Date of Award

1-1-1992

Document Type

Thesis

Publisher

Edith Cowan University

Degree Name

Master of Education

Faculty

Faculty of Education

Abstract

The Deputy Principals' Leadership Development Program (DPLDP) was researched and developed by the Calgary Board of Education from 1983 to 1987. It was conducted for the first time in Western Australia when deputy principals from schools in the Narrogin Education District participated in the program during the period 1989-91. This study is an evaluation of the DPLDP. It was designed to determine whether there is justification for the continued use of the program as a means of enhancing the instructional leadership capacities of deputy principals in the Narrogin Education District. This research is located within the naturalistic paradigm. It can best be described as a qualitative case study based mainly upon ethnographic methods of data collection. The organisation and analysis of the data, however, was structured largely by utilising Stufflebeam's CIPP (context, input, process, product) framework of program evaluation and a typology of instructional leadership developed from a review of the literature. This typology presents instructional leadership as a process based on three components: vision, information and action. The data for this evaluation was collected during a twenty two month period between April 1989 and November 1990. A variety of data gathering techniques was used. In depth, semi-structured interviews and participant observations generated most of the data. Document analysis and unstructured, informal interactions provided supplementary material. Data validation formed an integral component of the research design. A thorough and wide-ranging validation process involving the participants was utilized to check the accuracy and relevance of the research findings. The major conclusions of the study, that emerged within the CIPP framework of program evaluation and the typology of instructional leadership, were: 1. Participation in the DPLDP leads deputy principals to examine their role in schools, and builds a commitment to their role as instructional leaders. 2. The DPLDP has the potential, more than other available programs examined, to meet the professional development needs of deputy principals in key areas associated with instructional leadership. 3. Collegial support is the single most important element of the DPLDP for the development of deputy principals as instructional leaders. 4. The DPLDP can be implemented successfully in the Narrogin Education without significant modifications. Based on these results, and other subsidiary findings of the study, it was concluded that, on balance, there is justification for the continuation of the DPLDP in the Narrogin Education District.

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