초등학교학교장의 학습중심지도성(Learning-centered Leadership)과 교사 전문성 간의 관계 분석

Abstract

ABSTRACT

Analysis on the relations between the Learning-centered Leadership of elementary school principals and the professionalism of teachers

Park Joo Hyun Advisor: Prof. Song Kyoung-Oh, Ph. D. Department of Education Graduate School of Chosun University

In debating the leadership of a school principal, the idea of the Educational Leadership, which was recently introduced, has been considered as a proper concept of leadership for a principal that is differentiated from the normal leadership concept of organizations and is more suitable for school organization.

The Educational Leadership in a school principal means 'the leadership of a principal who has a comprehensive influence on the various and general matters of school education in order to enhance the effectiveness in schooling.' The Educational Leadership seems to have a little limitation, however, that a principal as a top manager of a school organization might not focus on the key area of a school-the teaching and the learning-while exerting every effort on every matter.

In this work, we will supplement the limitations in the Educational Leadership of a principal, create and fix a model for a new Learning-centered Leadership of a elementary principal which agrees with the Teaching-and- Learning-oriented Education for the global and information-oriented society in the 21st century, and then inspect it through a positive feasibility study, and after that, we will lastly explore influences on the perceived professionalism - the knowledge on a subject, the skills in teaching, the managing ability in class, and the view of a teacher. And we aim to find out whether the Educational Leadership in a school principal would be proper for the improvement of teachers' professionalism or not.

The Learning-centered Leadership of a elementary principal puts emphasis on the teaching and learning for school members in order to enhance school education through the advancement of the teacher's professionalism. Also, it means the leadership of a principal who takes part in organizing and operating student-oriented curriculum with a specialized view into the educational process, and influences positively in encouraging learning for the purpose of achieving the goal of the school education.

For these purposes, the following questions were asked. First, How is the Learning-centered Leadership of a elementary principal organized on a conceptual basis? Second, Are those conceptual components in the Learning-centered Leadership of a elementary principal valid? Third, How much and what influence does the Learning-centered Leadership of a elementary principal have on the level of teachers' perceived professionalism?

For answering the above questions, a questionnaire composed of 115 question items was organized through a pilot test. The questionnaire papers were distributed among and asked to elementary teachers working in Kwang-ju, a total of 600 papers to 60 elementary schools. Of the 503 questionnaire papers filled in, 474 valid papers but the 29 improper ones were used for the data analysis.

The reason this questionnaire was asked only of the teachers in the west and east offices of education was that there was a belief that Kwang-ju includes both urban area and rural area - especially in the west -, has large and small schools alike, contains national, public, and private schools all around, and has teachers from a variety of colleges, and thus could represent the general Korean education. The analyzing process was done through using the applications of SPSS for window version 12.0 and AMOS 5.0. The levels of significance were respectively p<.05, p<.01, p<.001.

Findings on if the conceptual models and components of the Learning-centered Leadership of a elementary principal would be valid, and about what influences the Learning-centered Leadership of a elementary principal has on teachers' perceived professionalism are summed up as follows.

First, the Learning-centered Leadership of a elementary principal is conceptually composed of the three variable elements such as the teaching-and-learning supports, the specializing of the education process, and the encouragement of learning. The validity of these conceptual models was verified through the element analysis for confirmation. As a result of confirming fidelity index and model verifying, null hypothesis, generally showing a test of goodness of fit in models, was rejected since chi-squared() distribution showed 39.863(p<0.000). And for other tests of goodness, the goodness of fit index(GFI) was 0.982, the adjusted goodness of fit index(AGFI) 0.949, the compared goodness of fit index(CFI) 0.991, the non-normal goodness of fit index(NNFI) 0.979, the normal goodness of fit index(NFI) 0.985. And, RMR in this study is 0.015 which shows pretty good, and RMSEA is 0.056 which fit to OK. Therefore, this model of the Learning-centered Leadership of the elementary principal can be considered as a proper type to general principals of the elementary schools.

Second, what influences the sub elements of the Learning-centered Leadership of a elementary principal (the teaching-and-learning supports, the specializing of educational curriculum, scholarship activity) have on the 4 elements of the perceived professionalism of teachers (the knowledge on a subject, skills in teaching, the managing ability in class, and the view of a teacher) was analyzed. So the Learning-centered Leadership of a elementary principal has much to do with 'the knowledge of subject' element, 'the skills in teaching' element, and 'the view of a teacher' element.

Third, the Task-oriented Leadership of a elementary principal which was input in order to prepare the Learning-centered Leadership of a elementary principal with the traditional leadership of a school principal had effects just on 'the skills in teaching(p<.01)' element, and 'the managing ability in class(p<.01)' in the perceived professionalism, but didn't on 'the knowledge of subject' element, and 'the view of a teacher' element. On the other hand, the Unity-oriented Leadership of a elementary principal influenced only on the 'the view of a teacher(p<.01)' element in the perceived professionalism of teachers.

The points of discussion on the basis of these results of analysis are as follows. In this study, the result of the analysis on the relationships between the Learning-centered Leadership of a elementary principal and the perceived professionalism of teachers told us that the Learning-centered Leadership of a elementary principal has much to do not only with 'the knowledge of subject' element, and 'the skills in teaching' element, but also with 'the view of a teacher' element of the perceived professionalism of teachers. This is perhaps because the Learning-centered Leadership of a elementary principal gives support to teaching and learning, emphasizes on the learning of school members, and so raise teachers' specializing. It is believed that this kind of leadership could play the most important role in encouraging elementary students to study on a self-leading basis and adjusting themselves to the knowledge based society and in getting up teachers' specializing. Fink and Resnik(2001) confirmed that the exertion of the Learning-centered Leadership in the education of the elementary school is such a necessary part and the self-discipline in the part of a principal is so much important, by presenting that the principal with the Learning-centered Leadership will continue to improve his own specialization of leadership, give teachers opportunities for learning and encourage them, and will be very helpful to the enhance the specialization of a teacher.

On the other hand, the Task-oriented Leadership of a elementary principal and the perceived professionalism of teachers (the knowledge of subject, the skills in teaching, the managing ability in class, the view of a teacher) showed that the Task-oriented Leadership of the elementary principal has an influence on 'the skills in teaching' element and 'the managing ability in class' 'the view of a teacher' element, but has little to do with 'the knowledge of subject' element, and 'the view of a teacher' element. This result enables us to assume that teachers under the Task-oriented Leadership of a elementary principal has been concerned about the improvement of their skills of teaching and the managing ability in class because of the frequent imposing of the tasks from a principal and the everytime checking on the results. On the other hand, 'the View of a Teacher' element was not affected seemingly because of the unsatisfaction in school life from the authoritarian leadership of the principal-centered system and the laying great stress on outputs. Also, this result of the substantiating analysis on the relationship between the Unity-oriented Leadership of a elementary principal and the perceived professionalism of teachers showed that the Unity-oriented Leadership of a principal has a meaningful relationship with 'the View of a Teacher' element of teachers, whereas it has a little relationship with 'the knowledge of subject' element, 'the skills in teaching' element, and 'the managing ability in class' element. We can presume from this result that the Unity-oriented Leadership of a elementary principal makes a principal come into friendly relationships with teachers, and value their competences and thus that teachers have the firm convictions and show good attitudes in school work. Meanwhile, when a principal in the elementary school is too friendly and helpful, there is some possibility that teachers become indifferent to improve the teaching and learning method and to manage the class and so there may be not good results of the enhancement in the knowledge of the subject, the skills in teaching, and the managing ability in class. Chang Nae-chan and Oh Youn-hee(2001) also said in their paper, 'The study of the relationship between the Leaderships of Task-oriented and the Unity-oriented Leadership and the satisfaction level of job elements, that the Unity-oriented Leadership of a principal makes a good trust and the warm atmosphere among members as its leadership is based on the good human relationship, but achieves little.

Based on this debate, the following suggestions can be made. The principals of elementary schools may have been likely to think their roles to be just the improving the inter-relationship between teachers and to put an emphasis on the material supports. However, only that kinds of activities of a principal must have limitations to enhance the specialization of teachers and to boost up the schooling power. Therefore, principals should have solid and clear visions for teachers' specializing and students' education so as to raise the quality of the school education and then attain the goal effectively(Fink and Resnik, 2001). When the exertion of the Learning-centered Leadership of the elementary principals is really needed like this, the competence and responsibility to exert the Learning-centered Leadership must be enhanced in advance. And nextly, through supporting for teaching and learning, for organizations and operations of student-oriented curriculum, and by exerting the scholarship-activities based leadership, teachers' specializing will be raised up, the quality of students' education will be improved and the learning competence in students will be promoted. Likewise in order to enhance the competence and aptitude to exert the Learning-centered Leadership, the principal-centered in-service trainings need to be reinforced.