How Do Principals’ Leadership Behaviors Affect Teachers’ Data-Informed Decision Making?

As educational informatization enters the 2.0 era,the Chinese government has adopted a series of policies to promote the integration of new technical means such as educational big data,artificial intelligence and meta universe into education and teaching;At the beginning of 2022,the Ministry of education clearly proposed to vigorously implement the digital strategy of basic education,strive to realize the deep integration of new technology and basic education teaching,and promote the high-quality development of education.Using data to drive the modernization of school governance has been regarded as an important idea to improve the development of school quality,which essentially requires the formation of effective practice of using data to support teaching in schools.Among them,teachers’ use of data to support teaching decision-making is the core of data-driven school governance,and an important way to enhance the scientificity of teaching practice and improve the quality of education.At present,the use of data by teachers in teaching decision-making is limited,such as the lack of in-depth analysis of data in teaching decision-making.The reason is that on the one hand,teachers’ data literacy is insufficient,on the other hand,the mechanism and environment supporting teachers to use data for teaching decision-making are insufficient.As the key engine of school development,principals are an important force to promote school data-based teaching and use data to improve school running;However,in reality,there is a lack of corresponding attention and in-depth discussion on what kind of leadership practice principals need and how to give full play to their leadership to support teachers to use data to improve teaching.Based on the literature review,this study constructs the research framework of this study by referring to the existing data-driven teaching decision-making model,teaching decision-making theory and the key points of educational leadership theory.In order to deeply explore the practical impact of principals’ leadership behavior on Teachers’ decision-making using data,this study selects a middle school in Chongqing City as the research object for a case survey,and specifically discusses the following research questions: first,what is the implementation status of teachers’ use of data to support teaching decision-making? Second,how does the headmaster influence teachers’ teaching decisions using data through his leadership behavior? Based on the selected cases,this study conducted semi-structured interviews with a total of 11 principals,teachers and education managers of the case school,and conducted non participatory observation on the actual classroom teaching,collected relevant data and policy texts in-depth teaching situations;In addition,a questionnaire survey was conducted among all teachers in the case school.Focusing on the research problems,this paper makes content analysis and descriptive statistical analysis on the research data collected through the above methods.This study has a more comprehensive grasp of the reality of the school teachers’ use of data to carry out teaching decision-making practice and the principal’s leadership practice of promoting teachers to carry out data-based teaching.This study found that the reality of teachers’ decision-making using data is:(1)teachers can integrate data into the three links of decision-making to support the development of teaching activities,but the depth of practice needs to be improved;(2)Teachers’ use of data to support decision-making can not only effectively promote teachers’ growth,but also have a significant impact on students’ training and improving the level and quality of teaching management;(3)In the process of using data,there are some unclear practical obstacles,such as teachers’ inner resistance,school information platform to be optimized,teachers’ lack of time and energy,increasing teaching workload and pressure.This study also found that the principal of the school plays a vital role in building the school’s data-based teaching support system.Through his own leadership practice,the principal encourages and supports teachers to use data to improve teaching and improve teaching quality.Specifically,it includes the following four aspects of leadership behavior:(1)vision guidance.Clearly convey to teachers a clear vision of relevant data supporting the development of the school,formulate specific strategic plans and objectives,establish the practice path of data use,and build the relevant institutional guarantee for teachers’ use of data.(2)Provide resources.Actively build a school-based data analysis and application management system,ensure the financial fund supply for teachers to use data to carry out teaching innovation practice,and make full use of social intellectual resources to support teachers to implement data-based teaching decision-making and practice.(3)Cultivate teachers’ ability.We have actively built a dual teacher ability support system of "combining inside and outside school",providing diversified ways to cultivate teachers’ data-based decision-making ability and data literacy.(4)Create a cultural atmosphere.Pay attention to cultivating an environmental atmosphere of cooperation and trust,emphasize the development orientation of data supporting teaching improvement,empower teachers,and actively give play to the role model and demonstration effect of data use,so as to create a cultural environment conducive to data use on campus.The analysis of this study shows that although X Middle School has had corresponding consciousness in promoting the integration of data into teaching decision-making,and has made preliminary attempts and exploration,on the whole,teachers’ implementation of data-based decision-making is still in the early stage of practice.Teachers’ practical power mainly comes from the one-way administrative promotion of the principal and his leading team,and teachers’ consciousness of data use has not yet been formed;Therefore,principals play a strong leadership function through specific leadership practice and play an important role in promoting teachers’ use of data.There is a significant impact relationship between principals’ leadership behavior and teachers’ digital decision-making practice.Principals’ relevant leadership practice will affect teachers’ attitude,cognition,skills and continuous practice trend of data use.Specifically reflected in the following impact paths:(1)the principal of the school has influenced teachers’ attitude and cognition towards digital teaching decision-making by setting up the school development vision of integrating educational big data into education and teaching.Most teachers in the case school gradually agree to use new technical means such as educational data in teaching decision-making;(2)By providing resource platform and developing teachers’ ability to use data to support teaching,the principal affects teachers’ practical ability of digital teaching decision-making,and then improves the level and quality of teachers’ decision-making.The president of the school comprehensively replaced the traditional classroom teaching equipment in the classroom and urged teachers to use information technology for teaching;At the same time,teachers’ professional development activities in schools have increased the learning of information technology and educational big data means;(3)By creating a campus cultural atmosphere in which the whole school vigorously promotes educational informatization,the president imperceptibly affects the continuous practice of teachers’ using data to support teaching decision-making.Combined with the current development stage of promoting informatization and the deep integration of educational data into teaching in X Middle School,the school principal’s leadership function in providing informatization data platform support and promoting the development of teachers’ digital teaching decision-making ability has a prominent impact on Teachers’ using data for teaching decision-making.Based on the above analysis,this study proposes a leadership optimization scheme to further optimize the school to promote teachers’ use of data for teaching decision-making.Firstly,at the level of principals,principals need to strengthen their leadership practice in the following aspects:(1)adjust the existing school running plan,provide systematic "data use time",ensure the time investment of teachers in using data,and then improve the quality of decision-making;(2)Promote the in-depth combination of teaching evaluation tools and educational standards.Further promote the connection between evaluation tools and regional and school talent training objectives,fully tap the potential of educational evaluation tools in decision-making,and give full play to their great value in teaching diagnosis,teaching scheme formulation and so on.(3)Grasp the conflict and balance between data openness and data security.While actively promoting the openness and sharing of data,ensure data security,and build a sustainable data security protection system for teachers to use data and schools to effectively carry out data management.(4)Gradually deepen the logical connection between principals’ leadership and teachers’ use of data.The principal should play an exemplary role in promoting the use of data and provide more targeted and direct support for teachers’ use of data.Secondly,in order to further ensure the internal governance of school data and achieve the long-term goal of improving teaching quality,it is also necessary for regional teaching administrative departments to build a broader support system to promote the development of data fusion teaching,so as to provide environmental protection for principals to play their leadership role and promote teachers’ data-based teaching practice.The specific suggestions are as follows: first,coordinate regional intellectual and technical resources and provide professional support to principals,Ensure the effectiveness of school data governance;The second is to weaken the school accountability mode oriented by entering a higher school,and provide reform space to support teachers and principals to carry out relevant digital teaching reform and explore practice.