Instructional Leadership: A Quick Review

Instructional leadership, as Debevoise (1984) defined, encompasses those actions that a principal takes, or delegates to others, to promote growth in student learning. This has been a dynamic and ever-developing area in the field of education, with many trends and issues emerging through time. In this review, the researcher chose the following three journal articles on Instructional Leadership dealing with three different aspects in the academe, namely: Teachers’ Organizational Commitment, Management of the Instructional Program, as well as Coaching Protocols for Instructional Leadership. The first article, entitled “Relationship between the Instructional Leadership Behaviors of High School Principals and Teachers’ Organizational Commitment” by Erdogan and Sarikaya (2016) explores the relationship between the instructional leadership behaviors of high school principals and teachers’ perceptions of organizational commitment and identifies the extent to which instructional leadership behaviors predict organizational commitment. The second, entitled “Instructional Leadership: The Role of Heads of Schools in Managing the Instructional Programme” by Manaseh (2016) investigates the instructional leadership practices engaged in by heads of secondary schools to enhance classroom instruction and students learning, particularly the way they manage the school instructional program. The last one, entitled “Double-loop Learning: a Coaching Protocol for Enhancing Principal Instructional Leadership” by Houchens et. al (2012) examines the extent to which a coaching protocol based on theories of practiced enhanced principals’ self-perceived capacity for reflection and effective instructional leadership.

In the first article, it is revealed that the principals’ most displayed instructional leadership behaviors involve the dimension of setting and sharing of school goals while the least displayed involve the dimension of supporting and developing teachers. The second article on the other hand confirms that without an effective management of the instructional program in favor of promoting teachers’ classroom instruction and students’ learning, efforts to that effect are doomed to fail. The third article suggests that principals value the structure, feedback and reflective dimensions of the principal coaching protocol and found that their confidence level about certain instructional leadership problems were greatly enhanced.

The researcher in reading these articles highly believes that these three areas in relation to instructional leadership are pressing realities both in the local/national and international education sectors. Indeed, teachers’ commitment are greatly influenced by the instructional leadership of school heads. Such has an effect on the teachers’ instruction, which leads to students’ learning and achievement being affected as well. True enough, because of these findings, there is a need for principals to have consistent monitoring, coaching and giving of feedback on their performance as the instructional leaders of the school. This actually gives holistic assessment and evaluation not just to school heads, but also to schools themselves, which may result in the enhancement of schools’ system and practices.

References: DeBevoise, W. (1984) Synthesis of Research on the Principal As Instructional Leader.
Houchens, G.W., Hurt, J., Stobaugh, R., & Keedy, J.L. (2012). Double­loop Learning: A Coaching Protocol for Enhancing Principal Instructional Leadership. Qualitative Research in Education, 1(2), 135­178.
Manaseh, A.M. (2016). Instructional leadership: The role of heads of schools in managing the instructional programme. International Journal of Educational Leadership and Management, 4(1), 30-47.
Sarikaya, N., & Erdogan, C. (2016). Relationship between the Instructional Leadership Behaviors of High School Principals and Teachers’ Organizational Commitment. Journal of Education and Practice, 7(3), 72-82.