Direction-setting school leadership practices: a meta-analytical review of evidence about their influence

Abstract

This study reviews evidence about the overall influence of direction-setting leadership practices (DSLPs), 1 of 4 major categories of practices included in a widely known conception of effective leadership (e.g., Leithwood & Louis, 2011) and a focus of many other such conceptions, as well. This study also inquires about how direction-setting practices influence distal organizational outcomes, including student achievement, conceiving of such influence as traveling along (or influencing variables on) 4 “paths”. Standard meta-analysis, narrative review, and effect size summation and averaging were applied on 110 studies involved in this review. The findings of this study, as one in a related series of investigations, inform the further development of a model of successful school leadership practices.

Keywords:

• successful school leadership
• direction setting
• four-path model
• student achievement

Acknowledgements

There are no either personal or institutional conflicts of interest associated with this research. This research is not funded by any agency.

Notes

1. The other categories are Developing People, Redesigning the Organization, and Improving the Instructional Program.

2. The Family Path was dropped from the review because there were insufficient data in the literature selected for this review to allow for the conduct of the meta-analyses of the impacts of DSLP on the variables populating this path and the impacts of these variables on student learning.

3. The average correlation coefficient reported denoting the association between SES and student learning is about .30 based on Hattie’s (2009) meta-analysis. Thus, we identify the producers of student learning that are related to student learning outcomes with a correlation r larger than .30.

4. We estimate the “extent” by averaging effect sizes (i.e., in most cases, the correlational coefficients reported by the studies). If the effect sizes reported are in different nature, we convert them into correlational coefficients when possible.

5. Goddard et al. (2001) found that even when socioeconomic status and other student demographics factors (prior achievement, school SES, race, and gender) were adjusted for, trust remained a significant and positive predictor of student achievement. The model including trust explained 81% of the variation between schools for both math and reading achievement (Goddard et al., 2001). The amount of trust teachers had in students and in parents outweighed the effects of poverty, because school SES is not a significant predictor of differences between schools in student achievement when the effect of trust is considered.

6. These six journals are: Educational Administration Quarterly, Journal of School Leadership; Journal of Educational Administration, Leadership & Policy in Schools, International Journal of Leadership in Education, and International Studies in Educational Administration.

7. Focused Instruction in their study means the instruction that combines elements of teacher-directed and constructivist approaches.

8. Issues addressed in the notion of knowledge use were change in practice, new understandings to make change occur, commitment to school, and sources of knowledge (Leithwood, 1994, as cited in Stasny, 1996).

9. Improved instruction measures the compatibility of teachers’ instructional practices with school improvement plans, their classroom instructional practices, teaching strategies, instruction planning, students’ assessment, and improved curriculum (Johnson, 2007; Nader, 1997).

10. Discretionary means that the behavior is not an enforceable requirement of the role or the job description, that is, the clearly specifiable terms of the person’s employment contract with the organization; the behaviour is rather a matter of personal choice (Organ, 1988).

11. They use academic press and academic emphasis interchangeably.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jingping Sun

Jing-Ping Sun is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Leadership, Policy and Technology Studies at the College of Education, University of Alabama. She obtained her PhD at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. Her research is about educational leadership, policy evaluation and improvement, data-based decision making, and research synthesis. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Alabama, she worked at the Ontario Ministry of Education in Canada. Her policy experience at the provincial level was mainly about large-scale development of school and district leaders.

Kenneth Leithwood

Kenneth Leithwood is an emeritus Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. His research is about leadership expertise, educational change, and the assessment of educational policy effects.