A review article by: Taylor, M., Goeke, J., Klein, E., Onore, C. and Geist, K., 2011.

Changing
leadership: Teachers lead the way for schools that learn. Teaching and teacher education, 27(5),
pp.920-929.

The purpose and objectives of the study:

The journal article indicated a qualitative study that examined teachers who were joined Masters
of Teacher Leadership program for three years. The researchers looked at different aspects of
teachers’ beliefs of teacher leadership and how these beliefs may affect or changed the school
culture, enhancing student engagement and building new structures. The title gave an overview of
the study and pointed out how teachers can lead or make a change in the school and students. The
study designed to answer three different questions, which the main objectives of the authors. The
first question addressed how teacher views and understanding of teacher leadership affected by
joining a formal teacher leadership program. The second question focused on how the course work,
inquiry, action research and engaging in leadership activities influence teachers’ agency as teacher
leadership. The third question explored the kinds of actions do teachers take up as a result of
leadership program enrolment.

Theoretical framework:

The researchers based conceptual framework on the constructivist theory, and it shows a mix of
theory and practice. They built a masters degree program delivered symbolically and practically,
which led to developing teacher leadership based on mixture of theoretical and practical
knowledge. Additionally, the authors highlighted that their program is following the philosophy
about learning to develop leadership by using two central activities, which are action research and
negotiating the curriculum. They justified the rationale and advantages of using these two
activities. They aimed to build a program that blended knowledge and expertise, which help
participants to involve in discussions about different educational topics. The researchers discussed
few studies that help them to get final theoretical framework. However, the framework did not
include any details of how the program structures run through three years and what were the
courses or semi-lectures included in the program. Also, there was limited information about the
method that use to deliver the program, such as face to face, or they were any online sessions or
materials available for the participants. Although they got a literature review, but there was limited
research in the field, and I believe the literature review needed more investigation.

Literature review and situating the study within the research already conducted in
the field?

There are several studies that investigated teacher leadership meaning and the effects of it in the
schools. According to the authors, the literature review had a limited number of international
researches on teacher leadership because they only focus on the US. The literature review covered
different aspects of teacher leadership, author started with giving definition and show some of the
impact of teacher leadership on students and teachers. In addition, researchers introduced some
studies that illustrated the teacher leadership can develop relationships among colleagues and the
administrators. Hence, these relationships would influence learning and involve in collaborative
teacher leadership practice. The authors mentioned that there is a lack of research in existing
evidence of the outcomes of teacher leadership work on student learning and achievement. On the
barriers and challenges to teacher leadership part, some studies teachers had limited interaction
with adults who led the school because they are busy with teaching students. So, they lost
opportunity to develop organizational structures. However, the teachers who passed this challenge
called “true leaders.” The teacher leadership preparation part needs more reading to be added on
the literature review; the authors only mention one study about supported administrators who help
in preparing teacher leaderships. Lastly, authors stated that some teacher leadership literatures
limiting their research; one of study look at teacher leadership development within school setting
through professional development without involving in a design program to improve teachers’
leadership. Overall, the authors collected different views of studies in the field, but I believe that
author could look at various literatures especially internationally to get a holistic view of the
teacher leadership topic and how this can improve or impact the educational setting (e.g. school,
institution, and university).

Research Approach and Methodology:

The study illustrated as a qualitative method that followed a phenomenological approach. The
authors clearly highlighted the justification of using this approach; they stated this method would
give them better understanding of participants’ beliefs, intentions, actions and knowledge that
connected to evolving phenomena. Add to that, they fully explained how phenomenological
approach could help them to have numerous research activities involved in gathering, coding, and
interpretive data. The researchers listed several advantages of using phenomenological approach
to their research. In my view, the authors clearly described the approach, and they explained how
it did affect their research.

The researchers used three main methods as data collection to do their study. The first method is
interviewed the participant twice on the entry, and the exit from the program and semi-structured
interview questions were used as well; each the interview lasted for around 60 minutes. This
method is very popular in phenomenological approach, and it gave opportunity to participant to
say what they feel and reflect on their teacher leadership. The second method is a demographic
questionnaire that collected the educational background, teaching certification, classroom
composition, school characteristic and curriculum that they are teaching. This method is a part of
qualitative method research, which is giving the history of the participant and their previous
experiences. The third method is collecting and analyze the applied assessments which were part
of the program. I believe if focus group were added, it would give better results where teacher
leadership can discuss their experiences that they went through during this program and how that
affected their views, especially in their educational setting.

The authors follow phenomenological data analysis; they stated that they engaged in Hycner's
(1985) process of five steps as it illustrated in figure 1. From this process, common codes were
recognized, and that helped in creating codebook, which would confirm applying the qualitative
analysis. Therefore, the selected codes from codebook were matched with transcribed quotes from

Bracketing and phenomenological reduction

Delineating units of meaning

Culstering units of meaning to form themes

Summarzing each interview

Extracting general and unique themes from all the interview and
making a composite summary

Figure 1: Hycner’s process of five steps

interview and written reflections, and this assessed extract themes by analyzing the coded data by
using constant comparative method (Glaser & Strauss, 1969). The researcher put three different
examples in table format to illustrate the code and how they per it with data collection method that
they used. The way that they do data analysis is following exactly the phenomenological data
analysis which is clearly explained in their journal article and justified the steps and methods that
they are using. Nevertheless, I think researcher should provide appendix of samples of interview
questions and course documents (e.g. written reflection) task description because it was not clear
what are the course documents that they asked the participant to do. Therefore, this would help in
demonstrating a better picture of how data analysis and methodology were applied.

The authors mentioned the limitation of their study; the environment of the work was highlighted
as a limited factor for teachers to change because administrators and colleagues especially the
principals could play a massive role in giving support for teacher leadership. With the intention of
teacher to make a change, schools should be learning organizations. In my opinion, the number of
participants has limited study because 13 participants are not presenting teacher leadership in the
US or internationally. I suggest applying this program in different education settings with larger
groups.

Presentation and analysis of results:

The researchers concluded their journal article by listing their findings and implications of their
study. They discussed their findings according to their research questions by adding some quoted
examples from the participants’ interviews and written reflections. The findings mainly were
focusing on how teacher leadership program effected and changed participants’ views, thoughts,
and actions. One of the findings showed that participants started to see what teacher leadership
role means and how it could make a change in their environment. According to authors,
assessments helped participants to rethink about their actions and role in their classrooms and
communities. Another finding showed that teachers improved knowledge and expertise and
personality traits into practical knowledge for the leadership. Plus, participants expand more
complex definitions of the nature and work of teacher leadership. Therefore, they start to view
themselves as agents of change. The researchers said all findings conclude the fundamental
reframing of the work of teaching and how teacher leadership may change the teacher's actions in
her educational setting. Additionally, they illustrated the cycle of teacher leadership to get all
findings connected, which showed how the theory and practice produced new initiatives and
knowledge about teacher leadership for the participants. Therefore, by recognizing themselves as
teacher leadership, they would realize their power as meaning-makers, self-identified as teacher
leaderships, planned action, acted as change agents, and extended their influence beyond their
classroom. I think the findings were well analyzed and identified according to the aim of the study
by giving holistic views of findings and adding examples for each part.

Implications of the study were divided into different aspects. Firstly, teacher leadership practice
could impact school improvement and change as top-down or bottom-up, and that may depend on
administrators' support or limitation. The author suggested that once the teachers started to lead,
they have to open their classrooms to their colleagues and administrators to observe and learn from
their work, not just evaluate it. I believe this should be happened to get better education system
that welcomes new ideas and build better education curriculum. The researchers mentioned when
participants understand the institutional structures that would help them in reaching their goals and
recognized what needed to change. Overall, the discussion of the findings was well presented and
linked to different studies. However, I think there is a need to make comparison between their
finding and other international studies.
Reference:

Taylor, M., Goeke, J., Klein, E., Onore, C. and Geist, K., 2011. Changing leadership: Teachers
lead the way for schools that learn. Teaching and teacher education, 27(5), pp.920-929.