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Discusses current methodological problems with principal performance appraisal and evaluation methods which have received considerable attention in the literature. Suggests that administrative performance appraisals can be conducted using a measurement technique called generalizability theory (”G” theory). Introduces “G” theory as a method for improving the dependability of principal performance appraisals.

The purpose of this paper is to test a multilevel, cross-classified model that seeks to illuminate the dynamic nature of relationships among leadership, teaching quality, and student learning in school improvement. The study's primary goal is to shed light on the paths through which leadership influences student learning. At the school level, the model examines the mediating effect of the school's instructional environment on leadership and student learning. At the classroom level, it examines how instructionally focussed leadership can moderate teacher effects on student learning. Then these multiple paths are examined in a single model that seeks to test and highlight the means by which leadership contributes to school improvement.

The current study employed a multilevel longitudinal data set drawn from 60 primary schools in one state in the USA. Using a cross-classification approach to quantitative modeling, the research analyzes the complex cross-level interactions that characterize school-level and classroom level practices that contribute to school improvement and student learning.

The results illustrate the utility of specifying multilevel relationships when examining the “paths” that link school leadership to student learning. First, leadership effects on student learning were fully mediated by the quality of the school's instructional environment. Second, the findings indicated that the classroom-related paths examined in this study directly influenced the measures of student math achievement. Third, the research found that instructionally focussed school leadership moderated the effect of individual teachers on student learning. Fourth, the results suggest that school leaders can enhance student outcomes by creating conditions that lead to greater consistency in levels of effectiveness across teachers.

The study makes substantive contributions to the global knowledge base on school improvement by testing and elaborating on the “paths” that link school leadership and student learning. More specifically, the findings offer insights into strategic targets that instructional leaders can employ to enhance teacher effectiveness and school improvement. Thus, these results both support and extend findings from prior cross-sectional and longitudinal studies of leadership and school improvement.

This is the first study that has tested a conceptualization of leadership for learning in a single “cross-classified longitudinal model” capable of capturing interactions among leadership, classroom teaching processes and growth in student learning. The research illustrates one “state-of-the-art” methodological approach for analyzing longitudinal data collected at both the school and classroom levels when studying school improvement.

The study examines the effects of organisational size on elementary school principals′ instructional leadership decisions to allocate teachers to groups of students. More specifically, the study tested the invariance of a personnel allocation decision‐making model for principals from three categories of California district and school sizes, using the LISREL methodology. The results confirmed the fit of the proposed model to the data across schools of all sizes and in small and medium school districts. In large school districts, however, the proposed model did not fit the data. A specification search to determine the model that describes this organisational context indicated that political bargaining with parents and teachers over the allocation of teachers and students is a less important decision input for principals in large school districts.

The purpose of this study is to propose and test a model of school culture and examine data from schools in Southern California to identify educationally important aspects of teacher‐perceived cultural variables and how these perceptions differentially impact school performance in K‐8 and middle school structures.

Data were collected using a sample of 628 teachers from 59 schools (17 K‐8 schools and 42 middle schools) in five different schools districts in Southern California. The proposed model was tested using structural equation modeling techniques.

The proposed model was determined to fit the data well. The theoretical and practical implications of the model concerning culture and school performance within the framework of educational management and school configuration are discussed.

This paper identifies educationally important aspects of teacher‐perceived cultural variables and how they impact school performance, and also it discusses the theoretical and practical implications of the proposed model.

This study examined the generalizability of a previously validated model concerning how student perceptions of school culture affect student achievement.

Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) data were collected from 1,026 eighth‐grade students in secondary schools on the island of Cyprus. The a priori proposed model concerning school culture and student achievement was tested using structural equation modeling techniques.

The proposed model was determined to fit the data reasonably well. These results indicate that achievement scores can be explained by students' perceptions of the school's cultural environment.

The theoretical and practical implications of the model concerning school culture and student achievement within the framework of educational management are discussed.

The current reform movement in education has significant implications for the development of future models of site‐level leadership. Much of the recent attention in the educational administration literature about necessary leadership qualities and the preparation of effective school principals, however, does not consider the relationship of such personal qualities of the leader to other contextual variables and socio‐political processes that may also influence principal behaviour. Current theoretical orientations and research on the principal as leader and suggestions for future research which will facilitate the preparation of effective school administrators are examined. The article rests on the belief that given the current demands for implementing school‐level reforms, perhaps too much in terms of leadership is being ascribed to one individual role.

Aims to extend internal labour market theory by identifying sub‐markets that influence administrative staffing decisions, and to test a theoretical model regarding the role of sub‐markets in explaining decisions to hire or promote. Hypothesizes that two latent dimensions (hierarchical and functional) of labour markets would explain these decisions. Analyses data from personnel records for position vacancies in a major university for three years 1982‐85 (n = 840), and confirms the fit of the theoretical model. Staffing decisions are directly influenced by characteristics associated with the sub‐markets of the position.

Notes that, while there have been periodic calls for comparative work in educational administration, few empirical studies have been designed specifically to compare principal leadership practices between contextual and cultural settings. Suggests that conducting such studies raises several conceptual and methodological problems with respect to underlying assumptions about knowledge, appropriate conceptualizations of principal leadership, and methods of inquiry. Proposes first to identify some of the salient conceptual and methodological issues involved in cross‐cultural research, and then to explore and elaborate on these issues in greater detail by investigating principal leadership across two cultural settings.

The purpose of this paper is to show how increasing teacher effectiveness is central to school efforts to improve student outcomes. This study aims to examine successive teachers' effects on student achievement. The premise advanced is that teacher effectiveness is an individual resource that varies across classrooms within schools, as well as a collective resource that varies across schools.

The methods used represent an attempt to expand the scope of previous studies about ways in which schools affect student learning by examining a multilevel constellation of teacher‐related effects (e.g. classroom effectiveness, collective teaching quality, school academic organization) that can be changed to increase educational effectiveness. The sample consisted of 9,196 students, cross‐classified in 511 and 527 classrooms, and nested in 156 elementary schools.

First, the effectiveness of successive teachers was related to student achievement in reading and math. Second, collective teacher effectiveness, as an organizational property of schools, was positively associated with achievement levels. Third, the stability of the school's teaching staff and the quality of its academic organization and teaching processes were positively related to achievement levels.

Findings are consistent with studies that have found that differences in teacher effectiveness matter in explaining student achievement. They also suggest that teacher effects tend to accumulate within and between schools to provide noticeable academic advantage or disadvantage. The results imply promising avenues through which a leadership focus on hiring and retaining high‐quality teachers and facilitating improved academic processes can yield increased school effectiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between high school students' curricular positions, their perceptions of the quality of their teachers, and school academic process variables on students' growth rates and ending achievement in mathematics and science.

Multilevel latent curve modeling is used to examine students' growth trajectories using the National Longitudinal Educational Study data.

Within schools, both student curricular positions and perceptions of teacher quality affect growth and achievement. More positive student perceptions of their teachers ascending across course profiles are found. The effects of perceived teacher quality on growth rates and ending achievement, however, are more consequential for students in weaker academic profiles than in stronger profiles. Between schools, academic process variables also influence outcomes. For example, individuals in schools where students collectively pursue more math and science have significantly higher growth rates than individuals in schools where lower percentages of students take these courses.

The paper's measures of teacher quality and curricular differentiation only serve as proxy measures for more thorough information that can be collected about within‐school teacher and curricular processes.

The results imply that efforts to increase student achievement will have to attack individual (e.g. poverty; early educational experiences; and course taking) and organizational (i.e. school structural redesign, curricular, and instructional processes) fronts simultaneously.

This paper extends the discussion of how internal curricular differentiation and student perceptions about teacher quality may intersect to influence student growth trajectories within and between schools.