The role of ICT for school leadership and management activities: an international comparison

PurposeInformation and communication technologies (ICT) has an increasing impact on schools. School leaders play a key role in this context as drivers of innovation including those related to ICT. Against this background, the study presented in this article focuses on school leadership and management activities with ICT and related challenges. It sought to analyze how frequently German school principals use ICT compared to principals in other countries, what distinct clusters of German principals could be identified in terms of ICT usage and how principals viewed ICT in schools and related challenges.Design/methodology/approachA mixed-methods approach was chosen, using quantitative data from both the international comparative large-scale assessment study ICILS 2018 and the explorative qualitative data from Germany. For the international comparison, the school principal data sets of the 12 international participants of the International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS) 2018 were taken into account: Chile, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Kazakhstan, Republic of Korea, Luxembourg, Portugal, Uruguay and the United States. To look beyond averaged frequencies, a latent class analysis (LCA) was conducted to identify possible clusters of school leaders with distinct usage patterns of ICT for leadership and management activities.FindingsThe results indicate that, in general, German principals use ICT for leadership and management activities on a similar level as their international colleagues. However, they seem to communicate with education authorities significantly more often than their international colleagues, whereas representative activities (presentations, home page) are rather infrequent. The qualitative data point to significant barriers to fully harnessing the potential of using ICT for leadership, management and school improvement such as lack of competencies and lack of adequate support.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that focuses on school leadership and management activities using ICT with such a data set. The results provide insights into how German principals use ICT to lead and manage their schools compared to their international counterparts. The qualitative data offers additional insights into possible reasons hindering a more effective use of ICT.

Understanding role conflict and role ambiguity of school principals in Nepal

In the context of developed countries, a lot of research has been done to uncover and identify the problems school leaders face in their work but little is known about the school leadership of underdeveloped countries. In a quest to discover contextual problems in terms of role conflict and role ambiguity of school leaders, this qualitative study tries to capture the experiences of principals in Nepal through in-depth interviews of six community school principals. The findings reveal that the major sources of role conflict and ambiguity for principals from Nepal are problematic power-sharing, low job autonomy, dual role conflict, limited professional development training, and lack of leadership knowledge. The study has several policy-level implications such as importance of hiring principals with proven leadership skills and increasing the leadership skills of current principals to ensure that they can tackle these challenges.

An open systems model of successful school leadership

PurposeThrough description and consideration of 12 models developed as part of the International Successful School Principalship Project (ISSPP), a new model of successful school leadership is developed.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is necessarily descriptive in nature. For the first time, 12 ISSPP models are described together, and these descriptions are then used inductively to create a new successful school leadership model.FindingsThe open systems approach adopted depicts schools as a continuous cycle of input-transformation-output with feedback loops that inform each stage of the cycle. The inputs are the variables that lead to transformation. The transformation stage is the actions or processes that individuals, groups and organisations engage in because of the inputs, and these lead to a range of student and school outcomes. Feedback loops connect the stages, and the whole model is open to the influence of five contextual forces: economic, political, socio-cultural, technological and system, institutional and educational.Originality/valueModels are an important way to make sense of complex phenomena. A new model of successful school leadership, with an open systems approach, provides a different frame to consider the findings of the ISSPP and potentially allows the ISSPP research to inform practice and connect with other school leadership views in new ways.

School Leadership Master’s Program Enhancement through Cross-Border Collaboration between Assiut and Kuwait Schools of Education

Egypt and Kuwait are currently executing a large-scale transformation in the national education system. On such time, school leadership capacity building and development is crucial and fundamental. Therefore, the current research seeks to scrutiny leadership components presented in the Education Administration Master program offered in Assiut and Kuwait Faculties of Education to cross match the presented knowledge and competencies with international requirements of highly credited leadership master programs. A comparative analytical study was implemented to compare the leadership models presented in the Assiut and Kuwait master’s programs in educational administration. The intended outcome is to enhance the current master program offered in both faculties. Received: 31 October 2021 / Accepted: 1 December 2021 / Published: 3 January 2022

HEI Teacher Perceptions of Entrepreneurship Education

Teachers play a key role in implementing entrepreneurship education; however, little attention has been paid to teachers' perceptions of entrepreneurship education and factors affecting these perceptions. The objective of this chapter is to narrow this research gap by investigating the impact of organizational strategy and school leadership on a teacher's perceptions of entrepreneurship in teaching. This chapter explores the impact of a teacher's own entrepreneurial background and entrepreneurship training on these perceptions. The data consist of 1,119 answers from Finnish higher education institute (HEI) teachers. Findings show that managerial practices in the HEI in supporting entrepreneurship education have a positive impact on the teachers' perceptions. Additionally, a teacher's entrepreneurial background and entrepreneurship training play a role in shaping the teacher's perceptions of the importance of entrepreneurship education. Universities can become more entrepreneurial by developing management practices that support the implementation of entrepreneurship education.

How Do International Students Study for Their University Degree Programme Using Technologically-Assisted Tools and Platforms?

Due to the current education trend, many students, including traditional-age, non-traditional, returning, evening, and adult students, move from traditional on-campus study to distance learning and online education. The current COVID-19 pandemic offers opportunities for these colleges and universities to expand their channel to international students who cannot come on-campus due to the recommendation of social distancing and the self-quarantine policy. However, it is important to capture the students' comments and opinions, particularly international students who are looking for the living experience in an overseas country. With the tools of qualitative inductive survey and interview sessions, the researcher collected 63 valid data from the Chinese international students. This study provided the blueprint for school leadership, department heads, policymakers, faculty members, and students who are interested in reforming the current curriculum and instruction.

Recontextualizing Immersion in the Chinese Context

Immersion and bilingual education have been key concepts in English language education policies and practices. Though discussions have been made on the theoretical and practical issues of bilingual education in China, there has been much disagreement between which model of bilingual education is suitable for the Chinese context, as well as which terminology to use. Drawing on interview, observation, and documentary data gathered during a three-year study of a public-funded foreign language school in Shenzhen, one of the most economically developed cities in China, this chapter is focused on the impact of a Sino-Canadian collaborative educational program on the teachers, students, and school leadership, and reports some preliminary findings and thoughts on related issues. The conclusion is that immersion and bilingual education in the Chinese educational context needs to be reconceptualized and reinterpreted.

The Experiences and Self-Efficacy of Faculty Members Using Distance Learning for the First Time

The purpose of this study was to understand faculty members' experience, self-efficacy, and sense-making processes after teaching via online distance learning for the first time in the Spring, Summer, and Fall 2020 academic terms (i.e., during the COVID-19 pandemic). The research also sought to understand how participants described their teaching and learning methods and approaches after having completed the three academic terms and received students' feedback. This study aimed to use the findings to develop and refine the preparation and procedural guidance offered to first-time distance learning teachers to improve their methods, approaches, and experiences. Using a phenomenological analysis, the researcher collected data from 70 interviews and seven focus groups. The results recommended school leadership to reform their current distance learning-based programs, and to first-time users of distance learning in teaching faculties to help them reflect on their teaching and learning methods and approaches based on a self-efficacy perspective.