The Effect of School Principal Preparation Program on the Change-oriented Leadership Competencies in South Korea

• In Event: Professional development for learners in uncertain and changing social/global environments

Proposal

The leadership competencies of principals are constantly being revised as the pressure for schools to adapt to external and internal needs is stronger than ever. Beyond the role of administrators who simply maintain and manage schools, future-oriented leadership skills are required to induce school change as innovators, politicians, and communicators (Author01, 2014; Author02, 2012; Author03, 2007; Author04 et al., 2020).
A short-term program consisting of 180-270 hours has been operated in Korea as a preparation program to develop principals’ competencies. Principal qualification training is a formal process for cultivating the professionalism and competence of principals. To properly develop the core competencies required of school leaders, it is important to ensure the appropriateness and quality of the preparation program(Author05, 2020; Author06 et al., 2017; Author07, 2013; Author08 & Author09, 2013). Unfortunately, Korea does not have professional standards or competency frameworks for principals. This is in contrast to the UK, Australia, US, and Singapore, which have established national or regional standards for principals' professionalism and used them for principal training, professional development, evaluation, and selection.
In the case of Korea, the Ministry of Education has established a standard curriculum for the preparation of principals, and the principal qualification training institutes are obliged to comply. Three institutions are in charge of qualification training for the principals in 17 metropolitan cities and provinces across the country. Over the years, in an attempt to improve the standard curriculum, the Korean Ministry of Education has been emphasizing change-oriented competencies such as understanding educational policies and environment, setting educational visions and goals, introducing innovation to school management, and personnel and organizational management for change as the necessary leadership competencies of principals.
However, it is often questioned whether a short-term principal preparation program would be effective in developing these competencies. This is because there is a concern that it is not easy to demonstrate change-oriented leadership in a centralized education climate where schools have little autonomy, while competition to become principals is fierce, and only highly qualified candidates are promoted to principals.
In this context, the purpose of this study is to explore whether Korea's principal preparation program is appropriate and whether the completion of the program affects the development of change-oriented leadership competencies. The research questions were set up as follows.
First, how appropriate is the principal preparation program perceived by the principals?
Second, what is the level of change-oriented leadership competencies of the principals, and does this level differ according to individual and school characteristics?
Third, does the principal preparation program affect the principal's change-oriented leadership competencies?
The main research method of this study is an online survey administered from November 24 to December 7, 2020. This research was conducted as part of a project commissioned by the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education to improve the principal preparation program. The subjects of this study are 1,300 elementary and secondary school principals in Seoul metropolitan city. A total of 646 people responded to the survey, and data from 559 people were used for the final analysis, excluding those with insincere responses and missing values.
The survey tool consists of 22 items designed on a 5-point Likert scale to respond to the four areas of the principal preparation program (organization and operation of training institutions, training programs, instructors and teaching methods, program quality management) and change-oriented leadership competency in a self-reported manner. For the collected data, descriptive statistics, t-test, F-test, and multiple regression analysis were performed with SPSS Statistics 26.0 program.
The results are as follows. First, the respondents' perception of the appropriateness of the principal's preparation program averaged 3.48 out of 5, which was above average. However, the perception of the amount of budget, course content and class size, and instructor quality was somewhat negative, and the need for improvement was confirmed.
Second, the principals’ perception of the change-oriented leadership competencies was relatively high with an average of 3.91. Also, regarding school management innovation competency, female principals with 2 to 4 years of experience were higher in perception than first-time principals with less than 1 year of experience, and this difference was statistically significant.
Third, to verify whether the principal preparation program affects the principal's change-oriented leadership competency, background factors were set as control variables, and regression analysis was performed. As a result, it was found that the principal preparation program accounted for about 62.3% of the variance in the principal's work performance ability, which had a statistically significant effect. In particular, it was found that the course content and the instructor's training method had a greater effect on the competency of the principals. It was confirmed that the content elements such as the subjects and lecture methods of the qualification training program are more important than the condition elements that form the infrastructure, such as the appropriateness of the training facilities and training operating personnel.
This study confirmed that the principal preparation program in South Korea affects cultivating the change-oriented leadership competencies of principals. Although the preparation period was not long enough and some of the sub-programs were found to be somewhat inappropriate, programs such as exchanges with outstanding colleagues and overseas experiences served as a catalyst for the principals to empathize and practice the need for change. The findings of the study are significant in that they fill the research gap by providing evidence showing the relationship between the principal preparation program and change-oriented leadership competencies.

Author

• Ee Gyeong Kim, Chung Ang University