Abstract:

Principals’ leadership has been proved to have significant positive effects on student achievement, which is second only to classroom teaching. The effects of principal leadership also relate to teacher belief and commitment, collective teacher efficacy, school culture, as well as professional learning community. Similarly, professional learning community is acknowledged to be one of the effective ways to improve teaching and learning. A number of studies have proved its impact on teachers’ perception of efficacy or belief as well as teaching effectiveness. The relationship between teacher learning and student achievement has also been strongly established and reinforced.

While both principal leadership and teachers’ professional learning have been well-defined and systematically investigated in the past two decades, there are limited empirical research studies that link them together. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to examine the connection of principals’ leadership to teachers’ professional learning and development. Teacher learning in this study is defined in terms of the practices of continuous professional development, team collaborative learning, and collective enquiry of student achievement.

Drawing on the analysis of survey data collected in 2015 from the perception of 352 teachers from 14 secondary schools in Hong Kong, this paper particularly focuses on examining the relationship between principals’ leadership and teachers’ professional learning, and their effects on teachers’ efficacy.

This paper intends to address the following three research questions:
1. What are the existing practices of principals’ leadership that leads to teacher professional learning in Hong Kong secondary schools?
2. What is the relationship between principals’ leadership and teachers’ professional learning in terms of continuous professional development, team collaborative learning, and collective enquiry into student achievement?
3. What is the relationship between teacher professional learning and teacher efficacy?

The findings reveal that school goal setting and sharing as well as leadership for change have positive and significant effects on team collaborative learning and continuous professional development, in turn, both of which have direct and significant effects on teacher efficacy and teacher empowerment. Further, goal setting and sharing as well as leadership for change has direct and significant effect on teacher efficacy and teacher empowerment.

However, in the sampled secondary schools, collective enquiry into student achievement has no significant relationship with principals’ leadership and teachers’ efficacy. This suggests that the practice of collective enquiry is not common and such a culture has not been established yet. When the practice of collective enquiry is not common in teacher practice, there is a lack of collaborative culture. There arises a need to foster the core spirit of professional learning community. Otherwise, the enhancement of student achievement can hardly be achieved. This study sheds light on how principals can play a key role in leading teachers to a collective-enquiry approach into student learning and how to develop professional learning community in Hong Kong secondary schools.

Acknowledgement:
The work described in this paper was supported by a grant from the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (RGC Ref. No. CUHK 14408814).

Keywords:

School leadership, teacher learning, professional development, professional learning community, Hong Kong.