Running Head: Changing Principals’ Leadership through Feedback and Coaching
Changing Principals’ Leadership through
Feedback and Coaching
Corresponding Author:
Peter T. Goff
University of Wisconsin-Madison
pgoff@wisc.edu
Contributing Authors:
Se Woong Lee
University of Wisconsin-Madison
James Guthrie, Ellen Goldring, & Leonard Bickman
Vanderbilt University
Abstract
In this study we used a multiyear, Institute of Education Sciences (IES)-funded
randomized experiment to investigate the impact of feedback and coaching
intervention on principals’ leadership behavior. In our sample of 52 elementary and
middle schools, half of the principals received feedback only, while half received both
feedback and coaching. We analyzed changes in teachers’ perceptions of principals’
actions as well as principals’ perceptions of their own actions. The findings show that
principals who receive coaching are more likely to integrate teacher feedback into
their leadership practices. However, we were unable to find evidence of principals
influencing teachers’ instruction development. Our study concludes with a discussion
of the policy implications of how coaching and feedback may be coupled with
disseminated existing initiatives to achieve sustained school improvement.
DRAFT COPY ONLY
PLEASE DO NOT CITE WITHOUT PERMISSION
COMMENTS AND FEEDBACK ARE WELCOME
This paper is supported by grant R305A070298 to Leonard Bickman from the U.S.
Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences. All opinions expressed in
this paper represent those of the authors and not necessarily the institutions with
which they are affiliated or the U.S. Department of Education.
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Running Head: Changing Principals’ Leadership through Feedback and Coaching
Introduction
According to U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, “There’s no such thing
as a high-performing school without a great principal . . . .You simply can’t overstate
their importance in driving student achievement, in attracting and retaining great
talent to the school” (Connelly, 2010, p. 35). As school districts across the United
States seek to improve the performance of their schools, high quality principals are
becoming increasingly essential. When it comes to principals, the real question is not
the quantity, but the quality of principals (U.S. Department of Education 2004).
This is not to imply that there is a shortage of individuals who have administrative
certification, but rather there is a perceived lack of well-qualified leaders who are
equipped with knowledge and skills to improve student performance (DarlingHammond, Meyerson, LaPointe, & Orr, 2009). There are two mechanisms to
improving the quality of school leaders: (a) improve the quality of individuals
applying for administrative positions and (b) develop the capacity of existing
principals. This paper focuses on the later option.
In order to prepare principals with the ability to carry on their complex roles,
principals need a valid and reliable system of feedback from which principals could
understand and enhance their leadership (Goldring et al., 2009). However, not many
principals find this evaluation process helpful or inspiring, primarily because few
principals receive performance feedback beyond ritualistic and perfunctory evaluation
(Thomas, Holdaway, & Ward, 2000, Reeves, 2004). Even when there is a meaningful
feedback, however, principals experience difficulty understanding the results and
integrating them into their practice (Martin, 2010). Furthermore, many people
strengthen their existing self-concept by denying or rationalizing negative feedback
(Kombarakaran et al., 2008; Thach, 2002; Smither et al., 2005; Bowles et al., 2007).
In the private sector, coaching has been given to leaders in order to facilitate
2
Running Head: Changing Principals’ Leadership through Feedback and Coaching
better understanding of feedback. Coaches were able to help leaders to understand
negative feedback and give an advice on how to act based on feedback. Successful
coaching models in the private sector offer hope for similar results in educational
settings (Kombarakaran et al., 2008; Thach, 2002; Smither et al., 2003; Bowles et al.,
2007). Showers & Joyce (1995) found that without coaching only 5 to 15 percent of
learning has been transferred into staff development programs. Also, DarlingHammond (2010), found that principals’ most preferred form of professional
development was coaching, even though actual experience of this was rare. Although
surprisingly little empirical support for the efficacy of coaching exists, many
practitioners and scholars recommend coaching as a viable tool for improving
principals’ leadership (Wise & Jocobo, 2010).
This study uses a multiyear, IES-funded randomized experiment to investigate
the impact of a feedback and coaching intervention on urban principals’ leadership
behavior. This study is based on a theoretical framework suggesting that behavior is
altered or regulated when feedback is given with coaching. For this study, we
developed and implemented a new approach to principal development that entails
both feedback to principals from their teachers and coaching sessions with former
administrators specifically trained in developing instructional leadership.
Evidence of Leadership and Evaluation
There is no doubt that the principal plays an important role in enhancing student
achievement (Goldring & Rallis, 2000; Spillane, 2006). Waters, Marzano & McNulty
(2003) have suggested that school leadership is the second most important school
factor that impacts student learning, after classroom instruction. Moreover, the impact
of principal leadership is even greater in low-performing schools (Branch, Hanushek,
& Rivkin, 2009). Despite increasing attention to improving principal leadership,
3
Running Head: Changing Principals’ Leadership through Feedback and Coaching
school districts often use inaccurate and inconsistent measures for principal
evaluation (Goldring et al., 2009). Furthermore, the complexity of the role of
principals, different political contexts in each state, and debates regarding “What” and
“How” to evaluate leadership have created a climate in which it is very difficult to
research principal evaluation (Glasman & Heck, 1992; Marcoulides, Larsen, & Heck,
1995; Oyinlade, 2006). Complexities arising from the political and policy context are
compounded by the multifaceted nature of school leadership, which resists a simple,
uni-dimensional outcome-based measure of effectiveness.
To ensure highly effective leaders in every school, many researchers argue that
well structured performance assessment for principals can reinforce and strengthen
leadership practices (Goldring et al., 2009; Halverson, Kelley, & Kimball, 2004;
Kimball, Milanowski, & McKinney, 2007). However, Kempher and Cooper (2002)
note that because most principal evaluation policies are locally developed, there is
rarely coherence among states policies. Also, Reeves (2009) characterizes most
leadership assessments as “infrequent, late, unhelpful, and largely a source of
administrative bother” (p.x). To overcome these problems and to accommodate the
complex nature of principal leadership, scholars emphasize the importance of linking
principal evaluation to a set of clear standards for performance that can be easily
understood by principals (Goldring et al., 2009; Derrington and Sanders, 2011).
Many states have tried to integrate set clear standards into pre-service
programs, in-service training, and evaluation by adopting one or more sets of national
professional practice standards such as those from the Interstate School Leadership
Licensure Consortium (ISLLC), National Board for Professional Teaching Standards
(NBPTS), and National Association of Elementary School Principals. Among those
national standards, the ISLLC has been adopted by more than 40 states for
4
Running Head: Changing Principals’ Leadership through Feedback and Coaching
performance evaluation and preparation purposes (Anthes, 2005; Hale & Moorman,
2003). The ISLLC was developed by the Council of Chief State School Officers
(CCSSO) in order to create a common language and to help strengthen school
leadership (CCSSO, 2008).
One of the assessments that successfully integrate these standards to assess
principals’ leadership is the Vanderbilt Assessment of Leadership in Education (VALED). VAL-ED is a multi-component assessment system that measures critical
leadership behavior, performance feedback, and personal decision-making (Vanderbilt
University, 2008). Also, VAL-ED aligns their core components using the ISLLC
standards, which allow them to produce a quantitative diagnostic profile that is linked
to the ISLLC standards (Vanderbilt University, 2008). To be specific, it assesses the
intersection of what principals must accomplish to improve academic and social
learning for all students (the core components), and how they create those core
components (the key processes) (Vanderbilt University, 2008).
Although principal evaluation holds great promise, only 25 percent of
principals have reported that their district’s principal evaluation system was aligned
with professional standards (Kimbell et al., 2007). In addition, Goldring et al., (2009)
found that nearly 50 percent of district evaluation protocols were not directly aligned
with professional standards. Considering the potential impact of the principal,
providing valuable information that can be used to improve leadership purposes is a
critical component of school reform (Reeves, 2005).
Feedback
A key element of evaluation for behavioral change is meaningful feedback that
leaders perceive to be both valid and reliable (Portin, 2009). Over several decades,
5
Running Head: Changing Principals’ Leadership through Feedback and Coaching
feedback has been articulated in many different ways. Hattie & Timperley ( 2007,
p.102) define feedback as “information provided by an agent (e.g. teacher, peer,
book, parent, self, o r experience) regarding aspects of one's performance or
understanding ... feedback is thus a consequence of performance.” Robertson (2008)
noted that leaders rarely, if ever, have to confront with their own leadership, and
because of that they have no urgent need or motivation to change their practice. Thus,
providing feedback to leaders not only promotes understanding of their own
leadership but also can eventually lead to changed leadership.
Among various feedback approaches, multi-source feedback holds
prominence in the private sector. Multi-source feedback is composed of a leader’s
self-assessment as well as assessments from subordinates, peers, and/or superiors
(Moore, 2009). The integration of subordinate feedback in the multi-source process
facilitates communication (Tornow & London, 1998) and serves as a valid source of
information (Smither et al., 2005). Furthermore, by using subordinate feedback,
leaders can acknowledge one’s practice (e.g., Hesketh et al., 2005) and improve
overall performance (Kluger & DeNisi, 1996; Walker & Smither, 1999).
While the majority of studies focusing on feedback between employees and
employers are in business settings, several studies have dealt with the use of feedback
to support principals in education. Through a meta-analysis Hattie (1999) found that
feedback (from teachers to leaders, from leaders to teachers, or from students to
teachers) was one of the top five factors influencing student achievement. Also, Daw
and Gage (1967) found that principals who received feedback from teachers try to
align their behavior with teachers’ perception. Yet among the limited research that has
focused on feedback in the education field, most focuses on the teacher-student
feedback loop, not teacher feedback as a means to enhance principals’ leadership.
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Running Head: Changing Principals’ Leadership through Feedback and Coaching
This is mainly because, in practice, principals rarely receive systematic feedback
regarding their performance and, therefore, remain blind about their practice (Martin,
2010). Considering that principals not only overcome obstacles (Darling-Hammond,
1997; Schmoker, 2006), but also drive school improvement, it is crucial to provide
systematic and valid feedback to principals (Marks & Printy, 2003).
After years of research, scholars have found that not all forms of feedback are
equal. In many cases, feedback is positive, and it tends to motivate the recipient
(Jaworski & Kohli, 1991). However, there is also negative feedback. Negative
feedback is difficult to handle and people tend to reject or disagree with it (Larson,
1984; Veiga, 1988). Furthermore, scholars have pointed out that people tend to
“accept feedback from others that is consistent with the way we see ourselves and to
reject feedback that is inconsistent with the way we see ourselves” (Goldsmith, 2004,
p.7).
Even though feedback is essential in improving leadership, it is not sufficient
to change one’s behavior (Cannon & Witherspoon, 2005). Leaders need adequate
support in order to interpret feedback correctly and change their behavior (Alicke &
Sedikides, 2009).
Coaching
Coaching can help leaders reflect adequately on their particular experience,
which many leaders rarely find easy (Bloom, 2004). Peterson and Hicks (1995)
define coaching as a “process of equipping people with the tools, knowledge, and
opportunities they need to develop themselves and become more effective” (as
cited by Feldman & Lankau, 2005, p. 841). Also, Gray (2006) noted that “[c]oaching
is now emerging as one of the most significant approaches to the professional
7
Running Head: Changing Principals’ Leadership through Feedback and Coaching
development of senior management and executives” (p. 475). In 2001, Manchester,
Inc, found that coaching had significant impact and showed a 529% return on
investment and a 788% overall return when factoring employee retention. The results
of the executive coaching program delivered an overall, estimated return of 5.7 times
the initial investment (McGovern, Lindemann, & Vergara, 2001). That is in part why
at least 59 percent of major companies currently offer coaching (London, 2002) and
70 percent of organizations prefer coaching as a major leadership development
(Zenger and Stinnett, 2006).
Compared to consulting, coaching has emerged fairly recently in leadership
development (Schein, 2009). However, unlike consulting, coaching facilitates the
client’s active engagement, learning, and internal commitment to a course of action
(Bacon and Spear, 2003). A coach is a highly skilled professional who help leaders to
be aware of the problem or situation and help leaders to set goals to resolve the
problem. There is no rule of thumb on how coaches engage but there are steps and
phases coaches follow. The basic phases in a coaching engagement are: 1)
Groundwork, which involves building relationships base on trust; 2) Assessment and
Feedback, which involves helping principals to understand feedback and explore its
meaning; 3) Goal-setting, which involves assisting principals to select a meaningful
target for change; 4) Action planning, in which, designing a specific path or set of
concrete steps that, if followed, will lead to achievement of the goal; and 5) Ongoing
assessment and support, which involves measuring progress over time, addressing
any challenges that emerge, providing encouragement and support to build
motivation, and keeping the principal on track (Madeline & Mark, 2009). The key
goals of these steps are to monitor how progress is being made and maintained and to
sustain change, building on positive changes over time in a process of continual
8
Running Head: Changing Principals’ Leadership through Feedback and Coaching
improvement.
Coaching requires directed focus and has shown more promising effects when
coupled with feedback. Leaders who worked with coaches following feedback
improved more than those who did not work with coaches (Smither, London, Flautt,
and Vargas, 2006). Above all, coaching helps individuals to deal with negative
feedback more constructively (Brett and Atwater, 2001). This is why many companies
have begun to combine feedback with coaching and it has become one of the fastest
growing leadership development strategies in private sector (American Management
Association, 2008; Luthans & Peterson, 2004). Thach (2002) found that this
combination of feedback and coaching increased leadership effectiveness by up to 60
percent.
This coaching with feedback model is becoming a common strategy available
to leaders in the private sector. Many scholars in education believes that coaching can
also help school leaders to enhance their leadership in order to improve schools and
elevate districts to higher levels of achievement (Thach, 2002). In the past several
years, there has been a growing interest in principal coaching as a significant
component of principal professional development (Hobson, 2003, Karla, 2006).
Unlike other professional development programs, coaching can respond to the needs
of the principal directly and enhance their ability to solve the complex problems
they face every day (Neufeld and Roper, 2003). However, even with increased
interest in principal coaching there is little empirical evidence to support the use of
leadership coaching in school settings. Thus, Grant (2001) concluded that more
research is needed to demonstrate the effectiveness of leadership coaching. One
example of this need is that the dose of coaching can impact the effectiveness
(Reeves, 2009). Wise (2008) found that typically principals receive coaching on
9
Running Head: Changing Principals’ Leadership through Feedback and Coaching
average two –four hours a month, which is less than 2% of the average principal’s
time at work. In order for coaching to be a catalyst of change (Vygotsky, 1978),
sufficient time with coaches has to be guaranteed (Wise & Javobo, 2010).
Many pilot initiatives regarding coaching have been executed throughout the
country. However, there has not been solid and rigorous research to identify the
effectiveness and efficacy of coaching. In this paper, we use a randomized
experiment to explore changes in teachers’ perceptions of principals’ actions as well
as principals’ perceptions of their own actions as a result of feedback and coaching.
The central question addressed by this study is: Does coaching, together with
feedback from teachers, change principals’ leadership practices relative to those who
only receive feedback?
Method
This study uses a multiyear (2008 to 2010) IES-funded randomized experiment to
investigate the impact of feedback and coaching intervention on urban principals’
leadership behavior. We gave principals in the treatment group feedback with
coaching but only gave feedback to control group principal.
Description (Participants)
The experiment was implemented in a large urban school district in the
Southeastern United States. We excluded high schools as well as schools for specific
student populations (e.g., alternative schools, special education) due to the unique
nature of leadership in these contexts. Out of the 108 regular elementary or middle
10
Running Head: Changing Principals’ Leadership through Feedback and Coaching
schools that were eligible to participate, the 76 that participated were randomly
assigned to the treatment and control groups. Of the 76 schools, 24 schools were
dropped in the second year due to principals who retired, changed schools, or declined
to participate further in the project for personal reasons1.
We draw from data collected during the second year of the project in which a
treatment group of twenty-six principals received both coaching and feedback while
the twenty-six principals in the control group received only teacher feedback. It is in
this second year of the study that a set of action items (described in the following
section) was added to the survey instrument.
In our sample principals had been leaders at their current schools an average
of 2.4 years and had been principals in the same school district an average of 5.6
years. The average percentage of students in the free and reduced price lunch program
was 68%. Furthermore, 88% and 85% of students were proficient or advanced on
their standardized test in reading and math, respectively.
To identify measures of leadership practice reported by teachers and principals
we used multilevel exploratory factor analysis for binary data. Also, to test the
significance of treatment on measures identified through factor analysis, we used OLS
estimation with cluster-adjusted standard errors. Both of these methods are elaborated
upon in the following sections.
Feedback
For this study, the project team developed and implemented a new approach to
principal development that entails feedback to principals from their teachers. Data for
1
Notable attrition problem between years one and two will be discussed in the Analysis
section.
11
Running Head: Changing Principals’ Leadership through Feedback and Coaching
the feedback were collected through surveys taken in the fall, winter, and spring of
the academic year. In these surveys teachers reported principals’ leadership across a
number of measures, including a modified 36-item learning-centered leadership scale
(adapted from the VAL-ED) and the effective leadership action items, the dependent
variable of this study. Principals, in turn, completed parallel surveys reporting their
own leadership practices. The surveys were compiled into feedback reports and sent
to principals and their coaches. These action items were anchored by and aligned with
the ISLLC standards and VAL-ED assessments. Also, these action-items were a
primary component of the feedback principals received from teachers in the
intervention, as well as discussion and data points for the coaching sessions. Feedback
was presented in reports that included a narrative as well as graphs of the result of
teacher and principal survey responses for each wave of the data. The data on all
schools in the sample were averaged so that principals could compare their results to
those of other participating principals. Teacher surveys were completed by 1,779
teachers within 52 schools in one district. About 34 teachers on average per school
provided feedback data.
Coaching
The leadership coaches selected for this study were former educational administrators
and instructional leaders specifically trained for school leadership coaching.
Principals selected for treatment (coaching and feedback) met two to four times
between each wave of survey collection. Each session focused on feedback from
teacher surveys and ranged from 40 to 90 minutes in duration. Coaches were not
limited to a set of procedures or protocols for each session but rather focused on
developing goals, interpreting feedback, assessing and motivating. Furthermore,
coaches were assigned based on geographic location in order to encourage coaching
12
Running Head: Changing Principals’ Leadership through Feedback and Coaching
sessions.
Multilevel Factor Analysis
A multilevel factor analysis was conducted to determine the factor structure for the
action-item data at both the within-person level and the between-person levels. We
conducted a factor analysis from the second-year teacher survey, shown below.
Table 1: Action Items for Factor Analysis
Among 19 items, first we excluded item 7 since it was very similar with item
8. Both of the questions were addressing about the principals’ participation on school
leadership team. Item 12 also was not included because it was not associated with
principal’s support regarding teachers’ instructional improvement. After deleting 2
items, we conducted Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) using Geomin rotation on 17
action items through Mplus ver. 6.11. Decision about the number of factors to retain
in each case was made based on a combination of empirical considerations and the
need for scales that would be substantively meaningful and informative. We then
generated scales by calculating the average item level response across the items
13
Running Head: Changing Principals’ Leadership through Feedback and Coaching
assigned to a scale for each factor. In order to determine the best-fitting model (a) the
root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA; Steiger, 1990), and (b) the
standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) were used. The use of these two
descriptive fit indices is consistent with recent measurement research (see Millsap &
Kwok, 2004).
We used nineteen items in both of teacher and principal surveys to identify the
impact of treatment on two domains of principal action: Principal Leadership
Development (PLD) & Teacher Instructional Development (TID). Based on the
indices, two within and two between model showed a relatively good fit (χ2 (df=206,
N = 4385) = 1110.713*, p < .01, RMSEA = .050, and SRMR 0.089) according to both
descriptive fit indices and theoretical background.
Of the 17 items 5 items were dropped as their loadings indicated they were not
appropriate to integrate into a factor (Stevens, 1996). Of the 12 remaining items, the
first factor consisted of seven items that we labeled as Principal Leadership
Development (PLD), which indicates that principal’s work with teachers to develop
principals’ own leadership practice. The PLD factor included items such as sharing
feedback, planning action based on feedback, and discussing with teachers regarding
their own goals and leadership.
The second factor consisted of five items that we labeled as Teacher
Instructional Development (TID), which represents that principals engage teachers to
develop teachers’ instructional practices. The TID factor included items such as
observing teachers’ teaching, giving meaningful feedback regarding teaching,
discussing students work, and how teachers can engage with parents more effectively.
14
Running Head: Changing Principals’ Leadership through Feedback and Coaching
Table 2 Factor Means (Standard Deviation)
Factor
Fall
Winter
Spring
Principal Leadership Development
3.98
4.41
4.26
(1.10)
(1.20)
(1.15)
3.41
3.64
3.56
(0.57)
(0.53)
(0.62)
Teacher Instructional Development
Threat to Validity 2
Principals’ freedom in scheduling coaching sessions resulted in notable variation in
the number of coaching sessions each principal received (see figure 1, below). In the
second year of the project, from which our data is drawn, treatment principals
averaged eight coaching sessions, though this number ranges from a minimum of five
to a maximum of fourteen. To account for this variation in dose, we define treatment
in our analysis as the number of coaching sessions each principal received rather than
as a binary variable representing assignment to the treatment group.
Handling
2
How threat of validity was handled will be discussed in the Analysis section.
15
Running Head: Changing Principals’ Leadership through Feedback and Coaching
Figure 1 Frequency of Coaching Sessions
Analysis:
In this paper we have set out to identify the impact of treatment on two domains of
principal action: principal’s leadership development (PLD) and teachers’ instructional
development (TID). Barring any outside threats, a simple regression controlling for
multiple observations on each principal would be an adequate analytic approach.
However, two validity threats preclude using this approach. First, treatment consisted
of coaching sessions that are arranged, in part, by principals. When principals have
influence regarding the treatment dose, an endogenous relationship is introduced
between treatment and outcomes. It is easy to imagine a scenario where ineffective
principals may also be less likely to meet with coaches; such a scenario would induce
an upwards bias on the treatment effect. To mitigate this threat we use an instrumental
variables approach where assignment to treatment (which was randomly assigned two
years prior, at the start of the project) is the excluded instrument. The logic of this
16
Running Head: Changing Principals’ Leadership through Feedback and Coaching
approach is that variation in assignment is uncorrelated with the number of coaching
sessions undertaken by treatment principals. The two-stage least squares models are
shown below:
𝐶𝑜𝑎𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑖𝑡 = 𝛼0 + 𝛼1 (𝑇𝑥)𝑖𝑡 + 𝑢𝑖𝑡
̂ )𝑖𝑡 + 𝑒𝑖𝑡
𝐴𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑖𝑡 = 𝛽0 + 𝛽1 (𝐶𝑜𝑎𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔
In these models Coaching represents the cumulative number of coaching sessions by
principal i at time t; Tx is a dummy variable indicating assignment to treatment;
Action represents either the Principal’s Leadership Development (PLD) or the
Teachers’ Instructional Development (TID); Coaching (hat) is the predicted number
of coaching sessions based on the first-stage estimate; and u and e are stochastic error
terms.
The second threat to a simplistic approach pertains to differential attrition
before the second year of the study. As mentioned previously, this analysis pertains to
the second year of the intervention and uses measures that were not available during
the first year. Differential attrition between year one and year two would invalidate
the randomization and negate the assumption of strong ignorability of treatment
assignment (Rosenbaum & Rubin, 1983). Again, it is not difficult to imagine a
scenario where the ineffective principals were also more likely to view coaching as
threatening and leave the program. Under such scenarios a differential exit of
principals from the control group would induce an upward bias in the treatment effect.
In our study there was notable attrition between years one and two, however
there is little evidence of differential attrition between the treatment and control
principals. In total, 19 of the 71 year-one principals left the study. Nine of these were
from the treatment group. Of these 19 principals, 11 were removed from the study by
the authors because they accepted a position in a school not participating in the study.
17
Running Head: Changing Principals’ Leadership through Feedback and Coaching
Two principals retired. The remaining six principals declined to participate in the
second year of the study (four control, two treatment). An attrition analysis where all
19 exiting principals were included is shown in Table 1 below.⁠ 1 The coefficients
represent odds-ratios from a logistic regression where one identified a principal who
left the sample.
Table 3 Attrition Analysis
0.002
5.083
1.311
0.039*
0.559
0.420
4.651
0.079
0.648
Standard
Error
(0.019)
(13.986)
(2.449)
(0.064)
(0.536)
(0.550)
(7.059)
(0.360)
(1.621)
15.260
(28.954)
3.291
(4.026)
7.209
0.199
67.097
(11.882)
(0.377)
(492.405)
Coefficient
Treatment
Academic Press
Teacher-Teacher Trust
Teachers' Perceptions of Leadership Effectiveness
Principal's Perceptions of Leadership Effectiveness
Principal Self-Efficacy
Principal's Trust of Teachers
Treatment*Academic Press
Treatment*Teacher-Teacher Trust
Treatment*Teachers' Perceptions of Leadership
Effectiveness
Treatment*Principal's Perceptions of Leadership
Effectiveness
Treatment*Principal Self-Efficacy
Treatment*Principal's Trust of Teachers
Constant
The measures used in the attrition analysis include several measures of school
climate and leadership, including teachers’ perceptions of academic press, teacherteacher trust, teacher perceptions of leadership effectiveness within the school,
principal’s self-perceptions of leadership effectiveness, principal self-efficacy, and
principal’s trust of teachers. These are the baseline measures, taken in the first year of
the study before any feedback or coaching was provided. Of these, the only measure
that appears related to attrition is teachers’ perceptions of leadership effectiveness
(0.039*, p=0.048), indicating that principals who left the study have significantly
lower measures of leadership effectiveness (mean teacher ratings of 3.53 versus 3.33).
18
Running Head: Changing Principals’ Leadership through Feedback and Coaching
However, the interaction term between teachers’ perception of leadership
effectiveness and treatment is not significant (15.260), suggesting that there is not a
discernable difference on this measure between those who left the study from the
treatment group as compared to those from the control group. This analysis provided
evidence that the initial randomization held through the second year. Nonetheless, to
further insulate against this threat we have included a model in each analysis that also
includes the above six baseline measures of school climate and leadership in addition
to dummy variables for whether the data was collected during the fall, winter, or
spring (models 3, 4, 7, and 8 in tables 2 and 3). These variables were included as
excluded instruments in the IV model as well.
Results:
The analytical results pertaining to the effect of treatment on actions related to
principal’s leadership development are presented in Table 4. Model 1 presents naïve
OLS results, model 2 presents the 2-stage least squares instrumental variables (IV)
approach, model 3 is a naïve OLS model that includes school climate, leadership
measures, and dummy variables for the wave of data collection, and model 4
replicates model 3 with the addition of the instrumental variables.
In each of the four parameterizations we see that coaching has a significant
positive effect on principals’ activities surrounding leadership development. The most
constrained model reports an increase of 0.103 on the Principal’s Leadership
Development scale for every additional coaching session. This corresponds to an
effect size of 0.15. The higher IV estimates (Model 1 < Model 2, Model 3 < Model 4)
imply that the naïve estimates were under-estimating rather than overestimating the
19
Running Head: Changing Principals’ Leadership through Feedback and Coaching
treatment effect.
Table 4 The Effect of Treatment on Principal's Leadership Development
Coaching &
Feedback
Intercept
N
Wave
Dummies
Baseline
Covariates
IV
Model 1
0.117**
(0.038)
3.931***
(0.188)
156
no
Model 2
0.128**
(0.052)
3.901***
(0.214)
156
no
Model 3
0.086*
(0.033)
2.022
(2.224)
156
yes
Model 4
0.103*
(0.040)
2.132
(2.127)
156
yes
no
no
yes
yes
no
yes
no
yes
The second line of inquiry pertains to the impact of treatment on the ways in
which principals’ influence teachers’ instructional development (TID, factor 2). Table
5 provides consistent evidence through all four modeling approaches that treatment
made no discernible impact on principal actions in this domain.
Table 5 The Effect of Treatment on Teachers' Instructional Development
Coaching &
Feedback
Intercept
N
Wave
Dummies
Baseline
Covariates
IV
Model 5
0.001
(0.019)
3.223***
(0.018)
156
no
Model 6
-0.013
(0.027)
3.26***
(0.094)
156
no
Model 7
-0.014
(0.018)
2.774*
(1.148)
156
yes
Model 8
-0.010
(0.024)
3.063**
(1.110)
156
yes
no
no
yes
yes
no
yes
no
yes
Discussion:
This study is motivated by a need to provide school leaders with an iterative,
sustainable, and efficient mechanism to integrate formative feedback with changes in
leadership practices. Feedback reports serve as a discrepant event that in turn
stimulates cognitive dissonance in the principal. Under this framework the actions
20
Running Head: Changing Principals’ Leadership through Feedback and Coaching
taken by the principal are initiated in order to resolve the dissonance. Coaching serves
two functions in this process: to facilitate dissonance and to direct/motivate
subsequent actions.
First, the findings from principal’s leadership development presented here
suggest that coaching and feedback together facilitates principals’ ability to engage
with their faculty regarding their own leadership development. Based on teachers’
feedback, coaches facilitate principals’ self-reflection in order to initiate leadership
change. This is promoted by helping principal to clarify and prioritize issues in their
schools, interpret feedback that they could address through their leadership practices,
and provide skills, which principals need to enhance their overall leadership. This
finding is consistent with existing research, which identified strong effectiveness of
combination of coaching and feedback (Hobson, 2003; Smither, London, Flautt, and
Vargas, 2006).
However, the second finding suggests that it does not impact teachers’
instructional development. The question raised by these findings is why we observed
growth in the first construct but not the second?
Interpretation of these findings can be grouped as logistic effects, focus
effects, or dissonance augmenting effects. Logistic effects may be the result of
information being conveyed more efficiently to groups rather than to individual
teachers. The specific actions that contribute to the Principal’s Leadership
Development scale include “sharing feedback with teachers,” “Discussing specific
actions planned to take as a result of feedback” and “Discussing goals of leadership
with teachers.” These are actions that may lend themselves to large group settings
where principals can address the entire faculty in one sitting.
21
Running Head: Changing Principals’ Leadership through Feedback and Coaching
In contrast, actions that contribute to the Teachers’ Instructional Development
scale include “Discussed with a teacher the quality of student work” and “Gave a
teacher feedback on the quality of his or her teaching.” These actions almost certainly
require principals to engage with teachers one-on-one and are more logistically
challenging. The differing logistical constraints of these actions suggests that, when
aggregated to the school level, we are likely observe a stronger signal from changes in
the Principal’s Leadership Development scale than we are from Teachers’
Instructional Development scale.
These results may also speak to a focus effect; an effort on the part of coaches
to push principals to be more strategic in their interactions with teachers. High quality
learning-centered leadership is a time-consuming venture. Indeed, learning-centered
leadership is an area towards which principals would like to devote more time, and
yet it tends to be the first domain to be curtailed under the press of external demands.
When coaches encourage principals to focus their interactions on a focused group of
teachers (e.g., new teachers or a grade-level team) rather than across the entire school,
we may see a null (or perhaps even negative) effect at the school level. This may be
the case even when principals are actively taking actions to change their leadership
behaviors. As a result of concessions made with the district, teacher responses were
anonymous and we cannot track teachers over time to determine if principals are
using such an approach to effectively target the marginal teachers.
We can also interpret these results as evidence for the dissonance augmenting
function of coaching. In keeping with prior work on feedback and dissonance,
qualitative work on this project suggests that some principals are apt to dismiss the
feedback. Coaches report that principals’ initial responses to the feedback is
frequently defensive, where principals claim, “I know it’s just a few teachers who are
22
Running Head: Changing Principals’ Leadership through Feedback and Coaching
dissatisfied and I know who they are” or “I’m doing all I can – what more can they
expect me to do?” We have also found that coaches are instrumental in helping
principals engage the dissonance process by overcoming their resistance to the
feedback.
Principals are unlikely to share feedback regarding their leadership if they feel
that the feedback itself is invalid. Thus, the act of sharing feedback becomes an active
acknowledgement of the feedback validity. Soliciting additional input from teachers
on their leadership is another mechanism to legitimate the validity of teacher
perspectives. One of the goals of coaching is to facilitate the dissonance process,
which begins when resistant principals come to see the feedback as valid. This
legitimating process allows cognitive dissonance to take place and only then can
principals begin altering their behavior to bring their leadership views in line with
those of their faculty. In this light, we can see that the above results to be evidence for
the dissonance augmenting aspect of the coaching intervention.
Lastly, one year of coaching may not have been enough for principals to
change their leadership practice, and at the same time it might not have been enough
to alter teachers’ perception of principals’ instructional support. In order for coaches
to bring desired and ongoing change in principals, an adequate amount of time has to
be devoted for a plan of action. Even though principals in this study received average
of eight coaching session per wave; however, each session was less than two hours,
which might not have been enough time to sustain desirable leadership behavior. In
addition, besides for time of coaching received by principals, teachers also need
time to acknowledge the change of leadership. However, not all teachers
23
Running Head: Changing Principals’ Leadership through Feedback and Coaching
have adequate time during school hours to interact with principals to be
aware of the change. Seeing principal in the classroom once or twice a
semester may not be enough.
Conclusion
Providing meaningful feedback through principal assessment, or helping them
to adequately interpret feedback through coaching can serve as a viable tool to
improve leadership practice. This study addresses the gap in the literature by both
measuring the quantitative impact of feedback and coaching and providing
preliminary evidence to support their combined efficacy.
To inform practitioners and policy makers, research in this area must go
further and directly examine the impact of coaching and feedback on leadership.
Investigating how reflection from teachers help principal to improve their leadership
and whether coaching promotes this knowledge into practices and eventually improve
students outcomes are important avenues for future inquiry.
24
Running Head: Changing Principals’ Leadership through Feedback and Coaching
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