Connecting School Leadership and Professional Learning Networks: An International Perspective From the Teaching and Learning International Survey 2018

• In Event: School Leadership of Teacher Professional Development as Contested Practice Globally: Roles of Professional Learning Networks

Abstract

Recent publications in the field of education have called for filling the knowledge gaps regarding networks in education, the role of school leadership in shaping, leading and promoting these networks and their effects on schools’ capacity to innovate and to cater to student learning needs (see in particular the special issue of School Leadership & Management on Leading Networks, Volume 40, Issue 2-3). Our paper aims at filling part of these gaps by exploiting reports from the 2018 OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), the global barometer of teachers, teaching and learning. The last cycle of the survey, in 2018, collected data from around 260,000 teachers and school leaders in about 50 countries and economies around the world, including the United States as well as countries featured in this proposed symposium.

Using rich data from TALIS 2018, our contribution will first describe the extent to which teachers and school leaders take part in networks as part of their induction or professional development activities and how they collaborate. It then analyses how school leadership types relate to teachers’ and school leaders’ engagement in networking and collaborative activities. Finally, in an attempt to assess the effect of these activities on teaching quality, innovation and student learning, it examines the relationships between teachers’ and school leaders’ engagement in networking and collaborative activities and teachers’ openness towards innovation, as well as their teaching practices, self-efficacy and job satisfaction. Findings will focus on the average teacher and school leader across OECD countries, but our contribution will also describe cross-country differences of interest.

Results from TALIS 2018 indicate that participation in professional learning networks is relatively common among teachers, and even more so among school leaders. TALIS data also suggest a positive relationship between distributed leadership and networking. Indeed, while TALIS does not provide granular information on networking activities, its index of professional collaboration comprises a range of activities intensive in networking such as observing other teachers and providing feedback as well as team teaching. TALIS findings show that teachers who report that their school involves staff in school decision making also tend to engage in these intensive activities more frequently in most countries and economies participating in TALIS.

When they collaborate with their colleagues, teachers do so in various ways. On average in the OECD, the two most commonly reported types of collaboration are “discussing the learning development of specific students” and “exchanging teaching materials with colleagues”. The professional collaboration activities that involve more interdependence and networking between teachers is less frequent. Yet, teachers who take part in the more interdependent forms of collaboration also tend to report using cognitive activation practices (which are deemed to be particularly efficient) more frequently for teaching. They also report higher levels of job satisfaction and self-efficacy. Our contribution will conclude with a reflection on how to conceptually define and better measure, through survey questionnaires, school leadership, participation in education networks and influence of these networks on teaching and learning, as well as the relationships between these aspects.

Authors

• Pablo Fraser, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

• Gabor Fulop, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

• Massimo Loi, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

• Noémie Le Donné, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

• Karine Tremblay, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development