, Benson Otieno Ndiege and Penina Matolo
116-128
12 Influence Of Distributed Leadership On School Effectiveness.
Salisu Abba Yangaiya and Hairuddin Mohd Ali 129-140
13 Mobile Phone An Effective Tool For Management Process Of ADHD.
Maryam Najafi moghadamnejhad and Fatemeh Khoshnavay fomani 141-151
14 Behaviourial Consequences Creating An Impact On Work-Life.
H. GEETHA 152-164
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16 Dynamics Of International Marketing Strategies.
Dr.Mohan Kumar T.P and Shivashanthi.S 172-189
17 Efficient Peer-To-Peer Video Streaming For Cooperative Networks.
S.Srithar, Student and Mr.S.AthiNarayanan 190-206
18 Document Filtering:Intelligent Inference System For Web.
Miss.Rasika G.Charate, Dr.P.N.Chatur and Dr.P.N.Chatur 207-222
19 Test Estimation.
Shyam Sunder 223-234
20 Silently Struggle: Everyday Divergence in Surviving in Textile & Apparel Industries in India.
Dr. Mallikarjunappa N.L. 235-251
21 Performance Evaluation Of Urban Co-Operative Banks (UCBS) In India.
Dr.P.S.Ravindra, Dr.O.Narayana Murthy and Mr.Ch.Trinadha Rao 252-264
22 Foreign Direct Investment In Indian Retail Sector.
Benny J. Godwin, Dr. D. Kalapana and Shanmuga Valli 265-274
23 Review of Workflow Scheduling Algorithms in Cloud/Grid Computing.
Salisu Musa Borodo and Aboamama Attahir Ahmed 275-288
24 Optimized Design of Wideband Wilkinson Balun Using Composite Right/Left-Handed Transmission
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25 Data Mining Application: Classification of Load Pattern Analysis for Electricity Customers.
Rupali Meshram, Prof. A. V. Deorankar and Dr. P. N. Chatur 299-309
26 Defying Voices, Defining Voices: The Poetic Voice Of Forough Farrokhzad.
K. Tejaswani 310-330
27 Survey On Prefetching Techniques In P2P Video On Demand Systems.
Ms.D.Sugandhi Mariyal 331-344
28 Mining Frequent Itemsets with diverse Association Rule Mining: A Survey.
Dr. P.N. Chatur, Prof. R.V. Mante, D.S. Asudani and A.R. Khobragade 345-352
29 Research Issues In Management Of Defence Funded Schools.
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30 A Study On Risk-Return Relationship Of Mutualfund Equity Schemes.
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31 Wireless Mesh Network: An Enabling Technology.
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33 Customer Perception Towards SMS Advertising.
Aluregowda 395-405
34 Self-Adaptive System Quality Modeling.
Muhammad Imran Habib, Ahsan Raza Sattar, Muhammad Azam Zia, Adnan Munir, Hasnat Ahmad Husni and
Waseem Baig
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35 India and Central Asia: 16th to 21st Century Contacts: An appraisal of Historical contacts.
Dr Darakhshan Abdullah 430-440
36 Relationship Of Economic Growth And Environmental Performance Index: A Study Of Select
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Dr Namita Rajput, Ms Parminder Kaur and Ms Akanksha Khanna
441-453
37 Design of Smartphone application for Character localization and recognition.
Snehal Charjan, Prof. R. V. Mante and Dr. P. N. Chatur 454-464
38 Effectiveness Evaluation Of Regression Models For Predictive Data-Mining.
Dr. Chatur P. N., Khobragade Anish R. and Asudani Deepak S. 465-483
39 Impact of Government Spending on Industrial Sector productivity in India.
Rajni Pathania 484-497
40 Implementation of Fuzzy – ART Network Using VLSI.
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41 Security Enhancement of AODV Protocol for Mobile Ad hoc Network.
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42 Competency mapping - A case study of Wipro BPO (Jurisdiction like Kolkata/Bangalore etc).
Utpalendu Mondal and R. K. Patra 524-531
43 Environmental, Economic & Social Impacts of Sustainable Ecotourism Development in Iran & India.
Sayed Ebrahim Mousavi, Dr. G. M. Pondhe and Dr. Ravindra G. Jaybhaye 532-544
44 Cognition Model Based Adaptive Multilevel Filter for Removal of Impulse Noise.
A.Radha and Ms.M.Brindha 545-554
45 Attrition Management in Private Sector Industries in Indian Context.
Abhisek Sarkar 555-561
46 Design of optimized saw filter using Heuristic method.
Neha Yadav and Er. Mohit Mehta 562-574
47 The Buying Behavior & the Future Intensions of Customers of the Retail Sector.
Fayza 575-578
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INFLUENCE OF DISTRIBUTED LEADERSHIP ON
SCHOOL EFFECTIVENESS
Salisu Abba Yangaiya
Hairuddin Mohd Ali*
Abstract
The present study examines the relationship between distributed leadership (DL) and school
effectiveness (SE), It examines which sub-scale of distributed leadership best explains school
effectiveness. Questionnaires were used to get the needed data from secondary school teachers
in Katsina state Nigeria. The questionnaires were adopted from Devis (2009) and Hulpia et al.
(2010) and Oregon County Public Schools (OCPS), for distributed leadership inventory and
school effectiveness scale respectively. Data was obtained from teachers of 227 sample schools.
In all, 499 secondary school teachers sample was used in this study. Findings indicated that all
the five subscales of distributed leadership predict school effectiveness. The predictors
explained 48.4% variance of distributed leadership. Besides, it was revealed that principal
leadership and participative decision making subscales, best predict school effectiveness.
Key words: Distributed leadership, School effectiveness, Correlation, Multiple regressions.
International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM)
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Introduction
Leadership can be viewed as the process of identifying, acquiring, allocating and utilizing
material and human resources in order to make condition necessary for innovation and changes
in effective teaching and learning (Spillane 2005). According to Ross, et al. (2005), in the past
leadership theory and studies have focused more on the characteristics, behaviors and outcomes
of the work of a single leader. In other words the task of moving the organization forward rested
squarely on the shoulders of single person, i.e. the person occupying leadership position.
But of recent, there has been a challenge to the dominance of individualized view of
leadership (Ross, et. al., 2005). The challenge for a single leader running an organization is more
pronounced in educational setting compared to other organizations, because of the rise in
demand for education, government policies among other reasons
Moreover, it should be stressed that the practice of heroic leadership cannot be sustained
in today’s world, due to many reasons, such as transfer, turn over, retirement on the part of both
the leaders and followers among others. Harris (2008a), states that the need for change in school
and school systems cannot be overemphasized, as there are several world, national and local
trends that will make significant changes in school and schooling inevitable. For instance,
globalization, employment issues and departure from the ways of engaging school leaders are
some of the factors that will make changes necessary.
The above scenario pave the way for the emergence of new leadership concepts and
practice that will take care or at least minimize some of the challenges organizations especially
educational organizations are facing. There is consensus that the old organizational structures of
schooling simply do not fit the requirement of leading in the twenty-first century (Harris 2005).
Additionally, the problems our schools are facing today will obviously require more distributed
form of leadership, as long as we want effective teaching and learning to be realized and
sustained in those schools (Harris 2008b).
This study is aimed at investigating whether the five constructs of distributed leadership
predict school effectiveness. In addition the study want to investigate which among the five
constructs predicts DL best, within the Nigerian context. To realize the above objectives, two
research questions were formulated. The questions are:
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1. Do the five constructs of distributed leadership predict school effectiveness? And how much
variance in school effectiveness does the five subscales explained?
2. Which among the five subscales of distributed leadership best predict school effectiveness?
Theoretical Framework
Distributed leadership
Today’s schools require a shift from the way they are being governed if effective teaching and
learning are to take place. As noted earlier, the schools are facing serious challenges, like;
teacher burnout, teacher attrition, over crowed classrooms to mention just few. To tackle some
of the problems mentioned, the schools need to be reformed. However, as a result of complexity
of the challenges schools are facing, there are doubts if single heroic leader, can single handedly
spearhead the reforms.
The solution to the above problem is dispersed leadership. This type of leadership is not
new (Gronn, n.d), and though it is the present idea (Harris, 2008a), cannot be said to be a new
leadership technique but rather an intellectual level that emphasizes the fact that leadership needs
an effort and inputs of most members of the organization (Oduro, 2004). As Gronn (2008) notes
there were limits to the ability of principal to tackle the challenges associated with implementing
the needed reform.
According to Spillane (2006) it is not possible for one person to single-handedly lead reform
efforts to improve teaching and learning in a complex organization as a school. Furthermore,
Harris (2008a) opines that school heads and or principals can no longer be able to handle critical
areas requiring leadership in schools. As a result different leadership structures and practice are
past emerging. In addition, Harris (2005) argued that if distributed leadership is in place, more
of the knowledge, skills and talent of staff will be identified, developed and put to use than under
a more traditional hierarchical pattern of leadership.
Moreover, it has been claimed that student’s outcomes are more likely to improve where
leadership sources are shared or distributed throughout the school and where teachers are
empowered in decisions related to teaching, learning and assessment (Silins & Mulford, 2002).
Lashway (2006) claimed that, if distributed leadership is a threat to the established way of doing
things, but it provides respite to the over-crowded job of the principal. At a time when principal
is over stretched, the idea of sharing the challenges across organizational members is tempting.
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Distributed leadership is a form of lateral leadership where the practice of leadership is
stretched within organizational members. In distributed leadership, organizational influence and
decision-making is the responsibility of all members of the organization rather than one
individual direction (Harris, 2008b). Furthermore, Spillane (2006) notes that in distributed
leadership, leadership is no more viewed as the responsibility of school principal and other
formal and informal leaders but the connection and interaction of leaders, followers and their
situations that results to leadership practice.
It is worth noting that distributed leadership goes beyond heroic leader, i.e. single
charismatic or transformational leader. Angelle (2010) argues that distributed leadership is
beyond the single talented and influential leader who changes an organization. It is the stage
where by leadership is shared by the most organizational members for the betterment of the
organization. Distributed leadership can also be viewed as activities carried out by most
members in the organization. Ross, et al. (2005), looks at distributed leadership as a collective
effort of all members of the organization. In other words it is the responsibility of all members of
the organization, not restricted to certain individuals who are occupying the leadership positions.
According to spillane (2006), distributed leadership perspective provides another way of
viewing leadership in our schools, by stressing the aspect of leadership practice and by assuming
that leadership practice is the product of interaction between leaders, followers, and their
situations. In other words, distributed leadership provides a platform and a background for
looking at leadership in another way.
Distributed leadership, which is sometime described as post- heroic leadership model is a
leadership model that empowers the staff as a result of their involvement in almost all what the
organization does. Hulpia and Devos (2010), argues that distributed leadership is also seen as
post heroic leadership model, in this model, leadership is viewed as a team level activities where
leadership is distributed among the school team. Moreover, Oduro (2004), states that post-heroic
leadership encourages teamwork, participation, empowerment, risk-taking and de-emphasizes
control over others.
It should be stressed that educators, researchers as well as policy makers described post-
heroic leadership in different terms; such as dispersed, collaborative, shared, to mention just few.
However, in some cases, these terms are used alternately with distributed leadership to mean the
same thing (Oduro, 2004) but, in some cases, they slightly differ. According to Harris (2008b)
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different related terms of distributed leadership means that leadership is more often than not used
as a short form to explain any form of stretched, collaborative or dispersed leadership practice in
schools.
Relationship between distributed leadership and school effectiveness
School effectiveness can be viewed as the academic standing of the school which can be
explained in terms of output of the school. The output is usually assessed in terms of average
academic achievements of the students in that school at the end of certain period of their formal
schooling (Scheerens 2000). In other words, before a school can be term effective, academic
standing of its students must be looked into at a certain period of their academic pursuits.
In educational setting, school effectiveness research started of in the early 1970’s as a
way of checking the impact of schools and education on students’ educational performance
(Mujis, 2006). There are a number of factors that influences organizational effectiveness, but the
most influential and critical is leadership. As Huber and Mujis (2010) note leadership has since
been recognized as a critical factor in organizational effectiveness. Moreover, Leithwood et al.
(2004) explain that effective educational leadership makes a difference in improving students’
learning. Leithwood et al., further argued that there is nothing new or controversial about that
idea.
However, because of the challenges our schools are facing, there is doubt on the ability of
a single leader to successfully run school toward realization of it’s objective of effective teaching
and learning. According to Lashway (2003), changes being witnessed in schools has
compounded the work of the principal such that the old idea that principal alone can effectively
run school single handedly is no longer tenable. In other words, today’s educational challenges
cannot be effectively tackled by the principals. They need to share, stretch and disperse
leadership in order to move their respective schools forward.
Additionally Pont et al. (2008) opines that distributing leadership across different people
within the organization and organizational structure can tremendously help in tackling most
challenges our schools are facing and more importantly improve school effectiveness.
Furthermore, Harris (2008) argues that distributed leadership has been found to be a factor that
enhances school effectiveness and school improvement. Moreover Angelle (2010) found that in
a school where distributed leadership is practiced, teachers exhibit some features that aid
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A Monthly Double-Blind Peer Reviewed Refereed Open Access International e-Journal - Included in the International Serial Directories Indexed & Listed at: Ulrich's Periodicals Directory ©, U.S.A., Open J-Gage as well as in Cabell’s Directories of Publishing Opportunities, U.S.A.
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March 2013
students’ achievement. These features are; teachers efficacy, trust, job satisfaction and intention
to stay.
Method
Research instruments
In this study Davis (2009) and Hulpia et al (2010) distributed leadership inventory and Oregon
County Public Schools (OCPS), school effectiveness scale were used to get the needed data from
teachers in the sample secondary schools in Katsina state, Nigeria. The questionnaires were rated
using seven point Likert scale. The rating is 1 = strongly disagree (SD), 2 = moderately disagree (MD), 3
= slightly disagree (SD), 4 = neither agree nor disagree (N), 5 = slightly agree (SA), 6 = moderately agree
(MA) and 7 = strongly agree (SA). Besides, the distributed leadership inventory consist of five
dimensions. Two of the dimensions; artefacts and teacher leadership were adopted from Devis
(2009), while the remaining three; cooperation of leadership team, participative decision making
and principal leadership were adopted from Hulpia et al. (2010). Furthermore, the school
effectiveness scale was adopted from OCPS. The scale contains seven dimensions. These
dimensions are; safe and orderly environment, climate of high expectation for success,
instructional leadership, opportunity to learn and students’ time to task, clear and focused
mission, frequent monitoring of students’ progress and home-school-relation.
Sample
The distributed leadership inventory and school effectiveness scale questionnaires were
administered to seven hundred and fifty teachers of both junior and senior secondary schools in
Katsina state Nigeria. Five hundred and fifty or 73% of the questionnaires were returned, out of
which thirty six or 6.5% of the questionnaires contained serious missing information. These
questionnaires with missing values were excluded from the data set for this study. The decision
to exclude them from the study was because it has been argued that if quite a number of
questions were left unanswered, it is better not to include them in the data set for analysis
(Creswell 2010, Sekeran & Bougie 2010). Furthermore, out of the five hundred and fourteen
retained, fifteen were identified as multivariate outliers and removed from the data set.
Table. 1
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Respondents Background Characteristics
SN Characteristics Frequency Percentage
1 Gender
Male 336 67.3%
Female 163 32.7%
Total 499 100%
2 Age
20-30 189 37.9%
31-40 155 31.9%
41+ 155 31.9%
Total 499 100%
3 Working Experience
1-5 193 38.7%
6-10 161 32.3%
11+ 145 29.1%
Total 499 100%
Table. 1 above shows the respondents background characteristics. In all 499 respondents
were used in this study. Three hundred and thirty six (336) or 67.3% of the respondents were
male while one hundred and sixty three (163) or 32.7% of the respondents were female. The age
of the respondents ranged from 20 to 62 years with an average of 35 years. Moreover, one
hundred and ninety three or 38.7% have 1-5 years working experience; one hundred and sixty
one equivalents to 32.3% have 6-10 years working experience while one hundred and forty five
or 29.1% have more than eleven years working experience. The working experience of the
respondents ranged from 1- 35 years with an average of 9 years.
Result
Table 2 below shows the mean, standard deviation and correlations of the independent variables
(subscales of distributed leadership) and dependant variable (school effectiveness). An
examination of the means of the independent variables indicated that artifacts (ART) received
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the highest score (M = 5.9), followed by; participative decision making (PDCM) (M = 5.4),
teacher leadership (TC. L) (M = 5.4). The subscale with the lowest mean was principal
leadership (PRIN.L) (M = 5.2). Additionally the Pearson correlation matrix revealed that all the
independent variables were statistically and positively correlated with dependant variable SE.
The correlations range from 0.242- 0.532.
Table 2
Descriptive Statistics and Correlations
Variable Mean S.D 2 3 4 5 6
1.COLT 5.24 .967 .464 .502 .532 .521 .437
2.PCDM 5.43 1.72 .428 .462 .424 .242
3.PRIN L 5.22 1.73 .404 .421 .257
4.ART 5.87 1.44 .479 .304
5. TC. L 5.40 1.65 .356
6.TotalSE 5.16 1.55
Variables 1-5 subscales of distributed leadership
All correlations are statistically significant p< 0.001
Multiple regression analysis was conducted for identify whether the five subscales of distributed
leadership predicts school effectiveness and which among the five subscales best predicts school
effectiveness. Table 3 below shows the result of the multiple regression analysis. It should be
stressed that in the regression all the five subscales of DL were used. The analysis indicated that
all the five subscales of DL, cooperation of leadership team, participative decision making,
principal leadership, artifacts and teacher leadership were statistically significant predictors of
school effectiveness. The subscales explained 48.4% of the variance of school effectiveness (F.
(5, 493) = 92.38, p = .001.
Furthermore, examination of the table indicated that among the five subscales of
distributed leadership, principal leadership (PRIN.L) (standardized coefficient .23), makes the
strongest unique contribution in explaining the school effectiveness, when the variance explained
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by all other variables is controlled. The next subscale that contributes most is participative
decision making (PDCM) (standardized coefficient .22) and the last is cooperation of leadership
team (COLT) (standardized coefficient .13).
Table 3
Regression coefficients and F-test value for school effectiveness
Variable B SE β Sig. F R2
Constant 2.026 .156 .000 92.38
(5.493)
0.484
COLT .076 .022 .134 .001
PDCM .123 .021 .220 .000
PRIN.L .152 .027 .227 .000
ART .109 .023 .187 .000
TC.L .132 .022 .217 .000
Discussion and conclusion
The findings of this study with regards to the mean of the five subscales of distributed leadership
indicated that; artifacts recorded the highest mean (M = 5.87, SD = 1.44), followed by
Participative decision making (M = 5.43, SD = 1.72), TC.L (M = 5.40, SD = 1.65), COLT (M =
5.24, SD = .967) and PRIN.L (M = 5.22, SD = 1.73). These findings implies that teachers more
often than not uses available tools like examination results among others to improve teaching
and learning (artifact), participate fully in decision making (participative decision making), feel
that they play an important role in moving the school forward (teacher leadership) cooperate with
one another to move the school forward (cooperation of leadership team). However, the
dimension that recorded lowest mean is principal leadership. That notwithstanding, the findings
of the study also revealed that the independent variables (subscales of DL) positively and
statistically predicted the dependant variable school effectiveness. The subscales explained
48.4% variance school effectiveness (F. (5,493) = 92.38, p = .0001. The present study also
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found that among the five subscales of distributed leadership, principal leadership and
participative decision making are the strongest predictors of school effectiveness standardized
coefficient .23 and .22 respectively. But, cooperation of leadership team appears to be the
weakest predictor of school effectiveness, standardized coefficient .13.
. The findings supports Pont et al (2008) who argues that if leadership is distributed across
people and structure, it will help minimize school challenges and improve school effectiveness.
The findings equally supports similar findings ( Angelle 2010, Leithwood et al. 2004, Mujis
2006, Spillane,2006).
The study has practical implication, in that it brought to the fore the need for our
educational administrators at the ministry, zonal offices and school level to appreciate the
importance of distributing leadership in our schools and consequently devise means of
encouraging the principals at school levels to do so. This will go along way in enhancing
effective teaching and learning in our secondary schools and ultimately make them effective.
Moreover, the study being one of the few conducted in Nigeria in general and Katsina state in
particular, has contributed theoretically to the literature, regarding the influence of distributed
leadership on school effectiveness within Nigerian context.
However, the study has some limitations. First, the study was conducted in secondary
schools; as such there is need for research to be conducted in primary and possibly in tertiary
institutions, so as to determine whether same result may be obtained. Similarly, the present
study excluded teachers from private secondary schools; therefore, more research is needed to
incorporate all teachers of secondary schools in the state.
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