Ronald H. Heck

Reassessing the Principal's Role in School Effectiveness: A Review of Empirical Research, 1980-1995

Although the is little disagreement conquering the belief that principals have an impact on the lives of teachers and students, both the nature and degree of this effect continues to be open to debate. The relationship is complex and not easily subject to empirical verification. This article reviews the empirical literature on the relationship between the principals role and school effectiveness during the period from 1980 to 1995. We specifically focus on the conceptual underpinnings of several theoretical models to study the role, the relationship between models and methods of investigation, an4 consequently, to what has been learned about the nature of the principal impact. We conclude by framing a possible research agenda for the next generation of studies on the effects of school administration.

Instructional Leadership and School Achievement:Validation of a Causal Model:

The purpose of this study is to test a theoretical causal model concerning how elementary and secondary school principals can influence school student achievement through the frequency of implementation of certain instructional leadership behaviors. After controlling for contextual variables, we hypothesized that three latent variables related to principal instructional leadership (school governance, instructional organization, school climate) affected student achievement. A total of 332 teachers and 56 school principals participated in the study. We conducted separate analyses of the proposed model at the individual and school level. The results confirm that the proposed model fit the data. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of the results.

ANALYSIS OF LARGE-SCALE SECONDARY DATA IN HIGHER EDUCATION RESEARCH: Potential Perils Associated with Complex Sampling Designs

Most large-scale secondary data sets used in higher education research (e.g., NPSAS or BPS) are constructed using complex survey sample designs where the population of interest is stratified on a number of dimensions and oversampled within certain of these strata. Moreover, these complex sample designs often cluster lower level units (e.g., students) within higher level units (e.g., colleges) to achieve efficiencies in the sampling process. Ignoring oversampling (unequal probability of selection) in complex survey designs presents problems when trying to make inferences—data from these designs are, in their raw form, admittedly nonrepresentative of the population to which they are designed to generalize. Ignoring the clustering of observations in these sampling designs presents a second set of problems when making inferences about variability in the population and testing hypotheses and usually leads to an increased likelihood of committing Type I errors (declaring something as an effect when in fact it is not). This article presents an extended example using complex sample survey data to demonstrate how researchers can address problems associated with oversampling and clustering of observations in these designs.

Assessing the Contribution of Distributed Leadership to School Improvement and Growth in Math Achievement

Although there has been sizable growth in the number of empirical studies of shared forms of leadership over the past decade, the bulk of this research has been descriptive. Relatively few published studies have investigated the impact of shared leadership on school improvement. This longitudinal study examines the effects of distributed leadership on school improvement and growth in student math achievement in 195 elementary schools in one state over a 4-year period. Using multilevel latent change analysis, the research found significant direct effects of distributed leadership on change in the schools’ academic capacity and indirect effects on student growth rates in math. The study supports a perspective on distributed leadership that aims at building the academic capacity of schools as a means of improving student learning outcomes.

Examining the Impact of School Quality on School Outcomes and Improvement: A Value-Added Approach

There has been a recent state-level emphasis on monitoring student outcomes to develop comprehensive school accountability. Such monitoring systems can include content standards and benchmarks to measure progress, statewide assessment instruments, and school report card data that policy makers, school personnel, and parents can also use to compare schools. To be fair, school comparisons should somehow take into consideration differences in communities and the background characteristics of students who live in these communities. Little previous research has examined what report card information might be used to identify school indicators that are related to student achievement and improvement gains across school settings with diverse student composition. The purpose of this study is to present an approach to statewide school comparison that focuses on the value-added effects of report card indicators of elementary schools’ educational environments on school achievement and school improvement after making school-level adjustments for student differences.

Academic Deans and Directors: Assessing Their Effectiveness from Individual and Institutional Perspectives

The intent of this study is to present a systematic approach for evaluating the leadership effectiveness of deans and directors. We demonstrate the utility of multilevel structural equation modeling to examine variance in faculty and staff assessments of effectiveness and discuss the relevance of our model from individual and institutional perspectives.

Morale Matters: Midlevel Administrators and Their Intent To Leave.

The morale of faculty and staff is often used to characterize the quality of academic life within a particular campus or institution. Typically those commenting on morale have an intuitive sense that an individuals morale is high, or the morale of the administrative staff is low, or that the facultys morale has plummeted. These comments often refer broadly to the level of well-being that an individual or group is experiencing in reference to their worklife (Johnsrud, 1996). We frequently hear references to morale, but it is not a well-defined or precisely measured concept. Nor is it clear what effect morale has on behavior. Again, it makes intuitive sense that the higher the morale, the higher the performance, but there is little empirical data. Lindgren (1982) has argued that administrators increase their effectiveness when they are personally affirmed. Similarly, Johnsrud and Rosser (1997, 1999a) have shown that morale is related to administrators intent to leave their positions. Despite the seeming efficacy of morale, however, there is little agreement as to its definition or understanding of its impact. The purposes of this study are: (1) to define the construct of morale empirically and examine it within a broader theory of how organizations affect individuals and (2) to further investigate its construct validity by proposing and testing a multilevel model concerning the impact of morale on administrators intentions to leave their positions.

Collaborative leadership effects on school improvement: Integrating unidirectional- and reciprocal-effects models

Researchers have persisted in framing leadership as the driver for change and performance improvement in schools despite convincing theoretical commentary that proposes leadership as a process of reciprocal interaction. Although conceptualizing leadership as a reciprocal process offers leverage for understanding leadership effects on learning, methodological constraints have limited empirical tests of this model. This report focuses on understanding the contribution that collaborative leadership and school capacity for improvement make to growth in student learning in elementary school mathematics. We compare unidirectional and reciprocal-effects models focusing on change in leadership and learning in 195 elementary schools over a 4-year period. The results support the efficacy of a reciprocal-effects model that conceptualizes leadership within a changing, mutually reinforcing system of organizational relationships.

Modeling the longitudinal effects of school leadership on teaching and learning

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to test a multilevel, cross-classified model that seeks to illuminate the dynamic nature of relationships among leadership, teaching quality, and student learning in school improvement. The studys primary goal is to shed light on the paths through which leadership influences student learning. At the school level, the model examines the mediating effect of the schools instructional environment on leadership and student learning. At the classroom level, it examines how instructionally focussed leadership can moderate teacher effects on student learning. Then these multiple paths are examined in a single model that seeks to test and highlight the means by which leadership contributes to school improvement. Design/methodology/approach – The current study employed a multilevel longitudinal data set drawn from 60 primary schools in one state in the USA. Using a cross-classification approach to quantitative modeling, the research analyzes the complex cross-level interacti...

ADMINISTRATIVE EFFECTIVENESS IN HIGHER EDUCATION: Improving Assessment Procedures

Holding higher education personnel accountable for measurable outcomes is a relatively new phenomenon. Assessing the performance of administrators may well provide needed and appropriate information about the functioning of the university, but it may represent high stakes assessment for individuals; that is, measures of administrative effectiveness may be tied to promotion, salary augmentation, contract renewal, or dismissal. Little previous research exists, however, on the assessment of administrators performance in higher education (Gmelch et al., in press; Seldin, 1988). We develop an evaluation model for assessing and monitoring the effectiveness of academic deans and directors, using generalizability theory (i.e., an approach that focuses on identifying multiple sources of error in performance assessment) as a basis for developing more accurate assessment procedures. We illustrate this approach using faculty and staff assessments of their deans leadership effectiveness. We also provide guidelines for improving the quality of assessments by adjusting various aspects of the evaluation model.