How can we measure a principal’s involvement in implementing interventions? The Case of Lebanon’s Measure of Director’s Involvement and Role (MoDIR)

• In Event: Decolonizing international development through collaborative research-practice partnerships: 10 years of evidence and opportunities from Lebanon

Proposal

Introduction
Since 2014, QITABI has been serving Lebanese public schools through innovative resources and activities that encourage teachers to try new methods. The QITABI implementing team observed that school principals’ leadership skills, and their level of involvement with and attitude towards QITABI activities make a stark difference in how teachers within this school implement and benefit from QITABI services. This observation is further supported by findings from research that indicate that a principal’s self-efficacy is a crucial factor in empowering teachers to implement innovative pedagogies (Dimmock & Hattie, 1996). While there are measures for principal self-efficacy (Dimmock & Hattie, 1996); principal’s level of work engagement (Federici & Skaalvik, 2011) and leadership skills (Kılınç, Polatcan, Savaş, & Er, 2022); there are no scales, to the best of our knowledge, that measure the principal’s level of involvement and dedication to a new intervention.

Measure Development
To measure this level of involvement, a team of Egyptian, Syrian, Lebanese, Korean, and American researchers and practitioners collaborated to define principal involvement in terms of attitudes and behaviors towards QITABI as a project, and to subsequently develop a measure to capture the definitions: the Measure of Director’s Involvement and Role (MoDIR). To do so, we followed a model that classifies a stakeholder’s level of engagement into 5 levels: unaware, resistant, neutral and supportive (Project Management Institute, 2017). The implementing team drew from their experience with school principals to hypothesize a typical principal at each level of engagement and their typical opinions or behaviors regarding 4 QITABI domains: resources (e.g. school/classroom libraries); activities (e.g. teacher training); assessments and data to inform teacher’s planning; and support for teachers provided by the Learning Facilitators (LFs).

We developed 4 self-reported likert-scale items per domain (a total of 16 items) to reflect typical behaviors or opinions from a resistant/neutral/supportive/leading principal towards an aspect of said domain. For instance, a “leading” principal is one who is deeply aware of the support that QITABI can provide, utilizes it and leads his/her school to benefit from it by providing the needed support; while a “resistant” principal does not welcome disruptions caused by QITABI. The measure was developed in close collaborations with LFs drawing from their wealth of experience with Lebanese school principals to craft statements they have often heard from principals. For example, one item in the domain of QITABI activities focused on the principal’s views on the QITABI teacher training. The views ranged from: resistant: “I prefer if teachers finish their duties prior to joining QITABI training” to leading “I make sure teachers have all they need to attend the QITABI training.”

Data Collection
In July 2023, we collected data from 416 principals who reported on their interaction with the aforementioned 4 domains. This presentation aims to showcase the process of developing MoDIR through a collaborative and iterative process between the NYU-TIES and World Learning/Lebanon teams. Psychometric properties from running Exploratory Factor Analysis will be shared. Recommendations and best practices learned will also be shared with the group.

Authors

• Rawan A. Wehbe, World Learning Inc.

• Joyce Rafla, NYU Global TIES for Children

• Mirvat Said Merhi, World Learning

• Dalia Al Ogaily, NYU Global TIES for Children

• Ha Yeon Kim, Global TIES for Children, New York University; ERICC Consortium

• Carly Tubbs Dolan, NYU Global TIES for Children

• Roxane Caires, New York University