Toward an evolving conceptualization of instructional leadership as leadership for learning. Meta-narrative review of 109 quantitative studies across 25 years
| Published date | 09 April 2018 |
| Date | 09 April 2018 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-06-2016-0064 |
| Author | Jared Boyce,Alex J. Bowers |
| Subject Matter | Education,Administration & policy in education,School administration/policy,Educational administration,Leadership in education |
Toward an evolving
conceptualization of instructional
leadership as leadership
for learning
Meta-narrative review of 109 quantitative
studies across 25 years
Jared Boyce
SRI International, Menlo Park, California, USA, and
Alex J. Bowers
Department of Organization and Leadership, Teachers College,
Columbia University, New York, New York, USA
Abstract
Purpose –Instructional leadership has been an active area of educational administration research over the
past 30 years. However, there has been significant divergence in how instructional leadership has been
conceptualized over time. The purpose of this paper is to present a comprehensive review of 25 years of
quantitative instructional leadership research, up through 2013, using a nationally generalizable data set.
Design/methodology/approach –The authors conducted a meta-narrative review of 109 studies that
investigated at least one aspect of instructional leadership using the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS)
administered by the US National Center for Education Statistics.
Findings –There were four major themes of instructional leadership research that analyzed SASS data:
principal leadership and influence, teacher autonomy and influence, adult development, and school climate. The
three factors most researched in relationship to instructional leadership themes were: teacher satisfaction, teacher
commitment, and teacher retention. This study details the major findings within each theme, describes the
relationships between all seven factors, and integrates the relationships into a single model.
Originality/value –This paper provides the most comprehensive literature review to-date of quantitative
findings investigating instructional leadership from the same nationally generalizable data set. This paper
provides evidence that leadership for learning is the conceptual evolution of 25 years of diverse instructional
leadership research.
Keywords Principals, Leadership, Educational research, Research methodology
Paper type Literature review
Introduction
The job of the principal, as the leader of a school, is a complex and multifaceted endeavor, as
has been welldocumented in the research literatureon school leadershipover the past decades
(Glasman and Heck, 1990; Goodwin et al., 2005; Murphy and Hallinger, 1992). One specific style
of leadership that has garnered particular interest is instructional lead ership (Hallinger, 2003,
2011b; Urick and Bowers, 2014). This body of research has con tributed several significant
findings to the knowledge of how principals positively impact schools and students, such as
the importance and roles of school vision, school mission, and goal-setting in aiding school
improvement (Hallinger and Heck, 2002; Robinson et al., 2008). Recent investigations have
found that principals who emphasize instructional leadership behaviors have a stronger
positive impact on student achievement than principals who emphasize other styles of
leadership behaviors (Heck and Hallinger, 2009; Louis et al., 2010; Robinson et al., 2008).
The success of the initial framework of instructional leadership (Hallinger and Murphy, 1985)
can be seen in the large number of studies using instructional leadership as their theoretical
Journal of Educational
Administration
Vol. 56 No. 2, 2018
pp. 161-182
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0957-8234
DOI 10.1108/JEA-06-2016-0064
Received 10 June 2016
Revised 1 August 2017
Accepted 14 August 2017
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0957-8234.htm
161
Meta-narrative
review
framework (Hallinger, 2005, 2011a). However, over the past three decades many subsequent
frameworks of instructional leadership have been put forth in the literature (Krüger and
Scheerens, 2012; Marks and Printy, 2003; Robinson et al., 2008; Spillane et al., 2001, 2004), and
instructional leadership research has been criticized as lacking a consistent definition across
investigations (Neumerski, 2013; Watson, 2005), which raises significant questions for the body
of instructional leadership research in two ways (Cavanagh et al., 2003; Neumerski, 2013): what
is the overall aim of instructional leadership research; and what are the implications, both
theoretical and practical, of instructional leadership research?
The focus of the present study centers on these questions, and as we argue below we
believe that given the results of our meta-narrative review across over 100 studies, these two
questions have the same answer, namely, that the growing body of diverse instructional
leadership research has been continuing to conceptually evolve into what our findings
suggest is a broader conception of leadership for learning.
Framework of the study
The first conception of instructional leadership was provided as a framework to enable
quantitative research of schools and principal effects and better understand the connections
between different individual and organizational constructs within schools (Hallinger and
Murphy, 1985) as the literature at that time had not connected school leadership concepts
into a framework of specific leadership behaviors that would allow for empirical
validation (Bossert et al., 1982; Hallinger, 1981; Murphy et al., 1983). In particular,
instructional leadership research was designed to address the problem of “[…] the [lack of]
generalizability of research on effective schools and principals”(Hallinger and Murphy,
1985, p. 219) by addressing “the lack of explanatory models […] that has impeded research
on school and principal effects”(Hallinger and Murphy, 1985, p. 219). Based on the growing
body of research that has relied on this model (Hallinger, 2005, 2011a), these authors might
be described as being largely successful in achieving their original aims. However, several
competing conceptions of instructional leadership have been suggested over the past three
decades since the initial framework was put forth (Rigby, 2014).
Marks and Printy(2003) shift instructionalleadership from a principal-centered practice to
a shared practice: “Instructional leadership, as we reconceptualize it, replaces a hierarchical
and procedural notion with a model of ‘shared instructional leadership’”(Marks and Printy,
2003, p. 371). Their motivation for the shift was based on a body of literature around the
empowerment of teachers to have authority arounddecisions related to schools’instructional
programs, the restructuring of schools to include teachers in the management process, and
leadership activities being seen as connecting to roles, either formal or informal, and not
connecting to a specific position. In short, instructional leadership is not a stand-in for “the
principal’sinstructional managementrole”(Hallinger and Murphy, 1985,p. 220), but is instead
about “principals and teachers both play[ing] a part in forging an effective leadership
relationship”(Marks and Printy, 2003, p. 374).
Around the same time Spillane et al. (2001, 2004) were examining leadership within schools
as being performed by both formal and informal leaders within schools. While their framework
is generally discussed using the name “distributed leadership”(Spillane, 2012), the underlying
research studied “several functions that are thought essential for instructional leadership”
(Spillane et al., 2001, p. 24), “a variety of instructional leadership tasks”(Spillane et al., 2001, p. 26),
and “several functions that are important for instructional leadership”(Spillane et al., 2004, p. 13)
through the lens that “leadership practice is distributed over leaders, followers, and the school’s
situation or context”(Spillane et al., 2004, p. 11). In their conception of how leadership is enacted
in schools, Spillane et al. (2001, 2004) describe both principals and teachers as performing
instructional leadership functions and filling instructional leadership roles, making both
principal behavior and teacher behavior elements of instructional leadership practice.
162
JEA
56,2
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