Chinese primary school teacher leadership behaviors: A mixed method study
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol10iss2pp59-81Abstract
Background and Purpose: Teacher leadership is an important aspect of school leadership and is an essential factor in teaching quality across levels and disciplines. However, there is a deficit in the literature that describes a comprehensive conception and enactment of leadership behaviors among primary school teachers in the Asian context, including that of China.
Methodology: This paper presents an explanatory sequential mixed methods study that examined and explored the enactment of teacher leadership behaviors through a cross-sectional survey of 650 and semi-structured interviews of 26 primary school teachers in Changsha, Hunan Province, China.
Findings: Rasch model analysis of quantitative data revealed the most and least frequently endorsed indicators in the five domains of teacher leadership behavior: promoting professional learning, focusing learning process, encouraging collegial collaboration, engaging school decision-making, and liaising with external affiliations. The same was confirmed with the themes generated from the qualitative results, including two emerging themes: being assigned additional work and setting professional goals.
Contributions: The study suggests the need to develop and strengthen primary school teacher leadership behaviors to cope and keep up with the rapidly changing educational landscape, including the associated high level of epistemic fluency required.
Keywords: Teacher leadership, primary school, Rasch model analysis, explanatory sequential mixed methods, mainland China.
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