Measuring the Instructional Leadership Competence of School Principals

The bulk of research on school leadership has examined leadership roles and functions, paying only limited attention to expertise (Knapp et.al.,2003;  Leithwood et al. 2004).  However, leadership is contingent on expertise (Barnard, 1938).   Principals are more likely to improve student achievement if they have the knowledge and expertise to engage in key leadership functions and roles related to improving student achievement.  Practitioners use their knowledge more or less effectively to change, improve or respond to their work environments (Anderson, Reder and Simon, 1997; Borko & Livingston, 1989; Lampert & Ball, 1998).    Knowledge and expertise are also key mediating factors between professional development and principals’ practice; what practitioners learn from professional development depends in part on what they already know – their prior knowledge.   However, it is difficult to evaluate the impact of professional development programs without robust measures of leadership knowledge, competence and expertise.  We use the term expertise in this paper acknowledging that the term covers a broad terrain including knowledge, problem solving, and competencies writ larger.  One goal of our work (not this paper) is to begin to explore relations between different domains that fall under the rubric of expertise such as knowledge and problem solving.

997_aera2006instructionalleadershipandprincipals.pdf