Successful School Principalship: A Meta-Synthesis of 20 Years of International Case Studies
Abstract
:1. Introduction
- RQ1: How was success defined?
- RQ2: What were the successful principalship practices (SPPs) across countries?
- RQ3: What are the values and qualities of successful principals in the global school context?
2. Background and Perspectives
3. Methods
3.1. Search Process, Study Screening and Selection, and Quality Assessment
- Explicitly report their data;
- Include evidence related to at least one of the study’s four research questions;
- Clearly state their aims and objectives;
- Use a research design appropriate to achieving the study’s objectives;
- Provide a clear account of how the data were collected and handled;
- Use appropriate and clearly specified analytic methods;
- Display enough data to support interpretations and conclusions.
3.2. Coding Scheme and Analytical Framework for Review
3.3. Ecological Human Systems Theory
3.4. Data Extraction and Coding
3.5. Data Analysis and Synthesis
- Reciprocal translation analysis. The researcher identifies key metaphors, themes, or concepts and translates them in relation to one another (i.e., judges the ability of the concepts of one study to capture concepts from another).
- Refutational synthesis. The researcher characterizes and attempts to explain contradictions between the separate studies.
- Line-of-argument analysis. The researcher builds a general interpretation grounded in the findings of the separate studies, identifying through constant comparison themes that are the most powerful in representing the entire dataset.
4. Findings
4.1. How Success Was Defined (RQ1)
4.2. Successful Principalship Practices (RQ2)
- Domain 1: Building shared visions, setting standards, and identifying pathways to improvement
- Identify and articulate a shared vision.
- Demonstrate and implement high expectations.
- Foster agreement about group goals and keep focused on the agreed school goals and priorities.
- Domain 2: Enhancing collective instructional competencies and capabilities
- 4.
- Build supportive, strong, and trustful working relationships inside the school community.
- 5.
- Enhance collective instructional competencies (esp. culturally responsive teaching and pedagogy).
- 6.
- Provide continuing, differentiated, and collective support for individual staff.
- 7.
- Offer intellectual stimulation that promotes reflection.
- 8.
- Model desired values and practices.
- Domain 3: Building organizational capacities and collaborative cultures
- 9.
- Restructure the organization/create structures to support, institute, and sustain collaborative processes, inquiries, and cultures, and desired practices.
- 10.
- Build collaborative, distributed leadership in the school, utilizing participatory governance and involving stakeholders in decision-making.
- 11.
- Develop a safe, orderly, inclusive, and conducive learning environment.
- Domain 4: Improving the instructional program
- 12.
- Continually improve classroom teaching and foster instructional innovation (e.g., new pedagogy).
- 13.
- Staff the school’s program with teachers well matched to the school’s priorities (e.g., hiring high-quality, diverse teachers).
- 14.
- Provide instructional support.
- 15.
- Monitor student progress.
- 16.
- Buffer staff from distractions to their work.
- 17.
- Redesign and enrich the curriculum.
- Domain 5: Building the School’s Capacity to Manage Change over Time
- 18.
- Build civic relationships with school communities and enlist greater parent and external community’s support, involvement, or partnership.
- 19.
- React to the context with contextual intelligence and be proactive (e.g., reach out to and meet the needs of the school and communities).
- 20.
- Build the school’s capacity to change with resilience.
- Build supportive, strong, and trustful working relationships inside the school community.
- Enhance teachers’ collective teaching competencies and capabilities (e.g., common teaching philosophy, consistent instructional practices, common assessment, adaptability, and knowledge accommodation).
- Respond to the context with contextual intelligence and being proactive (e.g., reach out to and meet the needs of the school and communities).
- Build the school’s capacity to manage change.
- Apply systems thinking to navigate layers of contextual influences with political acuity to solve complex problems.
4.3. RQ3: What Are the Qualities of Successful Principals in the Global School Context?
5. Discussion and Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
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Author | Year | Pub Type | Journal Quality | Reader-Ship | Case Country | Research and Sampling Methods | Cases | Participants | Data Type |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Gurr and Drysdale [46] | 2003 | 1 | 2 | 1 | Australia | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 3 | 3 P and 3 AP and 18 T and 48–60 Stu and 48–60 Par and 3 CC and 3 CSB and 3 SCM | 1 and 6 |
Gurr, Drysdale, Di Natale, Ford, Hardy and Swann [47] | 2003 | 1 | 3 | 1 | Australia | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 3 | 3 P and 3 AP and 18 T and 48–60 Stu. and 48–60 Par. and 3 CC and 3 CSB and 3 SCM | 1 and 6 |
Drysdale [48] | 2007 | 2 | N/A | N/A | Australia | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 1 | 1 P and 1 AP and 6 T and 10–16 Stu. And 10–16 Par. and 1 CC and 1 CSB and 1 SCM | N/A |
Gurr [49] | 2007 | 2 | N/A | N/A | Australia | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 1 | 1 P and 1 AP and 6 T and 10–16 Stu. and 10–16 Par. and 1 CC and 1 CSB and 1 SCM | 4 and 6 |
Gurr, Drysdale and Mulford [50] | 2007 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Australia | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 3 | 3 P and 3 AP and 18 T and 48–60 Stu and 48–60 Par and 3 CC and 3 CSB and 3 SCM | 1 and 6 |
Drystale, Goode and Gurr [51] | 2009 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Australia | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 1 | 1 P and 1 AP and 1 CC and 6 T and 1 CSB and 1 SCM and 10–16 Par. and 10–16 Stu. | 1 and 3 |
Gurr, Drysdale and Mulford [52] | 2010 | 1 | 3 | N/A | Australia | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 3 | 3 P and 3 AP and 18 T and 48–60 Stu and 48–60 Par and 3 CC and 3 CSB and 3 SCM | 1 and 6 |
Drysdale, Goode and Gurr [53] | 2011 | 2 | N/A | N/A | Australia | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 2 | 2 P and 2 AP and 12 T and 20–32 Stu. and 20–32 Par. and 2 CC and 2 CSB and 2 SCM | 1 and 3 and 6 |
Drysdale and Gurr [25] | 2011 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Australia | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 4 | 4 P and 4 AP and 24 T and 64–80 Stu and 64–80 Par and 4 CC and 4 CSB and 4 SCM | 1 and 2 |
Doherty, Gurr, and Drysdale [54] | 2014 | 2 | N/A | N/A | Australia | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 1 | 1 P and 1 AP and 1 CC and 6 T and 1 CSB and 1 SCM and 10–16 Par. and 10–16 Stu. | N/A |
Drystale, Gurr, and Goode [55] | 2016 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Australia | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 3 | 3 P and 3 AP and 18 T and 48–60 Stu and 48–60 Par and 3 CC and 3 CSB and 3 SCM | 1 |
Gurr and Acuqro [56] | 2018 | 1 | 2 | 1 | Australia | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 3 | 3 P and 3 AP and 18 T and 48–60 Stu and 48–60 Par and 3 CC and 3 CSB and 3 SCM | 1 |
Gurr, Drysdale, Longmuir, and McCrohan [57] | 2018 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Australia | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 3 | 3 P and 3 AP and 18 T and 48–60 Stu and 48–60 Par and 3 CC and 3 CSB and 3 SCM | 1 |
Gurr et al. [58] | 2019 | 2 | N/A | N/A | Australia | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 3 | 3 P and 3 AP and 18 T and 48–60 Stu and 48–60 Par and 3 CC and 3 CSB and 3 SCM | N/A |
Longmuir [59] | 2019 | 1 | 2 | 1 | Australia | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 1 | 1 P and 1 AP and 6 T and 10–16 Stu. and 10–16 Par. and 1 CC and 1 CSB and 1 SCM | 1 and 3 |
Gurr, Longmuir and Reed [60] | 2020 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Australia | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 2 | 2 P and 2 AP and 12 T and 32–40 Stu and 32–40 Par and 2 CC and 2 CSB and 2 SCM | 1 and 3 |
Pashiardis et al. [61] | 2011 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Cyprus | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 5 | 5 P and T and Par. and Stu | 4 and 6 |
Pashiardis et al. [62] | 2012 | 1 | 2 | 1 | Cyprus | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 2 | 2 P and T and Par. and Stu | 1 and 4 |
Pashiardis and Savvides [63] | 2014 | 2 | N/A | N/A | Cyprus | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 1 | 1 P and T and Par. | 1 |
Pashiardis et al. [64] | 2018 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Cyprus | Qualitative study; Purposeful sampling | 2 | 2 P and 10 T and 6 Stu | 4 |
Pashiardis et al. [65] | 2018 | 1 | 3 | 1 | Cyprus | Case study; Random sampling | 2 | 2 P and 10 T and 10 Stu | 4 |
Yaakov and Tubin [66] | 2013 | 2 | N/A | N/A | Israel | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 1 | 1 P | 1 |
Tubin [67] | 2015 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Israel | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 7 | P and AP and SLT and SCM and Sch Psy. And Sup. and External agents | 1, 3, 4, 6 and 7 |
Notman [68] | 2009 | 1 | 3 | 1 | New Zealand | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 1 | 1 P and Stu. and Par. | 1 |
Notman [69] | 2014 | 2 | N/A | N/A | New Zealand | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 1 | 1 P and senior T and T and Stu. and DP | 1 |
Notman [70] | 2017 | 1 | 1 | 1 | New Zealand | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 2 | 2 P and T and BT | 1 |
Notman [71] | 2020 | 1 | 3 | 1 | New Zealand | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 2 | 2 P and Senior leader and BT | 4 |
Moller and Eggen [72] | 2005 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Norway | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 3 | 2 P and T and Stu. and Par. and LT and Emp. and UP and Ind. | 1 and 3 |
Moller [73] | 2006 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Norway | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 1 | T and Stu. and Par. and DO | 1 and 3 |
Vedoy and Moller [74] | 2007 | 1 | N/A | N/A | Norway | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 2 | 2 P and Stu | 1 and 3 |
Moller, Vedoy, Prethus, and Skedsmo [75] | 2009 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Norway | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 3 | T and 1 P | 1 and 2 |
Moller, Vedoy, Prethus, and Skedsmo [76] | 2009 | 1 | N/A | 1 | Norway | N/A | 2 | T and 2 P | 1 |
Moller and Vedoy [77] | 2014 | 2 | N/A | N/A | Norway | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 1 | 1 P and T | 1 |
Ballangrud and Paulsen [78] | 2018 | 1 | 2 | 1 | Norway | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 1 | 1 P and Stu. and T and LT | 4 |
Moller [79] | 2018 | 1 | N/A | 1 | Norway | Mix study; Purposeful sampling | 1 | 8 T and 1 P and 8 Stu and 1 Sup. and 2 Deputy | 1 and 5 and 7 |
Ballangrud and Aas [80] | 2022 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Norway | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 2 | 41 in total (2 P and T and Stu and Leaders) | 1 and 3 |
Moral et al. [81] | 2017 | 1 | 1 | N/A | Spain | Qualitative study; Random sampling | 4 | 4 P and 14 T and 3/4 Par. and 4/5 Stu and Inspectors | 4 |
González-Falcón, García-Rodríguez, Gómez-Hurtado, and Carrasco-Macías [82] | 2020 | 1 | 1 | 2 | Spain | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 2 | P and T and Par. and Stu and 2 Outside agent | 1 |
Santaella [83] | 2020 | 1 | 2 | N/A | Spain | Qualitative | 2 | 2 P | 3 and 4 and 1 |
Höög, Johansson and Olofsson [84] | 2005 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Sweden | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 3 | 1 CSB and 1 super and 12 Stu and 2 P and 6 T | 1 |
Ärlestig [85] | 2007 | 1 | 3 | 1 | Sweden | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 1 | 6 T and 2 P | 1 and 5 and 6 |
Johansson, Davis, and Geijer [86] | 2007 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Sweden | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 1 | 2 P and 4 T and Stu | 1 and 2 and 3 and 6 |
Ärlestig [87] | 2008 | 1 | 3 | 1 | Sweden | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 5 | 5 P and 25 T | 1 and 4 and 5 |
Höög, Johansson, and Olofsson [88] | 2009 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Sweden | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 2 | 2 P and T and Stu | 1 and 2 and 3 |
Ärlestig and Törnsén [89] | 2014 | 2 | N/A | N/A | Sweden | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 1 | 1 P | 1 |
Day [90] | 2014 | 1 | 1 | 1 | UK | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 1 | P | 1 |
Day [91] | 2014 | 1 | 2 | 1 | UK | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 1 | P and Staff and Par. | 1 |
Day, Gu, Sammons [92] | 2016 | 1 | 1 | 1 | UK | Mix study; Purposeful sampling | 1 | P and Staff and other colleagues | 1 and 2 |
Day and Gu [93] | 2018 | 1 | 1 | 1 | UK | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 2 | P and Senior/Mid leaders and T | 4 |
Gu, Sammons, and Chen [94] | 2018 | 1 | 1 | 1 | UK | Mix study; Purposeful sampling | 1 | P and Staff and stakeholders | 1 and 2 |
Jacobson et al. [95] | 2004 | 1 | 2 | 1 | US | Case study; Purposeful and random sampling | 3 | P and T and Staff and Par. and Stu. (18 + 17 + 20 = 55 educators) | 4 and 6 and 7 |
Giles, Johnson, Brooks, and Jacobson [96] | 2005 | 1 | 1 | 1 | US | Case study; Purposeful and random sampling | 1 | 1 P and 13 Faculty and 4 Staff and 18 Par. | 1 and 4 and 6 and 7 |
Giles [97] | 2006 | 1 | 2 | 1 | US | Case study; Purposeful and random sampling | 3 | 3 P and 40 T and 15 Staff and 29 Par. | 4 and 6 and 7 |
Jacobson et al. [15] | 2007 | 1 | 1 | 1 | US | Case study; Purposeful and random sampling | 3 | P and T and Staff and Par. and Stu | 4 and 7 |
Johnson [98] | 2007 | 1 | 1 | 1 | US | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 3 | T and P and Par. | 1 and 7 |
Giles [99] | 2007 | 1 | 1 | 1 | US | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 3 | N/A | N/A |
Ylimaki [100] | 2007 | 1 | 2 | 1 | US | Case study | 4 | P and T | 1 |
Jacobson, Johnson, Ylimaki and Giles [101] | 2009 | 1 | 1 | 1 | US | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 1 | 1 P and 1 AP and 1 CBT and 6 T and 6 Par. | 1 and 2 and 7 |
Ramalho, Garza and Merchant [102] | 2010 | 1 | 1 | 1 | US | Case study;Purposeful sampling | 2 | 2 P and11 T and5 Adm. and12 Par. and11 Stu. | 1 and 4 and 5 and 7 |
Garza, Murakami and Merchant [103] | 2011 | 1 | 1 | 1 | US | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 1 | 1 P | 1 |
Jacobson, Johnson, and Ylimaki [104] | 2011 | 2 | N/A | 1 | US | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 1 | 1 P and 1 AP and 1 CBT and 6 T and 6 Par. | 1 and 2 and 6 and 7 |
Dugan, Ylimaki and Bennet [105] | 2012 | 1 | 3 | 1 | US | Case study | 1 | P and T and Par. | 1 |
Murakami, Garza and Merchant [106] | 2012 | 1 | 1 | 1 | US | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 1 | P and T and Par. | 1 |
Ylimaki et al. [107] | 2012 | 1 | 2 | 1 | US | Case study; Purposeful and random sampling | 4 | P and SCM and AP and CC and T and 6 Par. and 6 Stu. | 1 and 2 and 6 |
Klar and Brewer [108] | 2013 | 1 | 1 | 1 | US | Mix study; Purposeful sampling | 3 | P and other stakeholders | 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 6 |
Klar et al. [109] | 2013 | 1 | N/A | 1 | US | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 1 | P and Adm. and T and Staff and 6 Par. and 6 Stu. | 1 and 2 and 4 and 6 |
Dugan and Bennet [110] | 2014 | 2 | N/A | 1 | US | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 1 | P and T | 1 |
Klar and Brewer [111] | 2014 | 1 | 1 | 1 | US | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 1 | 2 P and 1 AP and 6 T and 1 Staff and 2 Par. | 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 5 and 6 |
Minor-Ragan and Jacobson [112] | 2014 | 2 | N/A | 1 | US | Case study; Purposeful sampling | 1 | 1 P | 1 |
Findings | Microsystems | Meso- | Exo- | Macro | Chrono- | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Stu Performance | SES | Culture | Stu Population | Location | Level | Parents, School Community | Sch Ranking | Policy | Political | Culture and Values | ||
Success | Hi Lo | Hi Lo | Teacher leaving Behavioral issues | Diverse Homogeneous Needs | Urban Suburban Rural | Elem. Middle High | Supportive Negative | Reginal partnership | Pressure to increase scores, accountability | Ed. system Centralized Decentralized | By country | Over time |
Qualities | Hi Lo | Hi Lo | Teacher leaving Behavioral issues | Diverse Homogeneous Needs | Urban Suburban Rural | Elem. Middle High | Supportive Negative | Reginal partnership | Pressure to increase scores, accountability | Ed. system Centralized Decentralized | By country | Over time |
Practices | Hi Lo | Hi Lo | Teacher leaving Behavioral issues | Diverse Homogeneous Needs | Urban Suburban Rural | Elem. Middle High | Supportive Negative | Reginal partnership | Pressure to increase scores, accountability | Ed. system Centralized Decentralized | By country | Beginning, next, final stage |
Success Indicators | Australia | Cyprus | Israel | New Zealand | Norway | Spain | Sweden | UK | US |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1. Student Outcomes | |||||||||
Academic achievement, growth, % to college and up | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Student social and emotional development, empowered engagement, leadership, taking extracurricular courses | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |||||
Enrollment up/dropouts down | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||||
2. School Environment | |||||||||
Supportive, positive, caring, learning environment, sense of community | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |||
Student bonds, good teacher–student relationships | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |||||
Disciplinary climate improved (e.g., attendance up, absence down, incidents down, student respect) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Inclusive for minority students, democratic, reduced racism, multicultural | ✓ | ✓ | |||||||
3. Instructional Capacity | |||||||||
High-level professional learning | ✓ | ✓ | |||||||
High-quality teachers | ✓ | ||||||||
Low staff turnover | ✓ | ||||||||
High motivation, committed, trust | ✓ | ✓ | |||||||
Innovative curriculum/program | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |||||
Collegial, friendship, cordiality, collaboration | ✓ | ✓ | |||||||
4. Community and Parent Support | |||||||||
Parent involvement and support | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |||||
Partnering with community (e.g., local business, authority) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||||||
5. Good Reputation/School Improvement | |||||||||
School and principal awards, innovative | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||||||
Good Ofsted inspection report, school ranking, improvement and turnaround | ✓ | ✓ | |||||||
6. School Physical Appearance and Resources | |||||||||
Well tended, well resourced | ✓ | ✓ |
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Sun, J.; Day, C.; Zhang, R.; Zhang, H.; Huang, T.; Lin, J. Successful School Principalship: A Meta-Synthesis of 20 Years of International Case Studies. Educ. Sci. 2024, 14, 929. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14090929
Sun J, Day C, Zhang R, Zhang H, Huang T, Lin J. Successful School Principalship: A Meta-Synthesis of 20 Years of International Case Studies. Education Sciences. 2024; 14(9):929. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14090929
Chicago/Turabian StyleSun, Jingping, Christopher Day, Rong Zhang, Huaiyue Zhang, Ting Huang, and Junqi Lin. 2024. "Successful School Principalship: A Meta-Synthesis of 20 Years of International Case Studies" Education Sciences 14, no. 9: 929. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14090929