Abstract:

Knowledge-based society requires to increase the quality of schools. Distributed leadership which delegates some school management functions to teachers is nowadays the most recommended type of school leadership the task of which is to achieve school quality growth. However, one of the barriers to introducing distributed leadership in schools is the lack of both principals’ and teachers’ awareness of its benefits. Teacher mentality should be changed through special training to have them more involved in distributed leadership. The goal of the current paper was to assess this idea experimentally. A mixed-methods study was conducted. Two schools in Tbilisi, Georgia were involved, one was chosen at random as the experimental one (22 teachers), while the other as the control school (20 teachers). First, teachers at both schools were surveyed on their views on the distribution of roles at schools. A self-made 4-point Likert-scale questionnaire, also containing some multiple choice items, was piloted to provide its validity and reliability (r=0.86). Then, two-months training was conducted for the teachers in the experimental school. Later, for one semester they had to apply the obtained knowledge. Finally, a survey with the same questionnaire was applied in both schools to find out whether the training had the desirable impact. The assessment of awareness was made based on teachers’ self-assessment, while that of involvement combined the observers’ views and the teachers’ self-assessment was assessed based on observation rubric results. The results revealed that, while the experimental school teachers both became considerably more aware of the benefits of distributed leadership (M1=1.95 → M2=2.58) and became more involved in initiating school events and innovations (initially, 31.8% were to a certain degree involved in school management and finally 81.4% were actively involved), in the control school the situation remained practically the same after one semester (30% were involved at the beginning of the study and 35% at the end of the study). A conclusion was made that providing teacher training in distributed leadership is an efficient way to involve teachers in it. Such training both contributes to the change in their mentality and arms them with leadership strategies.

Keywords:

Teachers, principals, Education, development.