Assessing International Teacher and Principal Perceptions of Instructional Leadership: A Multilevel Factor Analysis of TALIS 2008

ABSTRACT

While research to date on school leadership has identified instructional leadership as an effective means to improve academic achievement, little is known about how teachers and principals view instructional leadership both individually and collectively. We analyzed the OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) of 2008 of 59,152 teachers in 3,788 schools across 20 countries using multilevel factor analysis. Our findings suggest that while principals perceive instructional leadership in schools to be multiple factors of setting goals, professional development, and supervision of instruction, teachers perceive it to be a single dimension, which has a weak relationship to principal perception.