The Effective Principal Leadership Factors in Chinese Context1
Abstract: This research has focused on rating the effective principal leadership factors or attributes in
mainland China. It was a part of an international cooperative research project as well as a part of a China
national project on educational science (BDA120028). The questionnaires were designed by the project
coordinative team of University of Malaya. They consisted of eight factors and forty indicators. One
hundred school teachers from ten schools in Liaoning Province of mainland China have participated in this
project. The research approaches such as factor analysis, T-test and One-way ANOVA were used to analyze
the collected data. Finally, the effective school principal leadership factors in Chinese context were
summarized.
Keywords: Principal leadership, Effective leadership factors, Leadership in context
1. The Importance of Effective School Principal Leadership
Effective school principal leadership is closely linked to school effectiveness and school improvement.
Therefore, to find out what are the effective factors of the school principal leadership has a significant
meaning for the research of school leadership (SL), school effectiveness (SE) and school improvement (SI).
The pivotal role of the school principal as an effective factor in schools has been corroborated by findings
of SE research over the last three decades. Extensive empirical efforts of the quantitatively oriented school
effectiveness research (SER) have shown that the leadership is a central factor for the quality of a school
(Edmonds, 1979; Rutter et al., 1979; Mortimore et al., 1988; Levine & Lezotte, 1990; Teddlie & Stringfield,
1993; Creemers, 1994; Sammons et al., 1995; Huber, 2004). Concerning how school leadership contributes
to SE, SI and student learning, Hallinger (2011, 2010, 2003), Henk and Hallinger (2009, 2010) have
published a series of articles on this respect. Research findings from Hopkins (2001), West, et al. (2000)
also revealed that school leadership has a powerful impact on assuring school development and student
learning. In Europe, Creemers (1998, 2001) conducted a large European Community (EC) research project
entitled Effective School Improvement (ESI) with eight EC participating countries. The ESI project
revealed that school leadership could potentially or intermediately impact students’ learning, their outcomes
and intermediate outcomes as well as school improvement. Within this EC project, the English team, headed
by Stoll and Fecility (2001), contributed ten ESI case studies which strongly argued that school leadership
was one of the most significant factors for ESI. Their case studies showed that under the same context,
same teaching staff and same students, the schools often rose or started their improvement journey with the
coming of new principals who served as the strongest internal change agent (Sun, 2002, 2007). Based on
the findings of an international comparison in 15 countries, Huber (2004) strongly argues that in most of
the lists of key factors that SER has compled, leadership plays a very important part. Indeed the
effectiveness lobby’s original message that “schools matter, schools do make a difference” has continued
almost seamlessly into a sub-text that “school leaders matter, school leaders make a difference!” The school
leader is most often cited as the key figure in the individual school’s development, either blocking or
promoting change, acting as the internal change agent, overseeing the processes of growth and renewal. In
Asia, Cheng’s research (1994) has obtained the same findings. He pointed out that for education change
and effectiveness, the role of principal was often crucial to success. In China, school principals are also
responsible for creating a positive shared attitudes, beliefs, and values, which serves as unwritten school
rules to shape the daily functions and interactions of all the school members willingly (Chu and Cravens,
2010; Sun, 2003).
2. School Leadership Models and Effective Factors
Beside the importance of school leadership for SE and SI, different leadership models emerged since 1960s.
According to Hallinger (2011), Bridges’ assertions about instructional leadership in 1967 continued to ring
true 15 years later at the dawn of the effective schools era. During subsequent decades researchers took up
1
本文属于中国国家社科基金“十二五”规划2012年度教育学国家课题 (BDA120028)的部分研究成果。
the challenge of studying not only instructional leadership (Hallinger, 2010, Leitner, 1994), but also
competing models such as transformational leadership (change-oriented), distributed leadership, shared
leadership, etc. In recent years, empirical results across a large number of studies have begun to show fairly
consistent patterns of impact, and today, the term “leadership for learning” (LFL) has come to subsume
features of instructional leadership, transformational leadership, and shared leadership (Hallinger, 2011,
2003; MacBeath and Cheng, 2008). Concerning the effective factors within school leadership, Edmonds
(1979) was the first to summarize “purposeful educational leadership” as one of the five effective factors
in his famous “Five–Factor Model” in SE paradigm. Hallinger and Murphy (1985) hypothesized and
suggested three domains of instructional leadership which could also be regarded as three effective
leadership factors: defining the school mission, creating a positive learning climate, and managing the
school's instructional program. Twenty-six years later, Hallinger (2011) further declared that “LFL”
suggested broader conceptualizations that incorporated both a wider range of leadership sources as well as
additional foci for action. In his new LFL model, there are four subsumed factors: values leadership,
leadership focus, context for leadership, and sources of leadership. In the 1st factor, value leadership
highlights the role of values in shaping leadership, according to him (2011), values define both the ends
towards which leaders aspire as well as the desirable means by which they will work to achieve them.
Values both shape the thinking and actions of leaders and represent a potentially useful tool for working
with and strengthening the school’s learning culture. In the values leadership, there are many features and
indicators, such as virtue, community service, equity in learning, self-discipline, integrity, fairness, caring,
mutual respect, risk taking, inter-dependence, problem finding and problem-solving, etc. In “leadership
focus”, Hallinger highlighted three main avenues or paths through which leadership is linked to learning:
vision and goals; academic structures and processes; and people. Context for leadership means that
leadership is enacted in a context such as prior achievement, the social-economic status of the students,
organizational conditions, etc. His LFL model has been clinched and widely accepted. Since we just started
a research in mainland China to assess his LFL model and its factors. The results are not available at this
moment. What we have finished is an international cooperative research project with three participating
countries: China, Malaysia and India. Eight factors with forty indicators, based on the former project
findings of Sharma (2010) in Malaysia, were used as the main survey instrument in this research project.
These eight factors were: self management, time management, influence, comfort, communication skills,
decision making, commitment and empathy.
(Above is only a part of the whole paper, below are some of the Tables or Figures
in the paper)
Table 5. The Ratings on the ESPL Factors (Tenure Based, One Way ANOVA Results)
ESPL Factors
1-10 years
11-20 years
21 years &
Variance
above
M
SD
M
SD
M
SD
F
p
Self management
4.65 0.49
4.7
0.54
4.66
0.53
2.33
0.27
0
Time management
4.57 0.53 4.62 0.56
4.55
0.61
2.41
0.16
Influence
4.59 0.64 4.56 0.71
4.55
0.66
2.21
0.32
Comfort
4.35 0.49 4.39 0.46
4.37
0.43
2.36
0.21
Decision making
4.34 0.54 4.32 0.53
4.33
0.49
2.18
0.13
Commitment
4.29 0.45 4.33 0.47
4.34
0.48
2.22
0.10
Communication
4.31 0.69 4.27 0.72
4.29
0.67
2.24
0.11
skills
Empathy
4.24 0.51 4.23 0.54
4.31
0.53
2.32
0.15
The questionnaires were piloted, the collected quantitative data were computed and analyzed by SPSS13.
The feedback data were analyzed by KMO and Bartlett's Test. Based on the results of the KMO and
Bartlett’s test (Table 7), the value of Bartlett’ Test significance level was p<0.001. Therefore, it was suitable
to conduct the Factor Analysis.
Table 6: Reliability Analysis
Cronbach's Alpha
0.931
N of Items
40
Table 7: KMO and Bartlett's Test
KMO and Bartlett's Test
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling
Adequacy
Bartlett's Test of Sphericity Approx. Chi-Square
df
Sig.
0.738
518.418
153
.000
Table 8：The 16 Extracted ESPL Indicators and Their Loadings
ESPL Factors
Indicators (Variables)
Factor 1:
Self management
Factor 2:
Time management
Factor 3:
Influence
Factor 4:
Comfort
Factor 5:
Decision making
Factor 6:
Commitment
Factor 7:
Communication
skills
Factor 8:
Empathy
My principal has strong sense of right and wrong and he
behaves accordingly
When my principal decides to do something, he carries it and
does it
My principal plans and complete work on schedule
My principal organizes his responsibilities into an efficient
personal time schedule.
My principal is a convincing and believable person
My principal makes a strong and positive impact on us
My principal is comfortable in meeting us and parents
My principal is comfortable with all kinds of people
My principal makes a decision and act rather than worrying
the alternatives and becoming tense
My principal follows established process that guides him in
making important decisions
Even my principal encounters personal difficulties, he
completes the assignments and obligations
When working at a task, my principal evaluate the progress
periodically and obtain concrete feedback from all of us
My principal puts other on ease in tense situations
My principal is persuasive without taking advantages of others
When somebody is angry on my principal, he behaves by
asking for a further explanation of the anger and dealing with
the feelings in a straight forward manner
My principal understands and is patient with someone who is
experiencing a lot of emotions.
Loadings
0.787
0.694
0.804
0.743
0.789
0.682
0.790
0.776
0.798
0.619
0.763
0.691
0.832
0.641
0.653
0.607