Exploring effects of principals' instructional leadership roles on school improvement program in secondary schools in Ethiopia

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to explore principals’ instructional leadership role and its effect on school improvement programs in government secondary schools of Hadiya and Halaba Zones in South Nations Nationalities and Peoples’ Region (SNNPR) in Ethiopia. The study was descriptive and made use of a convergent (concurrent) mixed methods design as an approach for the study. It was conducted in a sample of seven secondary schools with grades 9 to 12 that were selected with the help of a simple random sampling technique. The participants of the study were 37 school leaders (principals, vice-principals, and supervisors), 260 teachers, nine Parent Teacher Student Association (PTSA) members, six students’ council members, and three school improvement programs (SIP) coordinators from the sample schools of the study Zones. Instruments such as questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, observation, and document analysis were employed to collect the data. As data analysis tools, inferential statistics such as Pearson coefficient of correlation, ANOVA, and T-test; and descriptive statistics as frequency counts, percentage distribution, mean, and standard deviation were used to analyze the quantitative data of the research. Qualitative data were being transcribed, coded, categorized into themes, and analyzed thematically simultaneously with the corresponding quantitative data by comparing responses concerning the research questions. The findings of the study revealed that the major dimensions of instructional leadership and its constituents are the building blocks that constitute the instructional leadership roles of principals in the secondary schools of Ethiopia. The findings of the study further revealed that principals, as instructional leaders, demonstrated better performance in executing instructional leadership roles in the sample secondary schools. It was also revealed that principals were very strong in setting clear goals and in developing a clear vision and defining mission and values to establish a common sense of direction and purpose for the major stakeholders of the school. The findings of the study also shown the very positive perception awarded towards the instructional leadership roles of principals by the major stakeholders of school (principals, vice-principals, teachers, supervisors, SIP coordinators, PTSA members, and learners) for school effectiveness and improvement. Moreover, from the findings, it has been concluded that instructional leadership dimensions and school improvement program/SIP domains were strongly correlated. They were positively correlated. The findings of the study also revealed various challenges of schools as barriers to principals’ instructional leadership roles execution in the schools. These challenges of the schools relate to principals, teachers, learners, learners’ parents, community participation, administration and governance-related challenges, and resource-related challenges. Finally, creating various opportunities for professional development and mechanisms for recognition of principals; having experience sharing educational visits and creating forums for the sharing of best experiences; applying distributed leadership approach and exercising collegial authority in the school, increasing the stability of tenure of principals in the school; appropriate time management on the part of school leaders and/or principals in the school, establishing and organizing instructional supervision team at different tiers of the education system of Ethiopia and establishing and strengthening the curriculum committee in the school and effectively applying instructional leadership approach and implementing school improvement program (SIP) in the school were indicated as strategies to enhance principals’ instructional leadership roles execution and to increase the effectiveness and improvement of the schools.