UNPACKING ESSENTIAL FUNCTION 4: INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERSHIP (PART 2)
What impacts achievement the most?
Dr. John Hattie conducted over 800 meta-analyses and classified his studies into six domains: Teacher, Teaching, School, Home, Student, and Curriculum.
He calculated an effect size for practices across these areas. Practices that have an effect size of .40 or greater are where we should be spending the bulk of our time and effort, such as training instructional staff in how to use these practices.
Check the effect size of the instructional practices being used in your building. Practices with a high effect size should be deeply embedded throughout your district/building’s daily instructional operation.
In his recent work, Hattie (2015) makes clear that just as in teacher practices, leadership practices are not equal in terms of impact on student achievement. In High Impact Leadership, an analysis of leadership practices was examined (Hattie, 2015).
Impact is measured by effect size (ES), which is a standardized measure for the magnitude of the study outcomes. An effect size of 1.0 means there was an increase of 1 standard deviation in the study outcome (in this instance student achievement). In education, an improvement of one standard deviation is associated with the advancement of children’s achievement by two to three years.
The following practices of leaders who had a high impact on student achievement were found to be significant:
- Leaders who believe their major role is to evaluate their impact (ES=.91)
- Leaders who get everyone in the school working together to know and evaluate their impact (ES=.91)
- Leaders who learn in an environment that privileges high-impact teaching and learning (ES=.84)
- Leaders who are explicit with teachers and students about what success looks like (ES=.77)
- Leaders who set appropriate levels of challenge and who never retreat to ‘just do your best’ (ES=.57)
Reflective Questions
Do you know if the practices with the highest effect sizes are occurring in your district/building?
What is the knowledge level of staff concerning the effect size of various educational practices? How can understanding effect size be of benefit to the teachers in your district/building?
Are you using leadership practices that have a high effect sizes?