Measuring Principal Workday Practices: A Review of Methods

• In Event: Understanding the Principal Workday: Methods and Focus

Abstract

Understanding the daily work of principals is critical to understanding why and how schools raise student achievement. What principals do day-to-day and even hour-by-hour to increase student performance has only begun to be studied using novel research methods. Further, no review of this research has been conducted. This review fills this gap by examining how researchers have attempted to quantify principal time use using five primary methods: surveys, observations, interviews, diaries or logs, and experience sampling measures (ESM). This review will include a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages, reliability and validity, and bias and challenges of each method and will suggest potential new areas to study principal practices.

Author

• Gavriel Brown, Johns Hopkins University