| The concept of instructional leadership, emerging out of the growing body of research that supports the importance of the principal in school reform (i.e. Marzano, 2003; Hallinger & Heck, 1998), has been pressed to the forefront of the course of study in many principal preparation programs. Instructional leadership focuses on the responsibility that the principal has in fostering student achievement (Blase & Blase, 1998). However, research in this area has typically focused on the theoretical perspectives of principals, school reform, effective schools, and instructional leadership behavior. Little is known about the knowledge required and specific behaviors for principals to engage across content areas. When principals, both pre-service and inservice, believe themselves to be instructional leaders, how are they ensuring that they possess the body of knowledge necessary to employ behaviors that foster leadership in instruction and curriculum? The relationship of the principal and teacher is extremely complex, particularly in dealing with instruction. Principals have many critical responsibilities but none eclipse those related to teaching and learning. Therefore, it is essential that they are well equipped with the appropriate instructional knowledge to lead in this area.;Using eight schools, this mixed-methods study investigated educational leaders' body of knowledge in the area of reading. With a sample of nine educational leaders, 31 teachers and 499 students, it examined the relations between this body of knowledge, teachers' knowledge, and student achievement. Additionally, it explored where educational leaders are gaining their knowledge and their perceptions of what specific content knowledge is essential to successful instructional leadership. Current policy legislation, historical changes in conceptualizations of the role of the principal, relationships with teachers and principals, and theories of instructional leadership provide a framework for this study, creating an investigation that adds to the body of knowledge on principal preparation and licensure, as well as characteristics of effective principals and schools.;Data were gathered through contextualized measures of principal domain knowledge of reading, teacher domain knowledge of reading, and student achievement in reading. Follow-up interviews were collected to further consider the perceptions and beliefs of principals surrounding domain knowledge of reading.;Data were analyzed using complementary methods: descriptive and hierarchical modeling for quantitative research questions, and the phenomenological approach for qualitative research questions. Though the predictive nature of principal domain knowledge was not statistically significant, there were trends that stressed the importance of this knowledge for principals. The correlation between principal domain knowledge and student achievement, though positive, was not statistically significant. Additionally, the correlation between principal domain knowledge and teacher domain knowledge, also positive, was not statistically significant. However, higher principal knowledge was associated with larger growth in student achievement. Higher teacher knowledge was also associated with larger growth in student achievement. When looking at the interaction between principal knowledge and teacher knowledge as it relates to student achievement, results showed this interaction to be such that if principals have low domain knowledge, then teacher knowledge is the greatest factor in predicting student achievement. If principals have high domain knowledge, teacher knowledge becomes less important in predicting student achievement outcomes and principal knowledge becomes the greatest prediction factor. These findings suggest that increasing educational leaders' domain knowledge may be a useful concept to include in professional development and principal preparation programs to ensure that all students make sufficient growth in reading throughout the school year.;Previous research on educational leaders' knowledge as it relates to instructional leadership has concentrated mostly on theory, specifically those theories of leadership, organization, and reform. Further, research has shown that there is a positive correlation between the specific body of knowledge for teachers, defined as the applied understanding of a small set of content related topics, and student achievement (McCutchen, Abbott & Green, 2002; Moats, 1999). Perhaps the level of knowledge that teachers hold is related to how much knowledge a principal has in a specific area. Or conceivably it is not specific content area knowledge that is related to how much knowledge a teacher has, but rather, the ability to provide direction and leadership or seek answers in that particular content area. I speculate that there is a specific component of domain knowledge necessary for principals to effectively influence teacher practices and student achievement. |
