Instructional Leadership of School Heads in The New Normal: Basis For Enhancement Program

Abstract

The study aimed to assess the instructional leadership of school heads in the new normal in the Division of Rizal during the school year 2020 - 2021. This study is limited to the public secondary school heads in the Division of Rizal. The researcher selects forty (40) school heads as the respondents of the study. Purposive sampling technique was used in determining the respondents. The study used the descriptive survey research utilizing the researcher made instrument. The instrument consisted of the instructional leadership of school heads in the new normal as assessed by themselves in terms of instructional resources provider, maintain visible presence, professional development, maximize instructional time, and monitoring students’ progress. The study found out that in general, most (f=20, 50.0 percent) of the public secondary school heads are 6 – 10 years in service and majority (f= 23, 57.5 percent) of them have units in Doctorate degree. In general, level of instructional leadership of school heads in the new normal as assessed by themselves in terms of instructional resources provider, maintain visible presence, teachers’ professional development, maximize instructional time, and monitoring students’ progress is Highly Evident. It may mean that the school heads are greatly responsible in developing professional seminars that can hone teachers’ knowledge and competence in making instructional resources for learners. Also, it was statistically found out that there is a significant difference between the level of instructional leadership of school heads in the new normal with respect to maximize instructional time and monitoring students’ progress in terms of their length of service as a school head and educational attainment, since the obtained p-value of 0.00 does not exceed at 0.05 level of significance, thus the null hypothesis is rejected. It simply shows that school administrators working experience and educational attainment matters in their instructional time and monitoring students’ progress that could help them in leading the organization to its success. It can be concluded that majority of the school heads are in the middle of their professional career in leading and managing the school resources and quite close to the advanced professional degrees that demonstrate mastery in a particular subject area. The instructional leadership of school heads in the new normal is highly evident in terms of instructional resources provider, maintain visible presence, teachers’ professional development, maximize instructional time, and monitoring students’ progress. The maximize instructional time and monitoring students’ progress are directly affected by the school heads’ length of service and educational attainment. Meanwhile, the instructional resources provider, maintain visible presence, and teachers’ professional development are inversely affected by the school administrators’ length of service and educational attainment

Introduction

I. INTRODUCTION

School leadership and management at this time of pandemic is indeed needed the traditional school leadership responsibilities such as educators assessment and evaluation, allocating, scheduling, and facilities maintenance with a deep involvement with specific aspects of teaching and learning. Effective instructional leaders are intently associated in planning and evaluation of educational and instructional challenges that absolutely affect student achievement.

Globally, scholars agree that instructional leadership is one of the most useful tools for creating an effective teaching and learning environment. According to Manaseh (2016) stipulated that among other responsibilities, school heads would be in charge and manage the educational activities in ensuring the quality education in the teaching and learning process, time management for the classroom program and to ensure an effective and efficient teaching and learning process to take place. Instructional leadership is an educational management that prioritize the main role of the school in the teaching and learning, by defining the school vision, mission, and goals, leading the educational activities and developing the conducive school climate.

In addition, DepEd Memorandum No. 5, series 2020 stated that the professional development priorities shall support the realization of the Department of Education’s ultimate goal of proving quality education through continual improving and developing of professional development of teachers, educators and school principals and leaders that helps in the betterment of the learning performance and outcomes. Thus, the role of school heads in improving not only for teacher quality but for school improvement are now clearly defined with the professional development priorities that set professional standards for the country’s school leaders. Moreso, in Republic Act. 9155 also known as the Governance of Basic Education Act of 2001 stated that school heads as instructional leaders should take responsibility, authority, and accountability in creating an school environment that is favorable on imparting knowledge and skills; administering the institutional programs and activities and being responsible for the improvement of the performance of the learners; improving the educational programs as well as the school improvement plans and goals; providing school activities, programs, projects, and resources which promotes equal access and opportunities for all learners in the community; introducing new and innovative modes of instructional to achieve higher learning outcomes; encouraging staff development; establishing school and community network. Indeed, the instructional leadership practices of school leaders before are quite different from that of today.

In addition, Briones (2020) mentioned that the changes of different local and international educational structure and the continuous improvement of 21st century learners is indeed a call for the reevaluation of the professional standards for school heads. She added that quality of learning outcomes is produced by quality of teachers, who are supported by effective school leaders. Thus, ensuring the delivery of quality education requires clear professional standards and instructional leadership attributes and practices of school heads that are responsive to the demands of the dynamic education environment.

In the 21st century, teaching and learning processes need new strategies and a new mindset. With the ever-increasing needs of today’s educational modernization, the improvement in the system of education requires to put in order and assure that education seeks to provide the best 21st-century education to future generations. However, planning of these various changes will not be effective if the school leaders doesn’t have the ability to manage efficiently. Competent school leaders with instructional leadership abilities are anticipated to assist the institution to achieve the goals of the country’s education transformation, while the ineffective and inefficient school leaders in management are likely to thwart this great agenda (Ibrahim, 2017).

In the Philippines, there were reports that few school heads were not able to come up with that what is expected from them. Some are not doing their job description as a school head. Sometimes, their roles and obligations are delegated and distributed to the coordinators and teachers. Sometimes, they neglect their most important job which is the supervision instruction because they are so busy with paper works especially in liquidating the Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses (MOOE). Likewise, other school leaders were too focused on preparing instructional materials to enhanced and improved their schools and did not prioritized the main goal of the department to have a quality education to learners by continuously improving teachers, evaluating for learners, adapting, and implementing activities for school enhancement, and managing instructional program.

These are the reasons why the researcher was motivated to assess the instructional leadership of school heads in the New Normal. The findings of the study could be the basis for enhancement program for school heads to strengthen their instructional leadership in leading the organization.

The study is based on instructional theory which provides explicit guidance on how to better help people learn and succeed. Instructional theory put emphasis on preparation of Instructional Materials for the improvement of the teaching and learning process. This theory identifies and ensure the educational leader’s function which is improving the performance of teachers. In that manner, teachers have the ability to enhanced, improved the skills for Professional Development. With that, teachers can learn and develop, teach effectively, maximize student learning, and increase achievement.

Based on the theory presented, a conceptual framework was designed to give direction and emphasis to the study. The conceptual model used in the study is the Combs’ System Approach which is shown in figure 1 signifies the three elements in designing the Input, Process and Output (IPO).

Frame 1 represents the input of the study which comprises of forty (40) school head-respondents from selected secondary schools in the Division of Rizal who assessed the level of instructional leadership of school heads in the new normal as assessed by themselves in terms of instructional resources provider, maintain visible presence, teachers’ professional development, maximize instructional time, and monitoring students’ progress. More so, Frame 2 refers to the process which includes the development and validation of the instrument; modification of the instrument on the level of instructional leadership of school heads in the new normal as assessed by themselves in terms of instructional resources provider, maintain visible presence, teachers’ professional development, maximize instructional time, and monitoring students’ progress; administration and retrieval of instrument; and tabulation, analysis, and interpretation of data to assess the difference between the level of instructional leadership of school heads in the new normal as assessed by themselves in terms of instructional resources provider, maintain visible presence, teachers’ professional development, maximize instructional time, and monitoring students’ progress in terms of their profile.

Frame 3 consists of the expected output of the study which is the enhancement program to further strengthen the instructional leadership of public secondary school heads in the Division of Rizal. Finally, the three frames are connected by a straight line to indicate the relationship between the input, process, and output. The arrow connecting the output and input provides feedback mechanism which indicates that there is a continuous process, which means that it is open for improvement and modification just in case there are still feedbacks and suggestions based on the result and findings of the research.

This study aimed to assess the instructional leadership of school heads in the new normal in the Division of Rizal during the school year 2020 - 2021. The findings of the study served as basis for enhancement plan in the improvement of school heads’ instructional leadership.  Specifically, this study sought to answer the following sub – problems: 1) What is the profile of the respondents in terms of length of service as a school head, and educational attainment? 2) What is the level of instructional leadership of school heads in the new normal as assessed by themselves in terms of instructional resources provider, maintain visible presence, teachers’ professional development, maximize instructional time, and monitoring students’ progress? 3) Is there a significant relationship between the level of instructional leadership of school heads in the new normal in terms of their profile? and 4) Based from the findings of the study, what enhancement program may be proposed?

This study tested the hypothesis that there is no significant relationship between the level of instructional leadership of school heads in the new normal in terms of their profile.

This study is designed to benefit the following: School Administrators may serve as an eye opener for them to realize their roles in improving the performance of the school as well as for the teachers. Teachers may be able to awaken their understanding on how to help their school heads to attain the improvement of the school especially in achieving quality of learning. Researchers may pursue hybrid studies in line with the competencies of school heads and its relation to job satisfaction of teachers.

This study is limited to the public secondary school heads in the Division of Rizal. The researcher selects forty (40) school heads as the respondents of the study. Purposive sampling technique was used in determining the respondents. The study used the descriptive survey research utilizing the researcher made instrument. The instrument consisted of the instructional leadership of school heads in the new normal as assessed by themselves in terms of instructional resources provider, maintain visible presence, professional development, maximize instructional time, and monitoring students’ progress.

In order for the intended readers to fully understand the paper, the research has given both the conceptual and operational definition of the terms used in this paper.

1. Instructional Leadership: This refers to the leadership attributes of school heads that can contribute to superior performance. Also, this represents assessment of learning, developing programs &/or adapting existing programs, and instructional supervision.
2. Instructional Resources Provider: This refers to the school heads who provide a service to teachers’ fundamental instructional needs by delivering resources and materials.
3. Maintain Visible Presence: This refers to the school heads who are always visible in all aspects of the school and consistent with maintaining visible presence to supervise and evaluate instructions.
4. Maximize Instructional Time: It refers to time schedule d for purposes of instruction, examinations/ testing guidelines, and other student activities where direct students teacher communication and supervision.
5. Monitoring Students’ Progress: This refers to managing the process and procedures in monitoring learner’s achievement, ensuring the utilization of a range of assessment process to assess learner performance, assessing effectiveness of curricular and co-curricular programs and instructional strategies used by teachers.
6. Teachers’ Professional Development: This refers to the programs of school heads to offer and give advance professional development chances to enhance teachers’ instructional skills.

II. METHODOLOGY

This section presents the research design, locale, sample and sampling technique, research instrument, data gathering procedure, statistical treatment of data, and ethical consideration.

This study utilized the impact evaluation method of research. According to Rogers (2017) impact evaluation provides information about the impacts produced by an intervention - positive and negative, intended, and unintended, direct and indirect. This means that an impact evaluation must establish what has been the cause of observed changes (in this case ‘impacts’) referred to as causal attribution (also referred to as causal inference). The researcher utilized this method since the study assessed the level of instructional leadership of school heads in the new normal as assessed by themselves in terms of instructional resources provider, maintain visible presence, teachers’ professional development, maximize instructional time, and monitoring students’ progress.

The study conducted in the Division of Rizal. The researcher selects forty (40) public secondary schools based on the population of teachers. More so, the subjects of the study were the institutions in the Division of Rizal which are highly recognized in different pedagogical categories, both in academic and extra-curricular activities.

The respondents of the study were the forty (40) selected public secondary schools in the Division of Rizal. The researcher selects forty (40) school heads as the respondents of the study. The non-probability sampling especially the purposive sampling technique was used in selecting the respondents who assessed the level of instructional leadership of school heads in the new normal in terms of instructional resources provider, maintain visible presence, teachers’ professional development, maximize instructional time, and monitoring students’ progress.

 The study utilized a researcher-made instrument. The instrument was digital driven through the google form as the major tool of the study. The instrument was used to gather necessary data on the level of instructional leadership of school heads in the new normal in terms of instructional resources provider, maintain visible presence, teachers’ professional development, maximize instructional time, and monitoring students’ progress in the Division of Rizal. The instrument includes: Part 1 – This section determines the profile of the respondents. Part 2 – This section determines the level of instructional leadership of school heads in the new normal in terms of instructional resources provider, maintain visible presence, teachers’ professional development, maximize instructional time, and monitoring students’ progress.

The four (4) point scale below shows the range for level of instructional leadership of school heads in the new normal in terms of instructional resources provider, maintain visible presence, teachers’ professional development, maximize instructional time, and monitoring students’ progress.

Data collected in this study, follows the standard operating procedures. The instrument used in the study was submitted to the adviser in order to gather initial comments and suggestions for the improvement of the questionnaire checklist. After revision of the instrument had been made, the researcher’s made instrument was validated by the experts with the reasonable background in test construction and on the topic to comment on its content for the finalization of the items to be included in the instrument. Upon completion of the content validation form, permission from the office of the principals was sought by the researcher to administer the instrument to the respondents. Then, immediate retrieval of the instrument was done.

The following statistical tools used in this study. To determine the profile of the respondents; frequency and percentage distribution were used. To determine the level of instructional leadership of school heads in the new normal in terms of instructional resources provider, maintain visible presence, teachers’ professional development, maximize instructional time, and monitoring students’ progress.; mean was utilized. To find out if there is a significant difference between the level of instructional leadership of school heads in the new normal in terms of their profile; ANOVA was utilized. In addition, the results gathered from the instrument and the performance of the pupils were treated and interpreted using the appropriate statistical tools mentioned above.

The following were the ethical considerations observed by the researcher to ensure the integrity of the research process:

1. Informed consent of the participants and respondents had been obtained before involving them in the study;
2. Members of the sample group had not been subjected to coercion in any way;
3. Privacy of the research respondents had been ensured, so that no personal data were collected from the respondents;
4. Research respondents had been debriefed about the aims and objectives of the study before the primary data collection process;
5. Works that do not belong to the author of this paper had been acknowledged using APA referencing system in an appropriate format;
6. Analysis of data was filtered through the researcher’s particular theoretical position and biases;
7. In case of harm inflicted by the researcher, the research was held responsible, and
8. Top priority and confidentiality was maintained at all times during the conduct of the study.

III. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS

This section briefly presents the results, analysis, and interpretation of the data gathered based on the problems presented in the research.

1. Profile Of The Respondents With Respect To Length Of Service As A School Head And Educational Attainment

It can be surmised from the table that in terms of length of service of the respondents, most (f=20, 50.0 percent) of the public and private school heads are 6 – 10 years in service; followed by several (f=12, 30.0 percent) of the school heads are 5 years and below in service; some (f=4, 10.0 percent) of them are 11 – 15 years in service; and few (f=3, 7.5 percent) of them are 16 – 20 years in the service. One of the school administrators has served 21 years and above in the service. It may mean that most of the school head-respondents are in the middle of their career in leading and managing the curriculum, instructional, and administrative to achieve high academic standards of the school.

In terms of educational attainment of the school administrator-respondents, majority (f= 23, 57.5 percent) of them have units in Doctorate degree; some (f=14, 35.0 percent) of them earned Doctorate degree, and several (f=3, 7.5 percent) have earned their Masters. The data implies that majority of school administrators are quite close to the advanced professional degrees that demonstrate mastery in a particular subject area.

2. Level Of Instructional Leadership Of School Heads In The New Normal

It implies that effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked, but a true leadership is defined by results of their performance in supervising and giving technical assistance to teachers in making instructional resources that may lead to improvement of students’ learning.

This is consistent with the findings of Usman (2016) stated that the goal and objectives of an educational institution can be achieved without putting in place certain mechanisms towards ensuring the success of such institutions.

In the school system, part of the integral pre-requisites to be put in place towards the actualization of the educational goal and objectives requires adequate provision of resources, maximum utilization and appropriate management of education resources to avoid wastages and improve the quality of the teaching - learning process in the academic environment. This paper therefore examined the concept of school administration and education resources, classification of education resources, relevance of education resources in the school system, challenges associated with the availability and utilization of resources in the school. Solutions were adduced on how to overcome the identified challenges so as to ensure effective and efficient management of available resources in the school system.

 It may mean that the school heads manifested great instructional leadership in maintaining visible presence in virtual classes, school activities, meetings, and teacher’s observation.  It implies that school heads had great instructional leadership attributes in maintaining visible presence that can make the organization progressive and it can provides a feeling among the stakeholders of reliability from the school heads.

The findings is in parallel with the result of Rehman (2019) explored school heads’ perceptions regarding their school leadership styles. The study adopted a qualitative research design. The sample of the study consisted of 10 male and 10 female head teachers from Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews. Findings revealed that school heads adopted a number of leadership styles. The main leadership styles included instructional leadership, transformational leadership and moral leadership. These different leadership styles were adopted keeping in view the needs of different situations that heads found themselves working in. The study has important implications for school management, schoolteachers, researchers, and policy makers.

This implies that school heads had great instructional leadership practices in providing professional trainings and seminars for teachers that can lead to productive and manageable working environment with teachers at all levels.

This goes with the findings of Badri (2016) that the perceived need for professional development activities, the most significant variation is observed with regard to public or private schools. With regard to the impact of those activities, male teachers almost consistently assign higher perceived impact scores than female teachers. Public schools also assign higher perceived impact scores for all activities that they participated in. However, female teachers assign significantly higher perceived barrier scores to five of the seven listed barriers to participating in professional development activities. The research has implications for professional development providers to ensure the effectiveness of professional development opportunities for educators.

The level of instructional leadership of school heads in the new normal as assessed by themselves in terms of maximize instructional time.

It implies that the school heads are exercising their duties and responsibilities in maximizing their time through technical assistance to teachers.

This goes with the findings of Manaseh (2016) said that instructional leadership (IL) can be one of the most useful tools for creating an effective teaching and learning environment. This paper investigates the instructional leadership practices engaged in by heads of secondary schools to enhance classroom instruction and students learning, particularly the way they manage the school instructional programme. The study findings confirm that HoSs, SAMs, teachers and students were not familiar with the concept of IL. On the other hand, the instructional programme was not effectively managed as heads of departments were not involved in curriculum coordination, syllabi were not covered on time, and HoSs did not undertake classroom observations or engage in review of curriculum materials. The paper, however, concludes that without an effective management of the instructional programme in favor of promoting teachers’ classroom instruction and students’ learning, efforts to that effect are doomed to fail.

The level of instructional leadership of school heads in the new normal as assessed by themselves in terms of monitoring students’ progress. It implies that the school heads are doing a great job in developing and nurturing their members into future leaders of the school in assessing learners’ progress.

The result is in consonance with the study of Cheung (2017) that leadership practices in effective schools can be grouped together around five dimensions: establishing goals and expectations; strategic resourcing; curriculum planning, coordination, and evaluation; promoting and participating in teacher supervision and development; ensuring order and support.

3. Significant Difference Between The Level Of Instructional Leadership Of School Heads In The New Normal In Terms Of Their Profile

The result of the significant difference between the level of instructional leadership of school heads in the new normal in terms of their profile.

It simply shows that school administrators working experience and educational attainment matters in their instructional time and monitoring students’ progress that could help them in leading the organization to its success.

However, the instructional resources provider, maintain visible presence, and teachers’ professional development of selected school heads are not significantly correlated in terms of their educational attainment and length of service, since the obtained p-value of 0.00 exceed at 0.05 level of significance, thus the null hypothesis is failed to reject.

It may mean that the instructional leadership of school heads are not affected by the length of service and educational attainment.

The result implies that the school administrators must invest and allocate an adequate amount for their professional development program as well as for all teachers in their jurisdiction to improve the school performance.

The findings are consonant to the study of Bitterova (2019) that that the practicing school leaders consider as the most significant competencies of a school leader profile in the four mentioned spheres of the management area competency to create motivational strategies based on shared values of the school, competency to create and develop learning environment effective for pupils and students` learning, competency to define clearly, distribute and delegate responsibilities and power scopes and tasks, and competency to lead and control colleagues, respectively.

IV. DISCUSSION

Following are the summary of findings obtained through the conduct of this study including the conclusions and recommendations formulated by the research.

A. Summary of Findings

1. Profile of the Respondents with Respect to Length of Service as a School Administrator and Educational Attainment: In general, most (f=20, 50.0 percent) of the public secondary school heads are 6 – 10 years in service and majority (f= 23, 57.5 percent) of them have units in Doctorate degree.
2. Level of Instructional Leadership of School Heads in the New Normal: In general, level of instructional leadership of school heads in the new normal as assessed by themselves in terms of instructional resources provider, maintain visible presence, teachers’ professional development, maximize instructional time, and monitoring students’ progress is Highly Evident. It may mean that the school heads are greatly responsible in developing professional seminars that can hone teachers’ knowledge and competence in making instructional resources for learners.
3. Significant Difference Between the Level of Instructional Leadership of School Heads in the New Normal in Terms of their Profile: It was revealed statistically that there is a significant difference between the level of instructional leadership of principal in the new normal with respect to maximize instructional evaluation and monitoring of learners’ progress in terms of their length of service as a school head and educational attainment, since the  p-value result and obtained is 0.00 which is less than the level of significance  of 0.05 level of significance, thus the null hypothesis is rejected. It simply shows that school administrators working experience and educational attainment matters in their instructional time and monitoring students’ progress that could help them in leading the organization to its success.

B. Conclusions

The following conclusions were formulated based on the findings presented:

1. Majority of the school heads are in the middle of their professional career in leading and managing the school resources and quite close to the advanced professional development that presents in depth knowledge in various subject areas.
2. The instructional leadership of school heads in the new normal is highly evident in terms of instructional resources provider, maintain visible presence, teachers’ professional development, maximize instructional time, and monitoring students’ progress.
3. The maximize instructional time and monitoring students’ progress are directly affected by the school heads’ length of service and educational attainment. Meanwhile, the instructional resources provider, maintain visible presence, and teachers’ professional development are inversely affected by the school administrators’ length of service and educational attainment.

V. PROPOSED ENHANCEMENT PROGRAM/ PLAN TO FURTHER STRENGTHEN THE INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERSHIP  OF SCHOOL HEADS

The following set of intervention programs, projects and activities are carefully selected, planned, and organized in order to map a plan which hopes to strengthen the instructional leadership of school heads.

References

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Copyright

Copyright © 2023 Jocelyn O. Rivera. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.