Teacher capacity building : principals' involvement and their strategies / Nedujchelyn s/o Malayalam

Malayalam, Nedujchelyn (2013) Teacher capacity building : principals' involvement and their strategies / Nedujchelyn s/o Malayalam. PhD thesis, University of Malaya.

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Abstract

Teacher capacity is a prime resource that accounts for great improvement in student learning. Hence school leaders who tap into their teacher capacity in the right manner seem to be very successful in this endeavor. In light of this, the purpose of this study is to identify a) the extent of involvement by the principals in Teacher Capacity Building, b) the dominant dimensions of Teacher Capacity Building according to principals’ Level of Involvement, c) the most prominent components in each of the Teacher Capacity Dimension according to level of involvement, d) the strategies that principals use in Teacher Capacity Building, e) the most frequent strategies in each level of involvement in the Teacher Capacity dimensions, f) whether there exist significant differences in principals’ frequent strategies according to type of school, and g) whether there exist significant differences in principals’ level of involvement according to leadership experience, academic qualification and gender. A survey upon 320 principals was conducted. Subsequently thirteen (13) principals were interviewed. Among the 320 respondents, 68.4 % show high level of involvement while 26.9 % show moderate level of involvement and only 4.7 % show low level of involvement in Teacher Capacity Building. It is found that principals indicate a variation in their level of involvement towards teacher capacity building. As teacher capacity comprises four dimensions, namely knowledge, skills, dispositions, and views of self, the analysis performed on each of the dimension across the levels of involvement depicted different patterns of focus by the principals on the teacher capacity dimensions. The overall finding here reveals that the high involvement principals always maintain their focus on the right TCB dimension when it is being built, while the low involvement principals never show any consistency in their focus for TCB. Principals who show high level of involvement prefer to develop teachers’ disposition components such as high expectations towards students’ performance; high expectations towards student achievement; as an effective teacher; and towards effective planning. Meanwhile, principals who show moderate level of involvement prefer to develop teachers’ dispositions towards students learning styles, towards effective use of ICT, as a facilitator for student learning, towards student learning and towards effect ive assessment. Principals in different level of involvement in teacher capacity building prefer to use different strategies. Principals who show high level of involvement prefer staff meeting, supervision, coaching/mentoring, table talk and team building strategies for teacher capacity building in their schools while principals who show moderate level of involvement use collegial conversation, professional development, teacher networking, teacher researcher and role model. On the contrary, principals who show low level of involvement prefer high - tech strategies such as table talk, professional membership, collegial conversation and Teacher researcher strategies for teacher capacity building. Each group seems to be proud of their own selection and use of the strategies for the TC building in their schools. Principals with different ability show their involvement differently and hence indicate their different strengths in building their teachers’ capacity through different ways of engaging in sometimes the same strategy. The Kruskal - Wallis H and Mann - Wihtney U tests indicate that there are significant differences in principals’ level of involvement in TCB according to years of leadership and academic qualification.

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