Examining the effect of principal turnover on teaching quality: a study on organizational change with repeated classroom observations

ABSTRACT

There is a large base of empirical evidence that points to the importance of school leadership with regard to functional schools and student achievement. Based on this importance, a change of principal can be a critical event for a school. This study seeks to answer the question if principal turnover is associated with a change in a school’s teaching quality and the role of moderators and interactions in this regard. Based upon data from n = 10,036 high-stakes classroom observations gathered cross-sectionally within n = 101 primary schools at 2 time points, the results show that teaching quality seems to be buffered from direct effects of principal turnover to some extent. However, further analyses demonstrate that the change in principal leadership might have negative effects on teaching quality in low-socioeconomic-status schools when new principals try to apply strong instructional leadership.

KEYWORDS:

• Classroom observations
• instructional leadership
• quality of instruction
• organizational change
• turnover

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Marcus Pietsch is visiting professor for empirical research in primary education at the Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany. His research interests include school effectiveness and improvement, evaluation and accountability in education, as well as effectiveness of educational reforms and programmes with a strong focus on leadership, teaching, learning, and student achievement.

Pierre Tulowitzki is a junior professor and the head of the Department of International Educational Leadership and Management (IELM) at the Ludwigsburg University of Education (LUE) in Germany. He is the German head of the “International Education Management” Master’s programme (www.inema-master.com). His research interests include educational leadership, school improvement, networks and ICT in education, and educational change. He is a member of the Board of the International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement (ICSEI).

Johannes Hartig is professor of educational measurement and head of the unit Educational Measurement in the Department of Educational Quality and Evaluation at the DIPF | Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education in Frankfurt, Germany. His research interests focus on psychometric models in competence assessments, including models for measuring effects of learning opportunities.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.