Best Practices in Educational Management and Leadership: Identifying High Impact Competencies for Malaysian School Principals

co-authored with Dr. Amin Senin, Abd. Razak A. M., Rosnarizah A. H.

Competency of a leader is vital in setting the direction of an organization, especially when the organization is a school. Competency is a measurable characteristic of a person that is related to effective performance in a specific job, organization or culture. Specific competencies of a school leader are needed in ensuring that the school under his or her care is achieving and continue to achieve. In this paper, the word ‘competency’ is defined as a measurable characteristic of a person that is related to effective performance in a specific job, organization or culture. In this context, Institut Aminuddin Baki (IAB), Ministry of Education, Malaysia has developed a Growth-Oriented Training and Development (GOTD) framework, High Impact Training Initiatives (HITI) and Leadership Competency Assessment (LCA) in its attempt to produce high impact school leaders. To operationalize these frameworks, IAB has developed an instrument (KOMPAS©) to evaluate headteachers’ competencies based on six domains namely; Policy and Direction, Instructional and Achievement, Change and Innovation, People and Relationship and Resources and Operation. In this study, IAB administered the  KOMPAS© instrument throughout the country to  315 school principals and 140 Ministry of Education Officers . The instrument used in this has a value of α-Cronbach of 0.96 . The result of the research shows that the high impact competencies for school principals in Malaysia are  Quality Focus,Curriculum Focus, Problem Solving, Decision Making, Managing Change, Financial Management, ICT Management and Performance Management.

Best Practices in Educational Management and Leadership: Identifying High Impact Competencies for Malaysian School Principals

co-authored with Dr. Amin Senin, Abd. Razak A. M., Rosnarizah A. H.

School principals’ self-efficacy and its relationship with Schools’ and principals’ personal attributes.

Appeared in the Thirteenth Annual International Conference on Advances in Management Proceeding. 2006.

The purpose of this study was to develop a scale measuring school principal’s self-efficacy and also to explore its relationship with schools’ and principals’ personal attributes. In the first stage of the study, 40 school principals were invited to provide written description of a number of challenging and difficult tasks, problems and decisions that they had confronted in managing school. Responses from the 40 principals generated a total of 45 problem situations. These problems were then converted into 58 items likert-type scale and named as Malaysian School Principal Self-efficacy Scale (MaSPSES). Experts in the fields of psychology, measurement, and school management were invited to review and validate the scale. In the second stage of the study, the scale was administered to 110 school principals. These principals were participants of school management course conducted by Institut Aminuddin Baki, Ministry of Education Malaysia. Exploratory factor analytic procedures with varimax rotation were used to determine the structure of the scale. Six components were extracted: managing academic success, managing staff, managing pupil affairs, managing school facilities, managing school finance, and managing school-community affairs. Cronbach alpha was used to measure the reliabilities for each sub-scale. Reliability coefficients for managing academic success was r = .987, managing staff (r = .942), managing pupil affairs (r = .920), managing school facilities (r = .787), managing school finance (r = .823), and managing school-community affairs (r = .719). School’s attributes were measured by pupil enrolment and school-type. Whereas, principal’s attributes were age, tenure, number of posts held prior to principalship appointment, and peer-support. Statistics used in the study were eta, biserial, and point biserial correlations, and means comparison. It was found that pupil enrolment was related with principal’s efficacy on managing academic success (rb = - .236, p < .05), managing staff (rb = -.193, p < .05), managing pupil affairs (rb = -.311, p < .05), managing school facilities (rb = -.259, p < .05), and school-community affairs (rb = -.289, p < .05). Peer-support was found to be significantly correlated with managing school-community affairs (rpb = - .210, p < .05). While number of post held prior to principalship appointment was positively related with principal’s efficacy on managing school facilities (r = .255, p < .05). It was concluded that higher pupil population had negative impact on principal efficacy on managing academic success, managing staff, managing pupil affairs, managing school facilities, and school-community affairs. Whereby peer-support was only related to principal efficacy on handling school-community affairs. Interestingly, the number of post held prior to principalship appointment was only positively related to principal efficacy on managing school facilities, and the age of principals did not related to any of the principals self-efficacy subscale.

Perkaitan Antara Kepimpinan Instruksional Terhadap Sekolah Berkesan

Co-authored with Rusmini K. A.; Abang Hut  A. E.; & Zamri A. B.

Kajian ini dijalankan bertujuan untuk meneroka perkaitan antara amalan kepimpinan instruksional guru besar dengan sekolah berkesan. Sekolah berkesan diukur dengan pembolehubah-pembolehubah efikasi kolektif guru, kompetensi guru dan iklim organisasi sekolah. Sampel seramai 104  orang guru daripada 12 buah sekolah rendah dalam daerah Kubang Pasu, Kedah yang dipilih secara rawak terlibat dalam kajian ini. Instrumen Principal Instructional Management Rating Scale – Teacher Form Versi 2 (Hallinger, 2000), Skala Efikasi Kolektif, CES (Goddard, 2001), Teacher Competency  (Rusmini,2006) dan  Inventori Kesejahteraan Sekolah - Rendah (OHI-E) (Hoy, Tarter, & Kottkamp, 1991) ditadbirkan ke atas guru-guru. Teknik ‘Structural Equation Modeling’ digunakan bagi mencari perkaitan antara kepimpinan instruksional dengan ciri-ciri sekolah berkesan dengan menggunakan program AMOS. Manakala statistik min dan sisihan piawai digunakan bagi mengukur dimensi-dimensi kepimpinan instruksional.  Hasil kajian menunjukkan kepimpinan instruksional guru besar mempunyai perkaitan yang signifikan dengan iklim sekolah (r=.74, p<.05), efikasi kolektif guru (r=.09, p<.05) dan kompetensi guru (r=.18, p<.05). Juga didapati bahawa guru besar dalam sekolah kajian menunjukkan mereka mengamalkan prinsip-prinsip kepimpinan instruksional dengan baik seperti yang ditunjukkan oleh skor min dan sisihan piawai bagi setiap dimensi kepimpinan instruksional iaitu ‘penetapan matlamat sekolah’( =4.03, s=.71), ‘hebahan matlamat sekolah’ ( =4.06, s=.62), ‘menyelia dan menilai pengajaran’ ( =3.90, s=.60), ‘mengelola kurikulum’ ( =.395, s=.61), ‘memantau kemajuan murid’ ( =3.84, s=.63), ‘melindungi masa pengajaran’ ( =3.62, s=.71), ‘sentiasa kelihatan’ ( =3.46, s=.72), ‘memberi insentif kepada guru’ ( =3.48, s=.72), ‘menggalakkan pembangunan profesional’ ( =3.89, s=.68), dan ‘memberi insentif kepada murid’ ( =3.84, s=.72). Skor maksimum bagi setiap dimensi ialah 5 dan minimum 1.

The influence of headmasters’ self-efficacy and emotional intelligence towards teachers’ collective efficacy and school organizational climate

Presented at IPSI International Conference in Pescara, Italy, 2005

This study was carried out to explore the influence of headmaster’s attributes towards effective schools. The headmaster’s attributes being studied were their self-efficacy and emotional intelligence. Whereas, the attributes of effective school being studied were teachers’ collective efficacy and school organizational climate. The unit of analysis for headmasters attributes was headmaster, and the unit of analysis for effective school attributes was school. A sample of 158 headmasters and 787 teachers from 158 primary schools in Kedah were randomly selected for this study. Primary School Management Efficacy Scale, SEPSeR (Sazali, Zurida, & Mustapa, 2002) and Emotional Competency Inventory – Version 2, ECI-V2 (Boyatzis, Goleman, & Hay Group, 1999) instruments were administered to the headmasters. Whereas, Collective Efficacy Scale, CES (Goddard, 2001) and Organizational Health Inventory – Elementary, OHI-E (Hoy, Tarter, & Kottkamp, 1991) instruments were administered to the teachers. CES and OHI-E scores for every teacher in each school were aggregated to give school’s scores. Factor Analysis statistic was performed to determine the number of factors of SEPSeR instrument which was specially developed for this study. Step by Step Multiple Regression statistic was used to determine the influence of headmasters’ self-efficacy and emotional intelligence towards teachers’ collective efficacy and school organizational climate. It was found that headmasters with high self-efficacy were able to influence teachers’ collective efficacy, and all aspects of school organizational climate except teacher affiliation aspect. Headmasters’ emotional intelligence was found to have influence on all aspects of school organizational climate. However, it was found that teachers’ collective efficacy was not influenced by  headmasters’ emotional intelligence. Specifically, the social awareness cluster of emotional intelligence was found to have influence on institutional integrity and resource influence aspects of school organizational climate. Whereas, the social skill cluster of emotional intelligence was found to have influence on 3 out of 5 aspects of school organizational climate, that is, collegial leadership, teacher affiliation, and academic emphasis. It is proposed that future studies should measure the headmasters’ emotional intelligence from various sectors of assessor rather than from one source of self-reporting only. And also the study should focus on how the headmasters’ self-efficacy influenced the teachers’ collective efficacy and school organizational climate, and how headmasters’ emotional intelligence influenced the school organizational climate.

The relationship between headmaster’s competency and school success

Presented at 1st Regional Conference on Educational Leadership and Management, 2009

The aim of this study was mainly to explore the correlation between headmasters’ competency and school success.  The school success was determined using the ‘Primary School Assessment Test (UPSR) School Average Grade (GPS)’ and ‘School Finance Efficiency (SFE)’ as indicators. SFE was used as indicator to determine whether the school received admonition by School Audit Unit of State Education Department in a duration of three years from 2006 to 2008. Beside exploring the relationship between headmasters’s competency and GPS and SFE, the study also wanted to investigate the differences in self-rating and senior assistants rating of headmasters’ competency. Headmasters’ competency was measured using KOMPAS instrument (IAB, 2008) which comprised 26 specific competencies. The study used a quantitative method using survey as data collection technique. Collection of data was done in four districts in Kedah and Sabah involving 100 primary schools using convenient sampling technique. Measurement of headmasters’ competencies was gathered from two sources; self-rating and senior assistants’ rating. Inferential statistics used in the study were t-test, one-way ANOVA and Pearson correlation. The reliability coefficients for each competency were between .803 and .936 which were considered high. The findings of the study indicated that there were no significant difference in all the headmasters’ competencies mean scores in self-rating and senior assistants’ rating. And also seven out of 26 competencies were found to be significantly related to GPS. They were ‘strategic thinking’, ‘proactive’, ‘achievement orientation’, ‘instructional development’, ‘managing change’, ‘school improvement’, and ‘physical and asset development’. Interestingly, none of the competencies were found to be significantly related to ‘School Finance Efficiency’.