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ASSIGNMENT 1

JANUARY 2014 SEMESTER

SUBJECT CODE : ESM641

SUBJECT TITLE : RESEARCH METHODS IN EDUCATION

LEVEL : MASTER OF EDUCATION

STUDENT’S NAME : LILY PREMALA MICHAEL

MATRIC NO. : E60101140098

PROGRAMME : MASTER OF EDUCATION

ACADEMIC FACILATATOR : PUAN NORYATI ALIAS

LEARNING CENTRE : ONLINE

Article Critique

Volume 4, Number 1

Fall 2013

Riveros, A., Newton, P., & Costa, J. (2013). From Teachers to Teacher-Leaders: A Case Study

Introduction

This review critically reviews the article ‘From Teachers to Teacher-Leaders’ by Augusto Riveros, Paul Newton and Jose da Costa which appeared in International Journal of Teacher Leadership. The review will critique the article, evaluating its focus on the study, the research questions or hypotheses, the method and instrument used, the procedure, the findings and the conclusion at the end of the article. Overall, the article was well written, clear and relevant.

I. Statement of the Problem

a. Research Topic

The topic of the study is to focus attention on the teachers’ experiences of leadership. The authors state, “teacher leadership has been positioned as a central component in discourses on educational change and improvement.” This sets the context for more specific research problem.

b. Research Problem

As the title of the article suggests, teacher leadership is from teachers to experienced teacher-leaders. In this study, the authors offer an analysis of a province-wide teacher leadership initiative that was administered by 2Learn.ca Society. The purpose is to introduce the innovation and technology infusion in K-12 curricula. The concept of teacher leadership is the central to this initiative. TLM or Teacher-Leader Model is built on the potential of teachers who had interest in technology and leadership in their own school districts.

c. Research Questions / Hypotheses

No specific research questions or hypothesis is noted, but the authors do address the overall context for their qualitative study. They state that “we argue that these themes are of central importance in the development of formal and informal teacher leaders.” The authors describe that there are emergences of four themes, stated under the methodology subheading (participant demographics), during the process of conducting this study.

The sample (n) is nonrandom, over 250 teachers that involved as teacher leaders through 2Learn.ca Society and Teacher-Leader Model (TLM). The researches did not state the exact number of teachers involved within the sample. There is no specific numbers given for the male or female teachers involved in the study. Besides gender, the age or marital status of the teachers involved seem not to be questioned. This shows that all the characteristics above are not required in the study as they are not correlated with the purpose of the study. Hence, the researchers are giving their focus on the experiences, roles and skills of a teacher leader. If there is a larger sample with regard to all categories or characteristics, it will have aided in the data analysis, particularly when looking for possible interactions between the variables.

The authors state “this set of criteria illustrated how the Society framed the concept of teacher leadership for the TLC program.” It claims that the program will benefit the teachers who participate as it is a “process-oriented individual, with classroom experience and knowledge of Alberta core curriculum.” The last paragraph of Literature heading, the authors describe a few attributes that a teacher-leader has till the end. Four out of the eight attributes stated are related to the teacher’s experiences in teaching, in the classroom with their students.

II. Methodology

The authors state “we gathered data through an iterative-inductive approach based on our interaction with these former and current teacher leaders.” They used semi-structured interviews among the experienced teacher leadership participants as they are likely interested to describe the correlation between the experiences that the participants felt and their growth as teachers and educational leaders. The authors added that from the aspect of data analysis, they employed an interpretivist framework as there is difficulty in understanding the social reality of daily life apart from conversation and interaction.

In this study, the authors mentioned that they are able to revise the design of the research as the patterns emerged from the data that they have collected. This allowed them to identify four key themes. The first key was related to the processes that led to emergence of teacher leaders. Secondly was related to the ways in which teacher leaders developed their understanding of leadership. Thirdly was the role of professional interest and motivations in recruiting teacher leaders. Lastly was the process that related to the organizational arrangements that facilitate the emergence of teacher leaders. By knowing this, the researchers would be able to study the case deeper and refined questions that to be included in their semi-structured interviews.

Selected reputational sampling or also known as a type of purposeful sampling is used by the researchers to collect data. This type of sampling was said to be recommended by the knowledgeable experts. In the selection of the participants, 21 former leaders who been invited to participate in the study, are nominated by 2Learn.ca Society. It is also mentioned that the researchers included a representative sample of more than 250 former participants, whereby they are from variety of formal and non-formal leadership positions, and geographic area of the province. Thus, the finding will not be too broadly generalizable and are sufficiently to provide insights into the nature of becoming a teacher leader.

Data collection method is described in considerable detail as one would expect with a qualitative study. The semi-structured interviews include the face-to-face interviews or video conferencing for distance participants, with open-ended questions conducted towards the end of the interviews. The interviews with open-ended questions are in the purpose of allowing the participants to talk about their experiences and perceptions, besides sharing their own opinions or understanding of the experiences with 2Learn.ca teacher leadership initiative. Further investigation for detailed responses to ideas, which emerged during the interviews, is conducted too.

During the face-to-face interviews, field notes are also being taken by the researchers, as they state the importance of highlighting the aspects of the conversations. It is said that the emphasis and gestures are unable to record. The notes are also taken in the purpose of registering the themes and topics that appeared during the conversations between the researchers and the participants.

By the last paragraph, in the first heading Introduction, the authors state over 20,000 pages of curriculum-related resources are created by the participants as the product of their participation in the initiative. The resources are said to be helpful to the researchers as this helped them to have the ability to describe the contexts within which participants worked. By using this method in this study, it is said to become more refined as “the knowledge of the researchers grew and the questions for the interviews are also refined over time.”

As stated earlier by the researchers, the main purpose of this study is to investigate the former participants’ experiences and their development as teacher leaders, in 2Learn.ca / TLC. The authors explain that they managed to interview only 21 out of the 250 participants, due to time and budgetary constraints. They prepared the details of the respondents in a form of a table of two columns, which the first column is the role of the participants and the second column is the number of participants; written as N (sample).

All the interviews, field notes and resources were digitally audio-recorded, transcribed and examined for themes.

III. Results and Conclusions

The authors begin by relating their findings back to the overall purpose of the study, to investigate “teachers’ experiences of leadership”. To that end, they identify several themes.

“Teacher leaders generally emerge through informal processes of leadership in their schools and school districts” is the first theme whereby the teachers commented how they understand teacher leadership and their experiences during the 2Learn.ca tenure. The authors state there is an argument by the respondent of this study regarding the concern of teacher leadership in the education system and suggestion is made about the importance of teacher leadership “as a mechanism” and its development for better student learning. Others are suggesting “teacher leadership is a set of skill”, state the two forms of teacher leadership; formal and informal. The authors also state the differences of characteristics and roles between these two forms, for better understanding.

“Teacher leaders develop a broader understanding of educational leadership and policy when they work across jurisdictions and school contexts” is the second theme noted. The authors state one of the questions asked to the respondent regarding his role of being classroom teacher to a larger leadership role within the system. His responses, he is more professional as he changes from the aspect of mannerism. The authors state the experiences of being a teacher to higher leadership, broader the perspective “what is the meaning of leadership and the processes of the policy, which underlie teaching practices.” This brings better understanding of the participants on these matters and the impact in classroom practices.

The next theme state by the authors is “teacher leaders can be recruited into broader leadership roles by attending to their professional interests and passions.” From the theme, it is the interest and passion of the teachers to be involved in 2Learn initiative. The authors added it is not the advancement of leadership and career becomes the main goals of the teachers as “the processes of teacher leadership that emerged during the 2Learn.ca project as key mechanism for the development of their leadership skills and aspirations.” This theme also referred to in the first theme, “the importance of teacher leadership as a mechanism.” This shows there is correlation emerges between the importance of teacher leadership and the passion or interest within the teachers.

The last theme of this study is “teacher leaders require flexible structures in the school that facilitate the development of trust and collegiality with their peers.” There is a significant difference on the building and collaboration of Teacher-Leaders. The argument from the respondents is the evident on the collegial relationship with other teachers which “teacher leadership is more about everybody and not just about me.” It is about enhancing others to do something new and different during their teaching process. But, the authors state there is an issue of “trust development” among the teachers. Even so, there is a suggestion made that “Teacher-Leader needs credibility as teacher in order to successfully build relationship and influence other teachers.” Thus, the establishment of trust with one and another through the collegial relationship are based on sense of sharing of professional identity is the evident from the interviewed teachers.

In conclusion, the authors state that the beliefs and experiences of school teachers do correlated with teachers leadership. They assert their case study also shows the establishment of the leadership roles through the professional initiative development. They also conclude that this case study “offers useful sights into practical strategies to identify and motivate teachers interested in leadership roles in school” even this is not their primary purpose. However, they also recognize their conclusions require caution in interpretation due to such variables as the teacher’s experience and roles. In this study, the researches state they used a qualitative method, had drawn their conclusion to limit, in terms of generalization. Finally, overall of this study does show congruency between the research questions, the methodology and the findings of the study. As additional, there is no future research suggested by the authors in this study by the end of the conclusion.