Leadership and teacher efficacy : a comparative study of leadership practices in two primary schools

Abstract

A number of studies have shown that leadership plays a key role in establishing the efficacy of teachers. As a result, a number of leadership styles have been discussed over the years with the intention of improving teacher efficacy. A thorough literature review recognised the importance of two significant styles that have dominated research on this issue in the last decade, namely transformational and instructional leadership. In this case, the research used an inductive approach to determine if leaders used these leadership styles. The approach was based on a pragmatist and critical realist epistemology through the use of a mixed-methods comparative case study of two primary schools in Malta. Following a Mixed-Methods Sequential Explanatory Design questionnaires were distributed to heads and teachers. This was followed by a qualitative phase comprising interviews with heads of school and a focus group with teachers from each school. Eventually comparative analysis was conducted between heads and teachers in the same school and between schools. This analysis was conducted in the light of official documents such as the National Curriculum Framework (MEDE, 2012), the Malta Education Strategy 2014-2024 (MEDE, 2014) and the Post of Head of School (MEDE, 2017) to identify the links that exist between the results and the content of these documents. During and following data collection, thematic analysis was conducted. This analysis yielded a number of themes, which in light of the insights gained in the literature review were categorized under transformational, transactional, passive-avoidant and instructional leadership. The results indicated that the school with the highest teacher efficacy is the one led by a head of school, who used an integrated approach to leadership, that is, using traits found in both instructional and transformational leadership. This mixed leadership style is promoted internationally by Marks and Printy (2003), Day & Sammons (2013) and locally by (Bezzina, 2008) the NCF (MEDE, 2012) and the Post of Head of School (MEDE, 2017). Furthermore, the research also concluded that leaders should also take into consideration the context of the school, conceptualised under the Situational Leadership Theory, according to which the leader uses a combination of leadership styles depending on the situation at hand in order to achieve the best results (Blase & Blase, 1999).