Researching Educational Leadership and Management

Methods and Approaches

Mark Brundrett, Christopher Rhodes

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781446292976
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Leadership in Education

Carrying out leadership research in educational establishments can be challenging, but it is also rewarding. This accessible book offers sound practical advice and a clear conceptual framework for this research. Drawing on their extensive expertise, the authors show you how to prepare to carry out research, design research tools, and report and reflect on the results.

Students using the book are supported by features such as:

• key learning objectives in each chapter
• examples of research tools derived from real leadership project figures
• explanation of key terms and questions
• further reading and key web links for each chapter.

This text will be of interest to Masters? and Doctoral level students, academics in the field of educational leadership and management and all those who wish to research a wide range of issues connected with the operation of schools and institutions of further and higher education.

Part 1

Preparing to carry out research on educational leadership

1

Introduction: Key Issues in Research on Educational Leadership

Aims

Educational leadership (or in previous or alternate incarnations, educational administration and educational management) has been a topic for scholarly activity since the late nineteenth century. However, while interest in this topic has expanded dramatically in recent years there remain comparatively few texts that are devoted to examining how to research leadership practice in educational settings. This book sets out to help anyone wishing to undertake such research to do so systematically and with confidence. Our opening chapter will therefore focus on some of the key issues in relation to research in educational leadership. By the end of it you should be able to:

• understand why educational leadership research has come to the fore in recent years;

• have a firm grasp of the nature of this text;

• understand the importance of gaining a greater knowledge of research approaches by examining the wider literature on research methods;

• perceive the relationships between research, policy and practice;

• know how to use this text to best effect.

The rise of interest in educational leadership

We have already outlined in detail elsewhere how the development of interest in the field of educational leadership arose (see, for instance, Brundrett, 2000), as well as explored some of the key principles in this field (Brundrett, 1999, 2012). In these texts we examined educational administration as a focus for scholarly activity in the late nineteenth century in the USA, when this burgeoning democracy sought new ways to manage an expanding egalitarian system of education. The field subsequently experienced periods where it was influenced by the growing science of business administration (the 1920s) and then the dominant sociological interpretations of education (the 1960s and 1970s), with a more recent focus on school effectiveness and improvement. In recent years there has been a particular emphasis on the development of leadership itself, since this is perceived in many nations to be vital in enhancing the quality of educational institutions and the associated outcomes for pupils and students (Davies and Brundrett, 2010).

We have argued that, crucially, the advent of local management of schools and colleges which took place in the 1980s and 1990s changed the relationship between educational institutions and society to one where schools, colleges and universities became more service orientated, more competitive and effectiveness driven. This presented enormous challenges to the leaders of educational institutions, who had to adapt swiftly to what was a new world of managing staff, budgets, buildings and grounds, as well as maintaining the more traditional focus on teaching and learning (Burton, Brundrett and Jones, 2008). Most leaders took on these roles with alacrity and skill, despite the fact that their initial training would have tended to focus on subject specialism and pedagogy, but some would have found this new environment challenging and irksome: the field no doubt lost some very able school leaders who found the pressures too great. Such losses to a system made up of otherwise capable personnel are sad, especially when they are caused by a paucity of leadership training, or sometimes worse, training that is based on fads or the personal beliefs of individual trainers rather than well-researched facts and approaches.

This new focus on leadership is very much an international phenomenon and a transnational agenda for leadership research, embracing topics such as strategy, learning and teaching, the curriculum, finance and resources, human resource management, and accountability issues. Of course the discourse is nuanced, either subtly or significantly, both by context and culture at the national, regional and local levels (Brundrett and Crawford, 2008). There can also be differences in the foci depending on the phase, although such issues are often more to do with size than with substance since within any one jurisdiction leaders in all phases tend to share the same concerns (Burton and Brundrett, 2005). The ferment in leadership studies that this has caused can sometimes be worryingly akin to the passions aroused by religious fervour, with many commentaries and conferences on leading education encouraging the latest trends, fads and sometimes fantasies that are thought to be efficacious. We would argue that this is in part caused by the fact that educational leadership still lacks rigour in systematic research on what actually works in leading and managing education. This book hopes to contribute to putting right this problematic situation by encouraging sound, focused and well-structured research activity on a topic that is crucially important both to educators and students.

The nature of this book

This book tries to offer a cohesive line of argument constructed by two very experienced practitioners and researchers in the field, and we attempt to offer both a clear presentation of the theoretical underpinnings of research in educational leadership and management and practical advice on research in educational institutions.

We are aware that carrying out leadership research in educational establishments can be extremely rewarding but also often challenging. Because of this we have tried throughout this book to offer a clear conceptual framework for such research, allied with a discussion of the best ways of managing the process of research. In this way, we can offer both a practical guide and a clear grounding and discussion of the underpinning theories associated with research on educational leadership. Overall, our aim has been to both inform and encourage critical reflection through the use of textual features that will prefigure, explore, and then summarize the major learning points relating to research in educational leadership. To do so we explore many, if not most, of the major approaches to both quantitative and qualitative research.

In order to accomplish the goals set out above, the book is carefully structured in such a way that it tries to mirror the journey that a researcher undertakes when engaged in a research project. This includes:

• preparing to undertake research;

• designing and using research tools;

• analyzing data and reporting findings in order to impact on practice.

The three parts follow this structure and each is made up of chapters that are relevant to the aspiring quantitative and qualitative researcher. Part One focuses on preparing to carry out research. Chapters 1 and 2 begin by outlining some of the key issues in the field and exploring some of the main theories of educational research. Chapter 3 provides an initial exploration of the ways in which projects could be designed in order to ensure validity and reliability and trustworthiness in research, and Chapter 4 introduces and explores how a systematic approach to reviewing previous research can help to identify the conceptual and empirical issues that may underpin future research. Centrally, we assert that a researcher should try to define the research issue or overall question or aim as precisely as possible, and in such a way that it cannot be subject to any unintended ambiguity, based on previous research explored in the literature review.

Part Two explores how to design and use a variety of both quantitative and qualitative research tools for leadership research. Chapter 5 focuses on the critically important issue of how to develop a sample that is appropriate for the topic under exploration. Chapter 6 is designed to help readers who may wish to adopt a quantitative approach to leadership research in order to construct high quality questionnaires with appropriate question formats that are suitable for the respondent groups and the conceptual focus of the research. Chapter 7, by contrast, addresses issues connected with the use of interviews, as well as recognizing the strengths and weaknesses of one of the most popular approaches to research in the field. The chapter also offers a great deal of advice on the practicalities of how to construct an interview schedule. Chapter 8 outlines the processes associated with observational research which are so relevant to accountability and school improvement activities and suggests ways to make observation more systematic. Chapter 9 discusses how to gain access to relevant documents and the recording formats that might help in analyzing such material. Chapter 10 focuses on action research, which has become one of the most popular forms of social science research in recent years and is especially relevant to practitioners.

Part Three focuses on analyzing data and reporting findings. Chapter 11 examines ways of analyzing quantitative data, including comparing evidence from different sources, coding, basic statistical methods in analyzing data derived from questionnaires, and online methods of data gathering and analysis. Chapter 12 concentrates on analyzing qualitative data and proposes a four-step approach, including becoming familiar with the data, coding and categorizing, identifying connections between categories, and interpreting the data. Chapter 13 outlines the uses of leadership research and its importance in institutional development, including providing an evidence base for educational improvement strategies, researching leadership for personal and professional development, and enhancing teams. Finally, Chapter 14 concludes the book by discussing how research reports should be written to ensure that key information is collated using an appropriate structure in order to present findings so that they set out recommendations for action.

This overall structure is designed to support our central thesis: that research evidence should be used by policy makers and practitioners at the institutional level to improve the efficacy and impact of leadership, and in such a way that we may enhance the life chances of pupils and students. At the core of this argument is the notion that systematic enquiry, whether it be in the form of qualitative, quantitative or mixed-methods research, should play a major part in achieving desired outcomes.

Developing a greater knowledge of research approaches

In order to further enhance this argument for more systematic enquiry in the field of leadership research in education, we would encourage you to go beyond this text and seek out any other material that may be useful in your developing a greater understanding of research methods. This can be slightly problematic for leadership researchers since there are very few titles that focus on the increasingly important topic of educational leadership research, but the work of Briggs, Coleman and Morrison (2012) is one highly worthwhile text that contains contributions from a wide range of senior academics who outline and analyze the various research methods. However, if you would like to gain a better grasp of the full range of research approaches take a look at the wider literature on research methods. Even if your search is confined to education you will soon become aware that the vast amount of material on the topic is somewhat intimidating, but there are many good general introductions to research methods. These include a general introduction to educational research, also co-written by one of the authors of this text, entitled Doing Your Research Project (Burton et al., 2008), which will be referred to throughout this work. The advantage of such material is that it gives new or returning researchers a basic grounding in current perspectives on research and research approaches, and almost all of these add their voice to the central argument of this work: that research needs to be carefully thought through in order to be systematic in its approach, regardless of whichever approach is adopted.

If you are a slightly more advanced researcher, or simply wish to delve more deeply into the topic, it would be helpful if you acquired or at least examined one or more of the more detailed works on research methods. A good starting point would be any of the major standard texts that provide a general overview of research methods (see for example Gall, Gall and Borg, 2006; Cohen, Manion and Morrison, 2007; Newby, 2012). If you wish to expand your horizons a little further and want to examine the overall field of social science research we would recommend you take a look at Bernard (2012) or Bryman (2001). The influential work by Robson (2002) on ‘real world research’ also remains popular and important, not only for reference but also for directing debate in the field. All of these texts have been highly influential in writing this book, either in the form of direct input or by a more general ‘osmosis’ of their research approaches and ideas.

We would ask that you remember, however, that even a thorough examination of all of the above would only be scratching the surface of the vast amount of material on the topic. Use of a basic search engine will produce hundreds if not thousands of relevant books and articles which examine, iterate and reiterate the issues associated with research methods both in general and in detail relating to the various paradigms, approaches, tools, techniques, methods of analysis, etc. For this reason we would recommend that you consider carefully which research approach and tools would be appropriate for your work and then explore that material in the appropriate sub-field of case study research, observation technique, statistical research or whatever. Each chapter of this book also includes suggestions for further reading that will help you access additional relevant material on the topic under scrutiny.

Towards research-informed policy and practice

Much has been said in recent years about the need to move towards a system of research-informed policy and practice. No doubt this concept was first encouraged by researchers themselves who had a vested interest in trying to make sure that their work was taken seriously and that funding would continue to be a available. However, there has been a notable emphasis on this same approach by both central and local governments in recent years, and research-informed approaches have been seen as one significant way of improving outcomes across systems. This is to be applauded, but such a concept can also prove problematic since it leaves open some significant questions (What kind of research should be drawn upon? Who should carry out the research? How should such research be funded?). Many governments or government agencies around the world now employ their own researchers in the field of social sciences, and not infrequently these include specialists in educational leadership. Indeed a number of nations have set up or sponsored specialist departments or institutions to condu...