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The impact of elementary school leadership on student achievement: a gap analysis

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The impact of elementary school leadership on student achievement: a gap analysis

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Content Running head: THE IMPACT OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL LEADERSHIP

1

THE IMPACT OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL LEADERSHIP ON STUDENT
ACHIEVEMENT: A GAP ANALYSIS

by

Shamsiah Zuraini Kanchanawati Tajuddin

_______________________________________________________________________

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION

December 2014

Copyright 2014 Shamsiah Zuraini Kanchanawati Tajuddin

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my gratitude to the Honourble Pehin Orang Kaya Seri Kerna Dato
Seri Setia Hj Awang Abu Bakar Bin Haji Apong, Minister of Education, the Universiti Brunei
Darussalam under the leadership of Dato Paduka Dr.Hj Zulkarnain Bin Haji Hanafi, the
Permanent Secretary of Higher Education and the Vice Chancellor of Universiti Brunei
Darussalam for granting me the opportunity to undertake my professional development through
the Global Executive Education Doctorate Program. Without their supports and invaluable
guidance it would have been impossible to undertake such pioneering program.
My appreciation also goes to Dato Hj Daud, the former Permanent Secretary of Higher
Education for his continuous constructive guidance, encouragement and advice.
My heartfelt thanks to my dissertation chair Dr. Rudy Castruita, my dissertation
committee, Prof. Rob Filback and Dr.Cathy Krop as well as Dr.Kenneth Yates for their
invaluable guidance and continuous supervision throughout the program. A special word of
thanks to Prof. Mark Robison, Dr.Nadine Singh and all faculty members involved in the
program. Indeed it was a great pleasure working with them and learning from them.
I am also immensely grateful to my 'Trojan' Family i.e. Global Executive Ed.D Cohort 1
for their constant love and support throughout the two years. Last but not least, to my beloved
family for their continuous prayers and always reminding me that I could accomplish this goal.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ...
List of Tables ...
List of Figures ...
Abstract ...
Chapter 1: Statement of the Problem ...
Chapter 2: Review of the Literature ...
Chapter 3: Methodology ...
Chapter 4: Results and Findings ...
Chapter 5: Solutions and Implementations ...
Chapter 6: Evaluation and Discussion ...
References ...
Appendices ...
Appendix A: Gap Analysis Case Validation Method Worksheet ...
Appendix B: School Leader Survey ...
Appendix C: School Leader Interview Protocol ...
Appendix D: Questions to Guide Document Analysis ...

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LIST OF TABLES
Table 1. Summary of Assumed Causes for Knowledge, Motivation and ...
Organizational Issues
Table 2. Demographic Information of Survey Respondents ...
Table 3. Statement Results Categorized by Type of Knowledge in Ascending ...
Order from Highest to Lowest Mean
Table 4. Knowledge Statements, Means and Standard Deviation ...
Table 5. Statement Results Categorized by Motivation Variable in Ascending ...
Order from Highest to Lowest Mean
Table 6. Motivation Statements, Means and Standard Deviation ...
Table 7. Statement Results Categorized by Organizational Culture Variable in ...
Ascending Order from Highest to Lowest Mean
Table 8. Organizational Culture Statements, Means and Standard Deviation ...
Table 9. Summary of Assumed Causes for Knowledge, Motivation and ...
Organizational Issues
Table 10. Summary of Causes, Solutions and Implementation of Solutions ...
Table 11. Summary of Organizations Main Goal, Short Term Goals, Cascading ...
Goals and Performance Goals
Table 12. Summary of Recommended Evaluation Processes for SLP ...

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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. The SLP action learning process ...
Figure 2. An overview of the gap analysis process ...
Figure 3. Visual representation of interview findings ...

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ABSTRACT
Brunei Ministry of Education reviewed its education system and implemented the new “Sistem
Pendidikan Negara Abad ke-21 (SPN 21)” or “National Education System for the 21st Century”
in 2009. The SPN 21 is aimed at improving schools and student achievement across Brunei’s
schools. As a result, at the school level, teachers and students have been profoundly affected by
these changes. School leader’s role is seen as critical in providing leadership for these changes to
be implemented and adapted successfully to improve students’ achievement. The implications of
their leadership will strengthen students’ foundation in literacy and numeracy, which, in turn,
will serve as the basis for higher-level knowledge acquisition in the future. The purpose of this
study was to identify the causes of School Leadership Programme graduates’ current lack of
leadership proficiency using the gap analysis problem-solving framework (Clark & Estes, 2008.
A mixed method approached was used to collect data, in which 82 public elementary school
leaders completed a survey, six of these school leaders participated in a structured interviewes. In
addition, relevant documents on the School Leadership Programme were also analyzed as part of
a document review. Through the process of triangulation, the study’s findings indicate that there
is a gap in school leaders’ conceptual knowledge, a gap in their motivation to continue and
sustain the momentum of their SLP transformational projects after graduating from the
programme and organizational gap in engaging active involvement, guidance and support from
their District Supervising Officers. The study also found that school leaders have successfully
implemented their procedural knowledge, increase their self-motivation and engage the school
communities through the program. Through this study, solutions to close the validated causes
were developed.

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CHAPTER 1
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
School leadership has become a priority in international education policy agendas (Davis,
Darling-Hammond, LaPointe & Meyerson, 2005; Leithwood, Louis, Anderson & Wahlstrom,
2004; McKinsey & Company, 2007; The Wallace Foundation, 2010, 2011). Leadership plays a
key role in improving school outcomes by influencing the motivations and capacities of teachers
as well as the overall school climate and environment. Effective school leadership is essential to
improving the efficiency and equity of schooling. According to educational research on effective
schools by Sammons et al. (2009), school leaders should have the ability to improve the quality
of teaching and learning in their schools through the processes of collaboration and of guiding
teacher classroom instructions.
With the implementation of the new 21
st
Century National Education System or Sistem
Pendidikan Negara (SPN 21) in 2009, schools leaders in Brunei are required to align their school
vision, goals and objectives to SPN 21. As part of the implementation process, school leaders
are also expected to realign their schools’ direction and support for teachers, school staff,
students and its community in implementing changes brought about by SPN 21. By
implementing SPN 21 across schools in Brunei, the Ministry of Education (MoE) expects school
leaders to raise student achievement in core subjects, especially in mathematics and English
Language across the different levels. Currently in Brunei, school leadership faces challenges to
lead the SPN 21 changes in their schools and in developing teaching and learning strategies to
help them improve student learning.
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Context of the Problem
The School Leadership Programme (SLP) was established in January 2010 as part of
collaboration between the Ministry of Education, Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD) and a
consultancy firm to strengthen school leadership in Brunei to support the implementation of the
educational reforms of SPN 21. The program aims to prepare leaders in Brunei‘s educational
system with the capacity to lead an emerging body of reform initiatives and help establish a new
culture of proactive school leadership. The SLP unit is a very lean organization comprised of
nine members. These are faculty members from UBD, school leaders and members of school
teams graduating from the programme. Physically, the office of SLP is set up under the flagship
of the University’s Institute for Leadership, Innovation and Advancement. Administratively, the
Programme Leader reports directly to the UBD’s Vice Chancellor and the Minister of Education.
As an organization, SLP works with schools in Brunei through a series of action learning based
workshops whereby school leaders and their respective teams are required to implement
transformational projects to uplift their students’ academic achievements. SLP is designed to
simultaneously develop leadership capabilities while driving school performance improvement at
many levels over a four-month period.
As individuals, school leaders are exposed to best practices and leading thinkers to
improve their personal leadership capability. In their school teams, school leaders learn tools
and carry out activities designed to improve the alignment and effectiveness of their leadership in
the organization. In the interim period between workshops, school leaders and their teams work
on real problems in their school context to refine their strategies and execution plans based on
input from internal experts and outside resources. In the training processes, school leaders are
encouraged to develop networks with each other and to learn from and teach one another through
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active peer coaching and best practice sharing. In summary, SLP is an organization that helps to
develop school leaders to utilize action learning principles of leadership skills to effectively lead
their schools to achieve full implementation of SPN 21 and, hence, improve their schools’ and
students’ performances.
Mission and Organizational Problem
The mission of SLP is to “help develop effective leaders capable of meeting the social,
technological and political challenges by creating change in Brunei education” (SLP, 2012). SLP
intend to achieve this through its ‘School Leadership Programme’. However, after rigorous
training for all 120 elementary school leaders over the past two years, SLP has not been
successful in achieving its mission. Based on project reports received from all graduating cohorts
at the end of each program, only 30 percent of elementary school leaders were able to achieve
the targeted 20 percent improvement in their student achievement and school performance.
Organizational Goal
One of the organizational goals of SLP is to have all school leaders graduating from the
program achieve an increase of 20 percent in student achievement through their intervention
initiatives. School leaders are expected to implement these initiatives during the interim period
and a post-test will be conducted at the end of the interim period to assess the effectiveness of the
initiatives. SLP consultants set the 20 percent improvement target with support from the Ministry
of Education. The purpose for setting this goal was to motivate school leaders to aim high and be
more driven to develop “quantum initiatives” for their project and also to drive the sense of
urgency for school leaders to develop strategic actions to improve their schools’ performance. A
“quantum initiative” in the School Leadership Programme refers to a major project implemented
by a school leader in his/her respective school involving all or a majority of students and teachers
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in order to generate significant impact at the end of the project. The current school leader
performance shows that only 30 percent of elementary school leaders are able to successfully
achieve the target. Therefore, there is a gap of 70 percent in terms of school leaders who have not
achieved the target 20 percent improvement in student achievement.
Stakeholders
The main stakeholders in this study are public elementary school leaders or head
teachers. Other equally important stakeholders in SLP include teachers and parents at schools in
which SLP graduates are employed and the various departments within the Ministry of
Education, but the Department of Schools in particular. The Department of Schools acts as the
administrator for all public schools in Brunei. Each of these stakeholders plays a significant role
in supporting or impeding the work of school leaders. For instance, strong support and effective
response from education officers at the various Ministry of Education departments ensures that
school leaders are able to execute school initiatives and projects effectively. Being the policies
and regulations regulators, Ministry of Education officers are instrumental in fostering and
ensuring widespread participation of school leaders in efforts to implement educational changes
brought by SPN 21. Teachers, on the other hand, make a substantial direct contribution to student
learning either on an individual basis in the classroom environment or collectively as school staff
members and members of professional associations and learning communities. Parents are also
valuable stakeholders primarily as volunteers and collaborators in at-home education. If parents
value education, they are keen to support their children’s learning. School leaders can leverage
on this support by forming a productive alliance with them. In summary, these stakeholders’
influence may be corralled to improve the work of schools and student learning.
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Stakeholder for the Case Study
School leaders and teachers are the two most frequently examined sources of leadership
in schools. However, for the purpose of this study, the primary stakeholders are identified as the
all the public elementary school leaders in Brunei. One of the rationales for selecting elementary
school leaders as the key stakeholder in this study is that they work with students between the
ages of three and eleven and play a crucial role in developing and providing a strong foundation
of knowledge which will help these students develop skills they will build on for the rest of their
lives. Another important rationale for this selection is the fact that there are 120 elementary
schools in Brunei Darussalam in comparison to 35 secondary schools (middle schools).
Therefore, based on this number, elementary school leaders outnumbered their colleagues in the
middle schools and they are presumed to be in a position to ensure that all their students will
have the opportunity to progress to middle schools. In addition, the SPN 21 Curriculum was first
introduced in January 2009, started with year 1 and Year 4 concurrently, and gradually moved on
to the middle school (Ministry of Education, 2009). Therefore, being the first implementers of
the change the Ministry of Education implemented, elementary school leaders play a significant
role in ensuring the smooth transition and facilitation of the changes. This suggests that the
actions of elementary school leaders have great consequences on the successful implementation
of the Ministry of Education’s new education system and its expansion to the middle school
level.
Background of the Problem
In ensuring that excellent teaching reaches all children, an education system requires not
only quality teachers (Mourshed, Chijioke & Barber, 2010). Over the past couple of decades,
there is overwhelming evidence that strong leadership in a school can also make a real difference
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in student achievement (Wallace Foundation, 2011). The American Institute of Research (2000)
stated that the conversations about improving educator effectiveness until recently focused
nearly exclusively on teachers. Policy makers are now beginning to address the issue more
directly by focusing attention to the strengthening of skills of school leaders to enable them to
lead effectively. Efforts to improve school leadership are not unwarranted. According to Mazzeo
(2003), research confirmed both a limited supply of talented candidates to lead schools and the
important role school leaders play in improving teaching and learning. Leadership appears to
particularly affect the quality of teaching in schools. Findings from a review of literature
(Leithwood, Day, Sammons, Harris & Hopkins, 2006) claim that school leadership is second
only to classroom teaching as an influence on pupil learning (p. 3). A meta-analytic study of
5,000 studies that purported to have examined the effects of principal leadership and its effects
on student achievement by Waters, Marzano and McNulty (2003) indicated that, statistically,
there is a significant correlation between school level leadership and student achievement of
0.25. This is translates to a one standard deviation increase in student achievement on a norm
referenced test.
Though researchers agree about the importance of school leadership, they hold different
views regarding ways that school leaders can improve educational outcomes. Some researchers
(Hallinger & Heck, 1996; Leithwood & Jantzi, 1999; Shelton, 2011) found that school leadership
makes a difference when it comes to student achievement, but others found little or no effect of
leadership on student outcomes. For instance, Witziers, Bosker and Kruger (2003), in their
literature review, found that, despite the traditional rhetoric concerning principal effects, the
actual results of empirical studies in the U.S. and U.K. indicated that the size of effect is very
small or that the effects measured were inconsistent. This is because some researchers consider
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the effect of school leaders on student achievement to be direct, but some consider them to be
mostly occurring through indirect instructional leadership approaches. Findings from one such
study on the impact of school leadership on students’ academic outcomes by Sammons et al.,
(2009) indicated that school leaders can have an impact on pupil academic outcomes through
their influence on different groups of people in the school. Leithwood et al. (2006) reinforce this
by stating that leadership may act as a catalyst for other improvement in the school. For instance,
significant responsibility rests with school leaders in evaluating teachers and making decisions
about their classroom assignments. This indirectly may affect the strength of classroom
instruction and influence student achievement. This is because school leaders provide focus and
direction to curriculum and teaching and manages the organization efficiently to support student
learning.
A study on successful school leadership in Australia (Drysdale & Gurr, 2011) that
investigated the contribution of principals to the success of schools shows that a school leader
can implement interventions within four areas in the school context to improve student
outcomes. The four areas identified are teaching and learning, school capacity building, other
influences which include a range of environmental factors (such as demographic change, budget,
community resources and facilities), and the fourth area is student outcomes (including
scholastic attainment and authentic outcomes). School leaders in this context can implement
interventions on student outcomes by communicating the school vision and setting the student
achievement target orientation. The model of successful school leadership in this study clearly
shows that school leaders exert influence on a range of student outcomes mainly through a focus
on teaching and learning and school capacity building. This suggests that strong school
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leadership is particularly important in producing achievement either through direct or indirect
leadership.
Other the other hand, research such as that conducted by Waters et al. (2003) also
identified 21 leadership responsibilities of the school leader, which have a significant correlation
to student achievement. Some of these 21 leadership responsibilities are being a change agent,
essentially stating that it is the responsibility of the school leader to challenge the status quo and
push for new practices. Leaders also need to have a set of beliefs, which will help to shape the
culture of the school and create followership. Leaders should deploy the responsibility of culture,
especially culture that indirectly affects student achievement through cohesion among staff, a
shared vision, and through promoting a sense of well-being in the school. School leaders are also
expected to encourage staff to be leaders in their own classrooms and to make informed
decisions to extend their teaching approaches (Waters et al., 2003). The authors found successful
leaders provided an infrastructure where it was safe to try things out and teachers responded to
this opportunity positively. The way a school leader leads affects the way teachers saw
themselves as professionals. This, in turn, improved their sense of self-efficacy. This process had
a positive impact on the way the teacher interacts with pupils and other staff members in the
schools.
It is expected that, by exercising such good leadership in their schools, school leaders will
influence student learning and achievement. This notion is supported by findings from a study
conducted by McKinsey and Company (2007) which finds that successful education reforms
conducted in the United States of America, England and Singapore demonstrated that good
leadership in schools is important in effecting fast and substantial changes to practice. In light of
this research, some countries developed programs to prepare educators for the contemporary
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demands and challenges of school leadership. In Brunei Darussalam, the Ministry of Education
also believes that, besides teachers, a school leader can also play a significant role in improving
student learning, and this is what the Brunei Ministry of Education hopes to achieve for its
school leaders through its School Leadership Programme. Due to the need to train school leaders
en masse and to develop strong leadership in schools capable of implementing SPN 21 on a
national scale, the School Leadership Programme Unit (SLP) was established. Through a series
of action learning based exercises in SLP, school leaders are expected to work with their teachers
and students through collaboration and teamwork to refine and implement their strategies and
execution plans on improving students’ achievement.
Importance of the Problem
In today’s climate of rapid changes and globalization, Brunei has to ensure that it stays
relevant by preparing its young people to become responsible citizens who can contribute to the
social and economic progress of the country. For this purpose, the Ministry of Education, at the
turn of the millennium, reviewed its education system and recommended the implementation of
the current “Sistem Pendidikan Negara Abad ke-21 (SPN 21)” or “National Education System
for the 21
st
Century.” The SPN 21 is aimed at improving schools and student achievement
across Brunei’s schools. At the school level, teachers and students have been profoundly affected
by these changes. Therefore, it is critical that school leaders are successful in adapting to these
changes and implement relevant intervention initiatives at their schools to improve their
students’ achievement. In the SPN 21 context, effective school leadership is undoubtedly a
catalyst for school reform. The implications of school leaders’ improving student achievement
are that these efforts will strengthen students’ foundation in literacy and numeracy which, in
turn, will serve as the basis for higher level knowledge acquisition in the future. Alternatively,
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the improvement of student achievement at the elementary level will lead to the increase of
opportunity for students to enter the labor market as skilled workers and reduce the
unemployment rate among young people in Brunei.
In summary, as indicated by research conducted by Leithwood, Louis, Anderson and
Wahlstrom (2004), despite leadership’s being seen as secondary to classroom instruction as an
influence on student learning, it plays a significant role in improving teaching and learning.
Improving the quality of one teacher allows a classroom full of students to benefit, but improving
the quality of one school leader, however, allow all the students in a school to benefit.
Purpose of the Study and Questions
The purpose of this study is to conduct a gap analysis to identify the causes behind the
fact that 70 percent of Brunei elementary school leaders were not able to improve student
learning and school performance with the training they received from SLP. The analysis will
focus on the causes of this problem due to gaps in the areas of knowledge and skill, motivation,
and organizational issues.
The questions that guide this study are as follow:
1. What are the knowledge, motivation and organizational causes that impede
elementary school leaders from applying SLP leadership skills in their leadership
practices?
2. What leadership strategies are successfully utilized by school leaders to improve
students’ learning?
3. What are the recommended solutions to close the knowledge, motivation and
organizational gaps that impede elementary school leaders applying SLP leadership
skills in their leadership practices?
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Methodological Framework
In order to research the potential causes of and address potential solutions for the low
percentage of school leaders’ achieving the 20 percent increase in student improvement, this
study utilizes the Clark and Estes’ (2008) gap analysis a systematic and analytical method that
helps to clarify organizational goals and to identify the gap between the actual performance level
and the preferred performance level within an organization. Assumed causes for the performance
gap will be generated based on personal knowledge and related literature. These causes will be
validated by using surveys, focus groups, interviews, literature review and content analysis of
documents. Research-based solutions will be recommended and evaluated in a comprehensive
manner.
Limitation
A limitation of this study is that, due to restricted time, interviews can be conducted with
only five to seven elementary school leaders.
Definitions
School Leaders: School leaders in this study’s stakeholder context refer to headmasters
and headmistress who are heading the public elementary schools in Brunei Darussalam.
School Leadership Programme: This is a leadership program designed to help school
leaders to lead and transform their schools through transformational leadership and quantum
projects.
Sistem Pendidikan Negara (SPN 21): This Brunei Darussalam’s new education system
which was named the ‘National Education System for the 21
st
Century. It was first implemented
in 2009.
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Organization of the Dissertation
There are six distinct chapters in this dissertation. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the
research study, including the statement of the problem, the purpose of the study, the significance
of the study, the research questions, the limitation of the study, and, finally, the definition of
terms used. A comprehensive review of the literature takes place in Chapter 2. Chapter 3
describes the methodology of the research that outlines the design study, sample criteria, and
data collection and analysis procedures. Chapter 4 presents the findings of the study. Chapter 5
discusses solutions and implementation of the assumed knowledge, motivation and organization
causes identified in Chapter 4. The final chapter, Chapter 6, will present the discussion of the
how the analysis gap will be evaluated.
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CHAPTER 2
REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
The School Leadership Programme (SLP) was established in January 2010 as part of the
Ministry of Education’s collaboration with Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD) and a United
State (US) consultant to strengthen school leadership in Brunei to support the implementation of
the educational reforms of SPN 21. The programme aims to prepare leaders in Brunei‘s new
education system with the capacity to lead an emerging body of reform initiatives and help
establish a new culture of proactive leadership. Since its establishment, the School Leadership
Programme trained a total of 640 school leaders. However, from the Ministry of Education’s
view, the impact of school leaders trained in this program has not been as far reaching as
expected. It is critical that school leaders are successful in improving their student achievement,
as this will increase the opportunity for students to enter the labor market as skilled workers and
reduce the unemployment rate among locals in Brunei. Therefore, the goal for the School
Leadership Programme is to have all its graduates be 100 percent proficient in leadership skills
to successfully conduct intervention initiatives that will enhance student achievement in the
schools. Thus, the purpose of this study is to identify the causes for School Leadership
Programme graduates’ current lack of leadership proficiency and the strategies to increase their
proficiency using the gap analysis model (Clark & Estes, 2008). The focus of the study will be
on elementary school leaders and the gap analysis model will serve as a guide to identify whether
the problem is due to gaps in the areas of knowledge, motivation or culture. Thus, the questions
that guide this study are:
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1. What are the knowledge, motivation and organizational causes that impede
elementary school leaders from applying SLP leadership skills in their leadership
practices?
2. What leadership strategies are successfully utilized by elementary school leaders to
improve student achievement?
3. What are the recommended solutions to close the knowledge, motivation and
organizational gaps that impede elementary school leaders from applying SLP
leadership skills in their leadership practices?
School Leadership in Education System
In investigating the research related to this study, a review of literature was conducted to
explore the availability of supporting resources related to the impact of school leaders’
leadership on student achievement. This chapter discusses the evolution of school leader’s role
over the past half-century will be briefly discussed.
Historical Perspectives
As schools became larger, the traditional role of the school principal as head- or
principal-teacher responsible for teaching and learning within a school was expanded with the
addition of greater administrative responsibilities. The school leader’s role became more focused
on the management of teaching and learning within the school, consistent with local school
board and provincial policies and directions. Research shows that the role of school leaders in the
education system evolved to meet the range of leadership and management expectations of
parents, students and employers. This evolution is described in a historical study by Gunter and
Thomson (2010) which describes the role and work of school leaders in England prior to 1970s
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as being more paternalistic in that they provided moral leadership in regards to boys’ character
formation or religious belief, which was thought to be what mattered.
Due to expansion of schools in the 1970s and 1980s, the role and work of school leaders
changed from paternal to one that built relationships with a diverse range of people and
institutions and also become more of an executive decision-maker regarding both strategy and
change. In the 21st century, school leader is identified as the local leader of national reforms,
where the current rhetoric is of effective leaders and leadership rather than about heads and
headship. This study emphasizes that what worked for school leaders before does not work
today. Today, the head as professional remains a prime focus of identity, but experience is no
longer enough to support school leader work. For the purpose of meeting the demands and broad
job descriptions of the 21st century school leader, Higher Education Institutes, Local Authorities
and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate in England deemed that it is necessary to provide training for
school leaders. Another study, which tracks the development of role and responsibilities of the
traditional school leader in England over a 30-year period, was conducted by Barrett-Baxendale
and Burton (2009). Similar to Gunter and Thomson’s study, this study also stated that,
historically, a traditional school leader was characterized as a strong, austere and time-served
disciplinarian teacher-practitioner. During the 1970s through to early 1990s, a school leader
concentrated principally upon teaching and learning, liaising with local education authority
officials to deliver and educational entitlement in loco parentis. Findings from this qualitative
research on five school leaders in Liverpool acknowledge the changing role of the school leader
which requires a multi-agency, outward looking focus and increased engagement with external
drivers in addition to a concern for teaching and learning. This study claims observations of the
current leadership landscape suggest an evolution that is likely to be transformational in terms of
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going from effective delivery of teaching and learning to leadership focused on Children’s
Services at its core or, simply put, learner-centered leadership.
Changing Landscape of School Leadership
Research suggests that many current and potential school leaders lack the skills necessary
to lead in today’s schools (Mazzeo, 2003). In his study, Mazzeo (2003) highlights a 2001 Public
Agenda report, which found that 29 percent of superintendents believe the quality of school
leaders, has declined measurably in recent years. One likely source of this dissatisfaction is the
changing nature of school leadership. Historically, school leaders were expected to perform
primarily managerial and political roles. Schools of the twenty-first century require a new kind
of school leader: one whose main responsibility will be defined in terms of “instructional
leadership that focuses on strengthening teaching and learning” (p.1). The challenge for states is
to redesign their systems of licensure, preparation, and professional development to produce and
reward school leaders who have these kinds of skills. Leaders are pivotal to school improvement
and make a difference to behavior, engagement and outcomes. A view that emerges is that
headship could be trained for and school leaders can be developed through professional
development.
Preparing and Developing Effective School Leaders
In countries like the USA, United Kingdom and Singapore, teachers aspiring to be school
leaders are required to undertake mandatory or formal school leadership programs qualifications
that require knowledge of the theory and practice of school leadership before they can apply for
the post (The Wallace Foundation, 2011: McKinsey, 2007). A study by De vita (2007) for the
Wallace Foundation claims that efforts to improve public education in the US will not succeed if
school leadership is not strengthened because leadership provides a critical bridge between most
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educational reform initiatives. The study also indicated that education system need to be more
deliberate in identifying future leaders and provide training that prepares graduates who can not
only administer and manage, but lead. Having the right leadership can make a measurable
difference in dramatically lifting children’s performance. This statement is supported by findings
from McKinsey & Co. (2007), which suggest that school leadership is second only to classroom
teaching as an influence in learning. McKinsey’s study on 20 education systems around the
world shows that, without an effective school leader, a school is unlikely to have a culture of
high expectation or strive for continuous improvement. This suggests that strong leadership is
particularly important in producing improvements.
Top performing school systems leverage a substantial and growing knowledge on what
constitutes effective school leadership to develop their school leaders to become drivers of
improvement in instruction. McKinsey’s report also suggested that, to develop effective
instruction school leader, successful school systems do need to not only provide school leaders
training, but, first of all, they have to get the right teachers to become school leaders. This can be
achieved by providing the right incentives to attract the best teachers to apply. Getting the right
people to become principals is important, but so is providing them with the right set of skills to
be effective leaders and to harness their developing instructional leadership skills. Such trainings
which school leaders typically receive in university programs and from their own districts,
according to research study by Darling-Hammond, LaPointe, Meyerson, Orr and Cohen (2007),
no longer to prepare them for their roles as leaders of learning. A staggering 80 percent of
superintendents and 69 percent of school leaders in the study think that, given the right training,
graduates are better prepared more motivated to lead instruction, and far likelier to last as school
leaders in tough school settings. Hallinger (1992), in his empirical evaluations of leadership
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24
development program, found that these programs come into existence due to changes in the
attitudes and beliefs of administrators. The author found that the programs not only contributed
to community building among administrators, but also provided instructional leadership training
to school leaders, many of whom were poorly prepared to assume the role, and provided a
grounded belief among administrators in the importance of lifelong learning.
Current Standards for Leaders
Such programs provide not only professional development leading to a series of highly
regarded certificates and qualifications, but also the development of headship standards. Having
the standards in place will ensure candidates, as well as program instructors, have clear direction
about what they are trying to accomplish together. In England, the National Professional
Qualification for Headship (NPQH) has helped to improve the capacity and performance of
England’s school leaders. Professional development programs such as developed by National
College for School Leaders in Nottingham in collaboration with UK Department of Education
allow potential school leaders to increase their knowledge of the professional qualities required
of school principals and provides them with greater understanding of their own personal skills
referenced against national and international standards, increases their awareness of the impact
of different leadership styles and the importance of learning-centered leadership. They also
nurture leaders’ expertise in developing a whole school teaching and learning culture capable of
tracking underperformance, raising standards and managing change.
As a result, about 43percent of schools led by NPQH graduates have raised their
standards of leadership and management between 2005 and 2008 (McKinsey & Co., 2010).
Furthermore, there is some evidence that shows requiring a qualification in order to lead a school
does help to improve the quality of school leadership (McKinsey & Co., 2010). In summary, the
THE IMPACT OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL LEADERSHIP

25
roles of a principal have evolved over the past half-century due to the demand and expectation of
the education system, public and learners. Successful education systems around the world are
leveraging the importance of having a good and effective school leader in enhancing student and
school performance. As a result, countries with successful education systems are using this
knowledge to mount training programs to develop their school leaders into effective instructional
leaders.
Role of School Leaders in School Improvement
Leaders are pivotal to school improvement and make a difference to behaviour,
engagement and outcomes. However, according to the American Institute of Research (2000),
conversations about improving educator effectiveness until recently focused nearly exclusively
on teachers. Mourshed, Chijioke and Barber (2010) emphasized that, in ensuring that excellent
teaching reaches all children, education system require not only quality teachers, but, over the
past couple of decades, there is overwhelming evidence that strong leadership in a school can
also make a real difference in student achievement (Wallace Foundation, 2011). Witziers,
Bosker& Kruger (2003) supported this in their study by reiterating that it was only in the last 30
years that much attention has been paid to educational leadership and its impact on student
outcomes. Generally, researchers concur that the effects are indirect and difficult to measure
(Hallinger & Heck, 1998; Leithwood & Jantzi, 2000). However, Witziers et al. (2003), in their
report titled Educational Leadership and Student Achievement: The Elusive Search for an
Association stated that they found no correlation between principal leadership and student
achievement in the studies they analyzed.
Other researchers, such as Leithwood, Louis, Anderson and Wahlstrom (2004), arrived at
very different conclusions. Based on school leaders and their impact on student achievement,
THE IMPACT OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL LEADERSHIP

26
they concluded that student success was directly attributed to the effects of a school leader. Other
researchers (Cotton, 2003; Leithwood et al., 2006; Marzano, 2005) supported this notion and
argued that leadership acts as a catalyst for other good things or for improvement to happen in
the school and suggest that strong school leadership is particularly important in producing
achievement. Hence, this section discusses research findings that support the notions that school
leaders do, in fact, influence student achievement by looking at some of the common leadership
roles, responsibilities and effective practices and how these practices can contribute towards
student improvement.
Roles and Responsibilities
The school leader’s responsibility is to take charge and ensure that a learning
environment is geared towards academic achievement. There have been studies which linked
school leaders’ roles and responsibilities to the academic achievement of students. Hallinger and
Heck (1996), in their review on empirical literatures on the relationship between school leader’s
role and school effectiveness during the period from 1980 to 1995, found that there are
statistically significant empirical and qualitatively robust associations between heads’
educational values, qualities and their strategic actions and improvement in school conditions
leading to improvement in pupil outcomes. As Marzano, Waters and McNulty (2005) discerned,
a highly effective school leader has a dramatic impact on overall school performance and
develop a list of leadership responsibilities of school leaders (Waters & Cameron, 2007). This
large-scale quantitative study examined the effects of specific leadership practices and identified
21 leadership responsibilities that are positively associated with student achievement: culture;
order; discipline; resources, involvement in curriculum, instruction, and assessment; focus;
knowledge of curriculum, instruction and assessment; visibility; contingent rewards;
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27
communication; outreach; input; affirmation; relationship; change agent; optimize; ideals/beliefs;
monitors/evaluates; flexibility; situational awareness and intellectual stimulation (p. 5). The
study also found that the 21 leadership responsibilities were significantly statistically correlated
to student achievement and to 66 practices or behaviors fulfilling these responsibilities.
Impact on Student Achievement
Sammons et al., (2009) indicated that school leaders can create change in pupil academic
outcomes through their influence on different groups of people in the school. Such effective
leadership has also shown impact on a range of intermediate outcomes relating to improvement
in teacher collaborative culture, pupil motivation, behaviour and attendance. Leithwood and
Jantzi (1999) conducted a study to inquire about the relative effects on students of principal and
teacher sources of leadership, as well as about similarities and differences in the school
conditions through which teacher- and principal-leadership influence is exercised. Data achieved
from a survey of 1,762 teachers and 9,941 students in one large Canadian school district were
used to explore the relative effects of principal and teacher leadership on student engagement in
school. Results demonstrated greater effects of principal as compared to teacher sources of
leadership on student engagement. The effects of principal leadership were weak but significant,
whereas the effects of teacher leadership were not significant. Both forms of leadership were
mediated by many of the same elements of the school organization. Most scholars believe that
school leaders influence student learning through their interactions with teachers and by shaping
features of the school organization (Hallinger & Leithwood, 1994).
Drawing from 30 years of studies into the impact of leadership on schooling, Marzano,
Waters and McNulty (2005) provide a meta-analysis of 69 studies on school level leadership,
involving 2,802 school leaders, and its effect on student achievement. The purpose of the meta-
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28
analysis was to determine the relationships between the dependent variable of students’
achievement and the independent variable of leadership. Using meta-analysis, this study found a
statistically significant correlation between school level leadership and student achievement of
0.25. It is estimated that a 10 percentile point increase in pupil test scores results from the work
of an average school leader who improved his/her own demonstrated efforts in all 21
responsibilities. Clearly, leadership makes a difference. The study also found that not all strong
leaders have a positive impact on student achievement. Two most plausible explanations for the
third findings are that the effect of strong leadership could be mitigated if a principal is focused
on practices that are not likely to have an impact on student achievement and that, even when
school leaders are focused on the right classroom and school practices, they must understand the
implications the changes have for stakeholders. Failure to do so can result in a minimal or
detrimental impact on student performance.
Effective Practices
Effective practices of school leaders and their impact on student achievement have
sparked great interest in the educational community. The past decades provide much evidence to
confirm the influence of a school leader’s leadership on student achievement. An earlier study by
Hallinger, Bickman and Davis (1996) on school head teachers’ effect on a specific student
reading achievement showed no direct effects of principal instructional leadership on student
achievement. The results, however, did support the belief that a head teacher can have an indirect
effect on school effectiveness through actions that shape the school’s learning climate. The
study involved analyzing data collected over a period of three years from 98 elementary schools
in Tennessee using principal and teacher questionnaires and student test scores. The result
specifically indicates a strong relation between the degree of instructional leadership provided by
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29
the head teacher and the existence of a clear school mission. A clear mission, in turn, influenced
student opportunity to learn and teachers’ expectations for student achievement. These results
are highly consistent with findings from other studies (Davis et al., 2005; Heck et al., 1990;
Leithwood, 1994; Leithwood et al. 2004; Mendel’s 2012; Penlington, Kingston & Day 2008,)
which suggest that elementary school leaders who are perceived by teachers as strong
instructional leaders promote student achievement through their influence on features of the
school-wide learning climate.
Leithwood et al. (2004) described the basics of successful leadership effective practices
are as follows: setting direction, developing people and redesigning the organization (p.8). The
role of school leaders is vital in setting the direction for successful schools, and direction setting
requires school leaders to identify and articulate a vision, foster the acceptance of group goals
and create high performance expectations for both students and staff. Another case study on 20
selected schools conducted by Day, Sammons, and Leithwood (2008) to explore the association
of specific school leaders’ activity and student outcomes informed of a number of leadership
practices that were reported by school leaders and their colleagues as being central to improving
their school and, consequently, affect student outcomes. The qualitative data in particular point
to the primacy of the school leaders in leading others by setting clear vision and direction. This
is when school leaders repositioned their schools internally through setting high expectations of
staff and students with a high level of care so that they were able to build and sustain
performance. In these schools, there is also clear evidence that “Every Child Matters”. The clear
direction combined with the aligned schools structures and cultures have promoted increased
student, staff engagement, and self-confidence and, thus, achievement grew. Such findings
provide important insight as to how successful leaders improve student learning.
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Another effective practice for school leaders is to develop other people so that they will
be able to meet the expectations. In their review on literature concerning effective practices of
successful school leadership, Leithwood, Harris, and Hopkins (2008) claimed that school leaders
developed others by helping to improve employee performance, beliefs, values, motivations,
skills and knowledge and the conditions in which they work. The leadership practices of the
school leader are to address each of these inner and observable dimensions of performance and,
in particular, those which are central to what students learn. By doing this, school leaders
improve teaching and learning indirectly and most powerfully through their influence on staff
motivation, commitment and working conditions. Finally, in order to be effective, school leaders
need to redesign the school’s organization system. This is to strengthen school cultures, build
collaborative processes and remove obstacles to success. In other words, to increase the
likelihood of student success, leaders need to create a sense of coordinated purpose within their
school and then provide the resources and appropriate motivation to enable the staff to develop
the skills necessary for their collective undertaking while consciously working to remove barriers
that might impede the creation of these collaborative cultures, structures and goals.
Another research study conducted by Gentilucci and Muto (2007) looked at 39 eighth
grade student from three middle schools in the central coast of California and their perceptions of
school leaders’ leadership that have a direct effect on student achievement. In this study,
students at all three schools believed effective school leaders can and do directly influence
learning and academic achievement by engaging in student- and instructionally-focused
behaviors. Students indicated that principal behaviors such as enforcing dress code, making
routine announcements, talking with teachers and conducting frequent meetings are tangential to
their academic success. In the study, students identified specific principal behaviors that they
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31
perceived as positively influencing students’ academic achievement: their visibility and their
availability to engage students in formal and informal meeting during their walk-about to discuss
academic and non-academic matters and teacher-school leader behavior during classroom
observations whereby school leaders engage interactively with students pertaining to their
learning. In contrast, students perceived school leaders who do not engage or indicate interests in
being accessible to students as having less influence on their academic achievement. In
summary, findings from these studies indicate that enhancements made by school leaders on
their school learning climate might help to improve student achievement.
Different Styles of School Leadership
Leadership has long been perceived to be important to the effective functioning of
organizations in general and of schools in particular. Many types of leadership are described,
defined and reviewed by researchers investigating school leaders’ behaviors and responsibilities
and the relationship school leaders have to student achievement. Research on school leadership
discovered several types of leadership that connect with student achievement. These include
instructional, transformational, collective and distributed leadership. Krüger and Scheerens
(2012), discuss the literature through theories emphasising school leaders’ personality traits,
behaviours and actions, and leadership styles and whether these are instructional and
transformational. The research on principal leadership indicated that school leaders spend their
time mainly on keeping the organization running, and, as a result, they do little to develop and
carry out an educational vision.
In light of these results, many researchers have emphasised the importance of
instructional leadership, assuming that learning results will improve if school leaders are able to
spend more time on tasks that are directed toward the primary processes (Hallinger, 1983).
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Leithwood (1994) defined instructional leadership to include behaviors that directly affect
curriculum, teacher instruction, staff development and supervision. In general, school leader
instructional leadership involves all activities that affect student learning. A study conducted by
O’Donnell and White (2005) in Pennsylvania public middle schools to examine the significant
relationship between school leaders’ instructional leadership behaviors and student achievement
shows that, by promoting the school learning climate, school leaders’ instructional leadership has
significant positive relationships with student reading and mathematics achievement. School
leaders’ specific behaviors which are seen to promote the school learning climate include
protecting instructional time, maintaining high visibility, providing incentives to teachers,
promoting professional development and providing incentives to learning.
Other researchers (Fullan, 1992; Leithwood, 1992) still believe that a transformational
leader has the task of developing the school organisation by bringing about a cultural shift within
the school. The cultural shift, therefore, involves the notion that schools must grow toward a
culture of collegiality, shared planning and a continuous effort to bring about improvement. This
means that school leaders have a role in the creation of a working environment in which teachers
work together and identify strongly with the mission of the school. However, instructional
leadership has always been criticised by scholars because of its supposed emphasis on a rather
autocratic style of leadership in schools whilst the concept of transformational leadership, on the
other hand, is associated with explicitly promoting such phenomena as democratic leadership,
leaders as coaches, and teacher participation in decision-making and distributed leadership.
Often, there is overlap between instructional and transformational leadership, and, as a
result, this leads to the emergence of new leadership style, the distributed leadership style. This
refers to particular leadership practices and not job titles or formal roles. This type of leadership
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33
deals with which people enact which practices. By reflecting on the leadership tasks identified in
each leadership styles as influencing student achievement, school leaders will better understand
which tasks to delegate to provide time to build school-based leadership capacity directed toward
improving student achievement.
School Leaders in Brunei’s Education System
Due to SPN 21, it is expected that, by exercising good leadership in their schools, school
leaders will influence student learning and achievement. Therefore, in order to ensure that
Brunei’s future school leaders are well developed and qualified to effectively lead school-wide
change, it should be made mandatory for school leaders and aspiring school leaders to undergo a
formal Principal Training Program to provide them support, knowledge and skills. Having
discussed the trends of school leaderships globally in earlier topics, the trends provide some
parallel similarities and highlight differences to leadership in Brunei. This section discusses,
albeit briefly, the development of school leadership in Brunei and the need for changes.
Historical Perspectives
In Brunei Darussalam, it was not until 2005 that the Ministry of Education started to
invest heavily into the training of school leaders and potential school leaders in renowned
institutions within the region and abroad. The first known record of a principal for Brunei was in
1921, and this person also acted as Brunei’s first School Inspector under the supervision of the
British Resident (Upex, 2006). It was often the case during the pre- and post-war periods that
school operations were under the supervision of a superintendent tasked with overseeing the
teaching and running of the schools. With the setting up of Malay Medium Secondary School in
1955 and English Medium Secondary School in 1957, the role of school leader was mostly
conducted by expatriate. This may be due to two contributing factors. The first factor was the
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influence of the six British expatriate school officers hired by the State to help administer and re-
organize the new educational system in the mid 1950’s. The second was the fact that, during the
period of teacher shortage, Brunei was relying heavily on expatriate teachers recruited from
Ceylon, India, United Kingdom, Australia, the Philippines, Singapore and Malaysia. It was seen
as convenient at the time that the first wave of leaders for schools were selected from this group
of experienced teachers. At this juncture, there was no serious effort to develop preparation
programs for school leaders. However, due to rapid growth in student population, new schools
were built. To date, there are 120 primary schools, 30 secondary schools and three sixth form
colleges in the country. Each of these schools is now led by a local principal and the majority of
them receive no preparation or training prior to their appointment as school leaders.
Training and Development
Due to the movement on developing programs for school leaders, policy makers in
Brunei Darussalam are now beginning to address the issue more directly by paying increasing
attention to strengthening the skills of school leaders in order for them to lead effectively. In
Brunei Darussalam, there is no requirement for candidates to be trained before they are
appointed to leadership, and there are no preparation programs available for those who wish to
become school leaders. Until recently, appointments were made entirely on the basis of teaching
experience with the assumptions that teachers make successful managers. There is no
requirement apart from getting “Very Good” for their annual appraisal for three consecutive
years. The Assistant Director of School makes recommendations and school leaders are
appointed by the Ministry of Education (Salleh, 2012). Many school leaders, too, are easily
appointed in the system on the basis of who they know rather than on a comprehensive
assessment of their knowledge, skills and dispositions needed to successfully lead a school. As a
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35
result, although these leaders take the role of school leaders they are ill-prepared for the job to
effectively lead schools. It is only after they are appointed as principal were they encouraged to
take a Master program in Educational management, but this is not compulsory.
Currently, a large number of serving school leaders still lacks the basic leadership and
managerial training. In the absence of specific preparation for school leadership programs,
learning “on-the-job”’ is the most common strategy used by these school leaders. These
descriptions are not confined to situations in Brunei only. School leaders in North Cyprus,
according to Mertkan (2011), face the similar problem of lack of preparation for headship, and
this, apparently, is a common pattern familiar in many locations, particularly in developing
countries.
In the past years, there have been two initiatives introduced to help develop school
leaders. One calls for enrolling selected teachers into the Singapore National Institute of
Education Program of Leadership Education Program (LEP). This program is nine months
program long, but only few personnel are recommended each year. Another initiative introduced
was the School Leadership Programme (SLP).
Challenges to the Profession
In view of its changing economic landscape, Brunei Darussalam introduced a new
education system in the year 2007 known as SPN 21 (an acronym for Sistem Pendidikan Negara
Abad ke-21). SPN 21 aims to meet the social and economic challenges of the 21
st
Century by
equipping students with 21
st
century skills and fulfill the Strategic Themes as outlined in the
Ministry of Education’s Strategic Plan (2007-2011). In the 21
st
century, it is no longer enough
for students to acquire knowledge. Furthermore, the Ministry of Education (MoE) is not
impressed with student overall achievement in core subject areas and felt that these situations
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36
require urgent improvement. School leaders are also perceived as dependent on MoE to come up
with initiatives to solve instructional problems. Hence at this juncture, the different departments
in MOE, such as the Department of Schools, and Curriculum Development Department, are the
ones who develop various initiatives and projects to help the schools. The MoE felt that such
initiatives should not be initiated or driven from top down, but should be led by leaders at school
level. The new education system introduced is also aimed at realizing Brunei Vision 2035, which
is to have Brunei Darussalam be recognized for the accomplishment of its well-educated and
highly skilled people, its quality of life and its dynamic and sustainable economy. One of the
strategies to make Brunei’s Vision 2035 a reality is to prepare our youth for employment and
achievement in a world that is increasingly competitive and knowledge-based.
McKinsey & Company (2007) report on education systems titled How the World’s Most
Improved School Systems Keep Getting Better, studied twenty systems from around the world,
all with improving but differing levels of performance, and examined how each has achieved
significant, sustained, and widespread gains in student outcomes, as measured by international
and national assessments. The report notes that one of the major challenges for every school
system is deciding on the interventions it should make in order to improve its performance. For
a system’s improvement journey to be sustained over the long term, the improvements have to be
integrated into the very fabric of the system pedagogy, and one of the strategies is by architecting
tomorrow’s leadership. The report notes that one of the key factors for the continued
improvement in any education system is leadership continuity, whereby future leaders are
developed from within the system. In an effort to replicate this success, the Ministry of
Education, in association with the Institute for Leadership, Innovation and Advancement (ILIA)-
Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD), enlisted a consultancy to run a School Leadership
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37
Programme for Brunei School Leaders. School leadership finally has become a priority in
Brunei education policy agendas.
School Leadership Programme
The School Leadership Programme is an initiative of the Universiti Brunei Darussalam
and the Ministry of Education launched in March 2010. The aim of this program is to develop
school leaders in Brunei to become transformational leaders. SLP is an action learning based
programme that aims to drive improvement in leadership and performance at many levels over a
4 to 6 month period. In order to drive improvement, participating school leaders need to
implement transformational projects to uplift students’ achievement in their respective schools.
Figure 1 presents a graphical representation of the 4 to 6 months action learning process.

Figure 1. The SLP action learning process

The key component of this program is the recognition that adults learn best by working
on real problems. In this program, school leaders were introduced to new tools, concepts and
leadership skills required for them to solve challenges at their work place. The concept of
transformational leadership in this program is based on the work of Tichy and Bennis (2007) that
focused on the process of transformation of the organization. In this context, the school and on
how leaders carried out those change process. Organizational transformation, in their view, could
“be brought about in terms of a “three act play.” This three-act “drama” includes recognizing the
need for change (Act I), creating a new vision (Act II), and institutionalizing change (Act III).
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According to Leithwood and Jantzi (2000), transformational approaches to leadership have long
been advocated as productive under high levels of motivation and commitment condition to
solve substantial problems especially with implementing restructuring initiatives.
In this School Leadership Programme, school leaders are assessed through their
application of leadership skills in transformative project implementation such as setting mission
or direction for the school, cascading this mission to the school community, developing other
people through the use of SLP leadership’s tools such as RASI and 9-Cell Matrix as well as their
engagement of teachers’ and parental support.
Impact of Elementary School Leaders on Student Achievement
School leaders attending the SLP are required to attend the workshops with a pre-
identified project on which their team will focus for the duration of the programme. The impact
of these projects is measured by the degree to which they achieve the target goals, especially
their gains in academic achievement. SLP has become the catalyst to a number of achievements
in the area of numeracy, literacy, parental involvement and other collaborative engagements.
However, there were a number of limitations that emerged during the implementation of both the
numeracy and literacy projects which contribute to the degree of improvement in the schools.
Although the two leadership initiatives have been introduced, participation in LEP is still
sporadic and very few school leaders have the privilege to attend. On the other hand, the
graduates of SLP expected to have the skills to implement transformational projects in their
respective schools were not 100 percent proficient in the leadership skills learned in the program.
Hence, it is imperative for SLP to conduct a performance gap analysis to improve performance
and achieve organizational goals. This gap analysis process will focus on three main areas
corresponding to knowledge, motivation and organizational barriers.
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School Leadership and Student Achievement
In an attempt to explain the likely reason for the performance gap of Brunei public
elementary school leaders, specific attention is given to the three major areas of knowledge,
motivation and organization or institutional goal as the possible causes for the gap that are
discussed in this section.
Knowledge
In order to assess the gap in knowledge, it is distinguished into four types: factual,
conceptual, procedural and metacognitive, as identified by Anderson and Krathwohl (2001).
Factual knowledge encompasses the basic elements that one must know to be acquainted with a
discipline or solve a problem within it. This type of knowledge includes isolated elements such
as terminology and specific details. Second, conceptual knowledge which, as described by
Anderson and Krathwohl, (2001) refers to knowledge of categories, generalizations,
classifications, theories, or structures pertaining to a particular area. The third type of knowledge
is the procedural knowledge and means knowledge of skills, techniques, methods and knowledge
of criterion used to determine when to do what to do (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001). Simply,
procedural knowledge is the knowledge of how to do something. Finally, the fourth type of
knowledge is metacognitive knowledge, which, according to Anderson and Krathwohl (2001),
refers to knowledge of own cognition and about oneself in relation to various subject matter or
tasks.
Based on their review on theoretical research, Waters, Marzano and McNulty (2003) also
supported the notion that people in leadership need to have the declarative (what), experiential
(why), procedural (how) and contextual (when) knowledge necessary to lead changes. The
literature stated that school leaders will need these types of knowledge as this will determine
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40
whether their leadership will have a positive or a negative impact on achievement. In order for
them to have a positive impact, school leaders need to properly identify and focus on changes
that need to be conducted to improve the school and classroom practices. This will require the
use of declarative and experiential knowledge. Another variable that will determine the positive
impact on student achievement is whether school leaders properly understand the magnitude or
order of change they are leading. This will require school leaders to understand how to proceed
with implementation and when they needed to use various practices and strategies. Leaders often
fail in their leadership because they simply did not know what they needed to know or did not
understand why they need to make the change, how to implement it and when to use different
approaches.
The importance of these different types of knowledge to school leaders is emphasized by
a study conducted by Woods, Woods, and Crowie (2009) which found that more than half of
school leaders in their survey (54 percent, n=266) indicated that they need professional
development focused on building leadership capacity, particularly in relation to conceptual and
procedural knowledge. School leaders in their study also ranked the opportunities for reflection
as a high priority in their practices. This supported the significance of metacognitive knowledge
for school leaders in enabling them to reflect and engage purposefully with the ideas and
concepts they work in contact with so that they can assess the appropriateness of decision and
action to improve their school. Murphy and Lewis (2008) agreed by stating that, in school
leadership, effective school leaders are generally expected to be able to “read the context” in
order to deploy a repertoire of leadership skills appropriately. In other words, school leaders are
expected to diagnose their school environment and apply the necessary leadership tools to
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41
initiate change or improvement. This requires school leaders to have a good metacognitive
knowledge in order to deploy a repertoire of leadership skills appropriately.
In cases where school leaders lack any of the knowledge identified, Ambrose, Bridges,
DiPietro, Lovett and Norman, (2010) suggested that instructors can overcome this by making
student learning more meaningful through various organizational strategies. According to Mayer
(2011), when a learner knows how s/he learns and how to monitor and control his/her own
learning, s/he can reflect on what works and what does not. Once able to identify this, learners
can seek alternative approaches to overcome some of the barriers or challenging issues.
Motivation
In the area of motivation, which, according to Mayer (2011), is an internal state that
initiates and maintains goal directed behavior and encompasses four critical components:
personal, activating, energizing and directed. Motivation determines goal achievement through
directing how one will learn (Ambrose, Bridges, DiPietro, Lovett & Norman, 2010). Hence,
motivation should be approached not as a trait, but as a controllable component shaped by socio-
cultural, environmental and internal factors (Clark & Estes, 2008; Dembo & Seli, 2012). Clark’s
(2008) motivational pyramid model outlines behavior indices of active choice, persistence and
mental effort. It is through this framework that motivational performance gaps for this study are
identified. Most motivational problems are attributed to problems in active choice, which refers
to school leaders’ decision to choose one activity over another. Nonetheless, also present were
motivational indices of mental persistence which describe school leaders’ commitment towards
pursuing an activity over time in the face of distraction and school leaders’ mental effort which is
the mental work needed to generate new knowledge (Rueda, 2011). The purpose of leadership,
according to Moran and Gareis (2004), is to facilitate group goal attainment by establishing and
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42
maintaining an environment favorable to group performance. Hence, “Successful leadership”
involves using social influence processes to organize, direct, and motivate the actions of others.
Lack of motivation amongst school leaders and teachers may be caused by lack of self-
efficacy, according to Rueda (2011). The major influences on efficacy beliefs are assumed to be
the attributional analysis and interpretation of the four sources of efficacy information – mastery
experience, physiological arousal, vicarious experience, and verbal persuasion (Bandura, 1997).
This may be caused by a number of factors which include the amount of prior knowledge school
leaders and teachers have in relation to the task set as well as their past successes and failures in
implementing similar initiatives. Leadership self-efficacy has been related to direction-setting
and to gaining followers’ commitment as well as to overcoming obstacles to change (Paglis and
Green, 2002). According to Leithwood and Jantzi (2007), school leaders’ efficacy beliefs are of
two types. The first one is beliefs about one’s self-efficacy for improving instruction and student
learning and, secondly, beliefs about the collective capacity of colleagues across schools in the
district to improve student learning.
Bandura (2000) proposes three specific approaches for developing self-efficacy in
leaders. The first is guided mastery, which includes instructive modeling to acquire a skill or
competency, guided skill perfection and then transfer of the training back to the job context to
ensure self-directed leadership success. It is also important for program providers to provide
tasks that are within the range of competence for these headteachers. The tasks should be neither
too easy nor too difficult, but challenge them in appropriate ways (Pintrich & Schunk, 2002).
This will allow headteachers to use their prior knowledge and expertise as well as engage them
in tasks in which they feel confident and competent and like they can succeed. Second is
cognitive mastery modeling; in order for the novice leaders to learn thinking skills and how to
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apply them, they observe the decision rules and reasoning strategies used by successful models
as they arrive at solutions to problems and make effective decisions. The third strategy is the
cultivation of self-regulatory competencies such as self-monitoring, self-efficacy appraisal,
personal goal setting and the use of self-motivation incentives.
One motivation killer identified by Hallinger and Lu (2012) amongst Asian school
leaders is a tendency to adopt a “top-down” approach in change implementation. Specifically, it
has been observed that greater centralization of formal authority and cultural influence among
formal leaders like school leaders creates a tendency to forego giving information giving and
building interest among staff during the early stages of the change process. Hence, some scholars
and practitioners regard this as a key obstacle for successful change implementation due to
school leaders’ inability to interest, motivate, and mobilize teachers to change.
This is similar to the Brunei Darussalam’s situation. Leaders can improve teaching and
learning indirectly and most powerfully through their influence on staff motivation and working
conditions (Leithwood & Day, 2008). Based on findings from a study on 96 principals and 2,764
teachers conducted by Leithwood and Jantzi (2008), similar conclusions can be drawn for school
leaders’ motivational drive. The study also found that the district leadership indicates a strong
influence in developing school leaders’ self-efficacy for improving instruction and student
learning. When district leadership helps to create district conditions that are viewed by school
leaders as enhancing and supporting their work, the school leaders’ self-efficacy increases.
Wallace (2011) emphasized that the importance of providing regular and sustained support for
headteachers, and, according to Shelton (2011), state and districts need to create conditions and
incentives to support the ability of leaders to meet the expectation, and this support is inclusive
of providing the authority for the headteachers to direct necessary resources (people, time and
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44
money) to meet the expectations set. Woods, Woods and Crowie (2009) emphasized the
importance of the interaction between headteachers and educational officers as critical because
the meanings that relationships, policies and processes have for headteachers are likely to
influence how they behave and what they do.
Organization
In this study, organization is seen through the lens of how structures, policies and
practices can influence whether the performance goals of individuals, groups or entire schools or
organizational units are met (Rueda, 2011). In many ways, organizational culture dictates how an
organization works together to achieve its goal. Schein (2004) defines that culture can influence
the organization and work setting. However, it is also recognized that organizations sometimes
suffer from clashes among the many cultural beliefs and expectations of the people who work in
them, and this may lead to conflict between the cultural models of one organization and another.
Simply stated, organizational structures and policies, as they are implemented in various cultural
settings can be a hindrance to performance or goals even though people are knowledgeable and
motivated to reach these goals (Rueda, 2011). In reference to this cultural model, lack of efficient
and effective organizational work processes, a lack of value stream and a lack of material
resources can prevent the achievement of performance goals (Clark & Estes, 2008). A study by
Dumay (2009) sought to better understand how teachers’ collective decision-making and
principal’s leadership are related is positively associated. The study indicates that, the more
transformational the principal is perceived by teachers the more teachers make their decisions
relative to pedagogic matters collectively. This means that school leaders who are
transformational appear to foster structures of exchange among the teachers, who, themselves,
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make consensus and homogeneity in their perceptions and interpretations of the organizational
life.
One important component of transformational leadership is the leader’s ability to set
direction for the organization. According to Shelton (2011), in an organization where the school
leaders is capable of creating vision and set high expectations, develop and support teachers and
school staff, s/he will be able to strengthen school culture. In the process, it is inevitable that
school leaders will be able to build leadership teams to share or distribute leadership roles among
teachers and other school staff to bolster student academic achievement. Another cultural model
which may enhance school performance occurs when schools and school leaders are couched
within a supportive and consistent district-level leadership that sets the vision and expectations
but is willing to step back and take the risk of allowing the principal of the school to lead with
some autonomy. School-level leadership necessitates district leadership that not only allows a
certain amount of autonomy and flexibility over school operations and instruction, but also
provides the necessary structures of support for each individual school that is being transformed.
In summary, culture and organization contribute to school effectiveness when they facilitate
staff’s work, professional learning, and opportunities for collaboration.
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CHAPTER 3
METHODOLOGY
The purpose of this study is to conduct a gap analysis to examine the impact of the
School Leadership Programme (SLP) conducted by the Institute for Leadership, Innovation and
Advancement at the Universiti Brunei Darussalam in helping school leaders in public elementary
schools to improve student achievement. The goal of the School Leadership Programme is for all
public elementary school leaders graduating from SLP to be 100% proficient in using leadership
skills to implement transformative initiatives to improve student achievement. Currently, there is
a gap of 70% due to the fact that only 30% of these school leaders were able to demonstrate that
they are 100% proficient in applying the leadership skills learned from SLP.
This study is guided by the following research questions:
1. What are the knowledge, motivation and organizational causes that impede
elementary school leaders from applying SLP leadership skills in their leadership
practices?
2. What leadership strategies are successfully utilized by elementary school leaders to
improve student achievement?
3. What are the recommended solutions to close the knowledge, motivation and
organizational gaps that impede elementary school leaders from applying SLP
leadership skills in their leadership practices?
Findings from these questions provide a framework from which the Institute for Leadership,
Innovation and Advancement can improve its current and future leadership programs and
produce school leaders capable of improving student achievement in schools across Negara
Brunei Darussalam.
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Methodology Framework
The methodological framework for this study uses the Gap Analysis Model. According to
Clark and Estes (2008), the Gap analysis Model is a systematic problem-solving approach to
improve performance and achieve organizational goals. It provides a way to clarify the
organizational goals of the School Leadership Programme. Once the performance goal is
determined, the organization leadership needs to assess current achievement. By looking at the
difference between the actual levels of performance or achievement and the desired levels, the
organization’s leaders can identify the performance gaps. The gap model analysis also provides a
way to investigate and validate assumed causes, which may contribute to the existence of the
gaps. This gap analysis process focuses on three main areas corresponding to knowledge,
motivation and organizational barriers. All of these causes were validated through data collection
and analysis. This evidence-based process helps to rule out some of the assumed causes, leaving
a clearer picture on which specific factors are likely causing the performance gap. Once the
causes are identified, solutions can be targeted at this specific area. This process in the gap-
analysis model allows resources and solutions to be clearly targeted to address the most
important causes of the gaps. A general overview of the gap-analysis process is illustrated in
Figure 2.

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Figure 2. An overview of the gap analysis process

Assumed Causes of the Performance Gap
Often, when there is a gap in an organization goal or performance, causal analysis will be
conducted. According to Rueda (2011), this process consists of listing and validating the possible
causes, which may be at the root of the gap in performance with respect to organizational goals.
In an attempt to explain the likely reason for the gap existence for this study, specific attention is
given to the three major areas of knowledge and skills, motivation and organization or
institutional goal as the possible causes for the gap. These specific causes were assessed and
ruled out through the validating process of interviewing focus groups and individuals, surveys,
and observations. The information gained through this process was used to decide whether the
causes identified require additional support or amendment in order for goals to be achieved. This
validation process, according to Clark and Estes, (2008) would minimize the application of
inappropriate solutions to the problems. Hence, for the purpose of validating the assumed causes
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for performance gap in this study, a thorough investigation into the causes of the performance
gap includes (a) survey study, informal interviews with stakeholders; (b) learning, motivation
and organization/culture theory; and (c) review of the literature of school leadership.
Scanning Interviews
The following section discusses some of the personal knowledge and informal interviews
with the main stakeholder (School Leaders) in this study in relation to their knowledge and skills,
motivation and organization.
Knowledge and Skill
In the case of stakeholders in this study, it is found that Brunei School leaders do not
have training or professional development on school leadership prior to accepting their
leadership posts. It is assumed at this juncture that this contirbutes to lack of factual and
conceptual knowledge about leadership among the stakeholders. Persumably, this might impair
their ability to lead their schools because they may not fully understand the basic knowledge on
leadership. It is also assumed that school leaders’ were not able to fully grasp the conceptual
knowledge on leadership terms such as “transformational” and “quantum”. This may form a
barrier hindering them from successfully implementing initiatives necessary to enhance student
achievement. It also appears that, despite the four months training in the School Leadership
Programme, school leaders still lack the procedural and meta-cognitive knowledge necessary for
them to reflect on the various leadership tools and knowledge learned and apply them
appropriately in real situations once they return to schools. In general, school leaders’ lack of
factual, procedural; conceptual and meta-cognitive knowledge on leadership tends to hinder them
from achieving the aspired goal to improve performance.
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Motivation
In relation to the motivational assumed causes among stakeholders in this study, it is
assumed that, due to the many existing gaps in their leadership knowledge, the majority of
school leaders lack the confidence to carry out large scale initiatives, choosing, instead, to
implement initiatives which require a minimal input of effort - just enough to be seen by their
coach as performing the tasks allocated. This may explain why only a small percentage of School
Leadership Programme school leaders and their teams chose to implement projects with
“quantum” initiatives. Furthermore, many school leaders think that the School Leadership
Programme will make no difference to their school performance. Therefore, they believe it will
be a waste of their time, and they failed to seriously implement the intervention initiatives for the
project.
Another assumed cause is that, since there is no formal training for school leaders and
appointments and promotions are based on higher authority recommendations and seniority,
some school leaders believed that leadership is not for them, these are reluctant leaders who took
on leadership role because it was a directive from their superior. Therefore, with such an attitude,
some school leaders feel that enrolling in the School Leadership Programme will not necessary
provide them new knowledge on leadership, particularly because this program was initiated by
the senior management team in the ministry of education and is not undertaken through
voluntary participation. Hence, schools leaders’ attributed the success of the projects they
conducted in the School Leadership Programme to be in the interest of senior officers in the
Ministry of Education.
On the other hand, there are cases where school leaders micro-managed the projects, and
this may lead teachers to lose interest to participate in project initiatives because it is not their
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idea, but a decision made by a one or few people in the school. Stakeholders such as teachers in
schools may attribute their school’s involvement in School Leadership Programme as leverage
for their ambitious school’s head teacher’s promotion within the Ministry of Education’s
leadership. Therefore, teachers are not persistent to introduce and implement quantum initiatives
for their school project because they feel that they will end up doing the heavy lifting while
others will become social loafers in the project. Based on personal knowledge, there are also
some school leaders who are not consistent in following up the progress of their projects with
their RASI team, and this may lead to the lower rate of student achievement in the school.
Organizational
In this study, school leaders are willing to give School Leadership Programme projects a
try, but the various other projects set by other departments in the Ministry of Education restricted
the number of resources they can allocate to make the projects successful. In terms of goals for
the leadership programme, the top management in the Ministry of Education is clear about the
goals to be achieved in the School Leadership Programme; however, these goals are not well
articulated to the lower and middle officers in Ministry of Education. This miscommunication
among the different levels and departments within the Ministry of Education results in delayed
decisions, especially in the distribution of financial support to the School Leadership Programme
graduates. Such financial support has been allocated by top management for school leaders to
assist them in procuring resources necessary for their School Leadership Programme projects.
However, due to information for such allocation is not being made general knowledge to
middle officers dealing with the application, request for financial support is often slow in
forthcoming. This breakdown in communication between senior and middle leaders in the
Ministry of Education is not restricted only to financial supports but also includes other
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decisions, which include the type of projects that can and cannot be implemented in schools.
Furthermore, with no formal monitoring and mentoring mechanisms established by the Ministry
of Education to support school leaders in their implementation of the School Leadership
Programme projects and no consequences for schools which do not meet the target percentage,
some school leaders feel that this allows others to be complacent and less determined in
implementing the “quantum” initiatives.
Learning and Motivation Theory
Anderson and Kratwohl (2001) provide a framework to categorize knowledge-related
assumed causes. They discuss knowledge issues stemming from a lack of factual, conceptual,
procedural and meta-cognitive knowledge. This framework is applied in the context of
stakeholder performance in the following section. In terms of motivation, the Clark and Estes
(2008) gap analysis framework identifies three key indices of choice, persistence and mental
effort. Assumed motivational causes for the performance problem at hand are discussed based on
this framework. Finally, Clark and Estes (2008) address organizational and cultural barriers that
need to be considered when analyzing performance problems, and these will be applied to the
performance problem at the end of this section.
Knowledge and Skill
In any organization, having the various types of knowledge and skills relevant to the job
description is a necessary requirement for helping individuals achieved their performance goals.
This situation is similar for people working in an education organization. They need to acquire
factual, conceptual, procedural and meta-cognitive knowledge and skills that might help them
handle novel and unexpected challenges and problems (Anderson and Kratwohl, 2001). The
knowledge and skills framework used in this study refers to framework in the context of
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Anderson and Krathwohl’s (2001) taxonomy. In this taxonomy, there are four dimensions of
knowledge, which include factual knowledge i.e. knowledge that encompasses the basic
elements that an individual must know in order to be acquainted with the discipline or to solve
any problems in it. An example of factual knowledge that school leaders in this study need to
know is what entails as their work description as a school leader. Once they understand the role
and responsibility of a school leader, they can focus on being a leader without second-guessing
whether the task at hand is their responsibility or not.
However, because school leaders in this study have no formal training or preparation as
school leaders prior to their appointment as leaders, some of them do not have any factual
knowledge on their role and this prevents them from performing their duties effectively. The
second dimension of Anderson and Krathwohl’s Knowledge Taxonomy (2001) is the conceptual
knowledge, which includes individual knowledge of interrelationships between the basic
elements of a larger structure that will enable the system to function together. For instance, in
this study, school leaders need to understand the concept of “transformational” leaders and what
is expected of being a transformational leader so that they can emulate this in their school
context.
The third knowledge dimension is known as procedural knowledge; it describes the
knowledge of how to do something and often takes the forms of a series or sequences of steps to
be followed. For instance, in this study, school leaders need to know what steps to be taken when
they need to introduce change in their literacy instructions. The final dimension of knowledge is
the meta-cognitive knowledge, which requires a school leader to not only know and understand
the general strategies that may be used for different tasks but also allows him/her to reflect the
conditions under which these strategies may be used. For instance, in the School Leadership
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Programme, leaders were taught leadership tools such as “RASI”, an acronym for “Responsible,
Approve, Supports and Informed” which could help them to develop objectives, plan their
initiatives, identify and designate tasks to team members and help them set the completion date
for each of the initiatives. However, leader’s inability to apply and use “RASI” appropriately and
accordingly will result in failing to implement the project successfully. In summary, using this
knowledge taxonomy provides the comprehensive set of classifications for school leaders
cognitive processes.
Motivation
According to Clark and Estes (2008), motivation is defined as “the process whereby goal-
directed activity is instigated and sustained” (p. 4) and they have identified three common
indicators related to motivational factors. These factors are active choice, persistence and efforts.
Active choice refers to the deciding factor to choose one activity over another, persistence refers
to commitment to pursue an activity over time in face of distraction and efforts refers to the
mental work needed to generate new learning and knowledge. Clark and Estes (2008) mentioned
that a number of independent research groups have identified four factors that can influence the
work goal choice, persistence and mental effort. These are personal and team confidence, beliefs
about organizational and environmental barriers to achieving goals, emotional climate that
people experience in their work environment and personal and team values for their performance
goals.
In examining the performance gap analysis for motivational factors, this framework
guided the validating process of this study into looking at the motivational causes that might
become the barrier for Brunei school leaders from achieving the 20 % increase in their student
achievement. For instance, due to the different number of projects that they need to conduct in
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their school as per required by different departments within the Ministry of Education, school
leaders in the School Leadership Programme choose to implement project initiatives, which only
require minimal effort on their part. Some school leaders were not persistent in their follow-up
action on the initiatives and as a result some of these initiatives are not effective in improving
student learning. There are also some school leaders who think that the implementation of the
School Leadership Programme’s “quantum” initiatives will not make any difference to their
student performance and consider such effort as a waste of time. Hence, in such context, school
leaders do not make the effort to generate ideas to initiate the “transformational” project. Using
the motivational performance analysis framework, such motivational causes need to be examined
and validated in order to identify the solutions to overcome the motivational gap that prevent
Brunei school leaders from achieving the 20 % increase in their student achievement.
Organization
Organizational structures, policies and practices according to Rueda (2011) can influence
whether the performance goals of individuals, groups or entire schools or organizational units are
met. In many ways, organizational culture dictates how an organization works together to
achieve its goal. Schein (2004) defines that culture can influences the organization and work
setting. However, it is also recognized that organizations sometimes suffer from clashes between
the many cultural beliefs and expectations of the people who work in them and this may lead to
conflict between the cultural models of one organization to another. In reference to this cultural
model, there is a conflict, which exists between the difference of cultural model of leadership
taught in SLP and the cultural model about leadership in the actual schools and in the
departments within the Ministry of Education. Schools in the SLP experience changes when
school leaders try to change the behavior of the school community in line with the initiatives
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introduces. Often in the change processes, school leaders encountered resistance. Similarly such
resistance will also occur between school leaders and their immediate superior in the Ministry of
Education. Using the cultural model, the causal analysis will seek to understand the
organizational causes that may hinder school leaders from achieving their 20 % school
improvement.
Assumed Causes from the Review of Literature
An important source for generation of assumed causes is the topic-relevant literature,
including empirical, peer-reviewed research, “white papers,” government documents and other
relevant sources. This body of research allows for the problem to be examined from a larger
context to ensure that assumed causes that did not emerge from personal knowledge or theory are
also considered. From the review of relevant literature, the knowledge, motivation and
organizational causes will be discussed.
Knowledge and Skill
Current research as indicated by Colvin (2007) stated that school leaders have to be
diagnosticians because a school that is in crisis calls for a different set of actions and skills than
does one that has made great strides. Therefore, to prepare school leaders to face these
challenges and issues, most states provide rigorous and relevant training to develop effective
school leaders and equip them with instructional leadership knowledge. School Leadership
development in Brunei has, for too long, relied on an apprenticeship model in which aspiring
school leaders gain the necessary skill and experience on the job. Studies conducted by OECD
(Schleicher, 2012) also affirmed the importance of providing leadership knowledge through
preparation and training programs for school leaders to make a difference in school and student
performance.
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The linkage of the leadership of the school leader with school improvement is asserted in
much of research literature (Fullan, 1992; Hargreaves, 1994; Leithwood & Rheil, 2003;
Sammons et al., 1995) as unlikely if school leaders do not have the conceptual and procedural
knowledge and metacognitive skills in responding to changes as they progress in their careers.
The lack of such knowledge and skills might be the underlying causes for the unsuccessful
implementation of projects in the School Leadership Programme by Brunei school leaders.
Findings by Woods, Woods and Cowie (2009) also indicated that school leaders in their
study ranked the opportunities for reflection as a high priority in their practices. This supported
the significance of meta-cognitive knowledge for school leaders to enable them to reflect and
engage purposefully with the ideas and concepts that they are working in contact with so that
they can assess the appropriateness of decision and action to improve their school. Similarly,
such knowledge will be beneficial for Brunei school leaders so that they are not overwhelmed
and engrossed by the large number of projects they feel they need to implement for their schools.
Day et al. (2008) strongly emphasized that, for schools to improve their teaching and
learning programs, the main priority for schools is to use data to help inform the planning and
target setting for improvement. Currently, such data driven project is lacking in Brunei schools
as school leaders might not have the procedural knowledge on how to use their existing data
effectively or may lack the knowledge regarding how to gather valid data.
Motivation
Leaders improved teaching and learning indirectly and most powerfully through their
influence on staff motivation and working conditions (Leithwood & Day, 2008). Considering the
motivational assumed causes for Brunei school leaders, this might be an area, which needs to be
address in order to garner sustainable teacher participation in the projects implemented. Louis,
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Leithwood, Wahlstrom, and Anderson (2010) identified that effective principals encourage
others to join in the decision-making process in their schools. This is certainly an issue that
Brunei school leaders need to address with their teachers to establish the sense of ownership for
all the initiatives initiated. Furthermore, by fostering a collaborative culture of decision-making,
the teaching staff would become more committed to the vision of the school and are self-
motivated to work toward the goals because they are invested in them, rather than being merely
directed to achieve them (Hallinger, 2003).
Organization
In England, Crow (2007) identified that the role of people as sources of socialization is
seen as important and key in principal professional development. Sackney and Walker (2006)
argued that beginning principals in Canada have a difficult task in the early years of their career
without the support systems and leading learning community frameworks necessary for them to
survive in the complex school environment. This situation is similar for school leaders in Brunei
because they do not receive the formal training for school leadership. Hence, they do not have
access to support systems during their tenure as school leaders. Woods, Woods and Cowie
(2009) emphasized the importance of the interaction between school leaders and educational
officers as critical because the meanings that relationships, policies and processes have for
school leaders are likely to influence how they behave and what they do. If similar work contexts
are developed within the organizational culture of Brunei’s Ministry of Education, it may
accelerate the achievement of positive outcome. A summary of the sources of assumed causes
categorized as Knowledge, Motivation and organization is found in Table 1.

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Table 1
Summary of Assumed Causes for Knowledge, Motivation and Organizational Issues
Sources

Causes Knowledge Motivation Organizational
Scanning
interviews,
personal
knowledge
1. No formal leadership
trainings lead to absence
of factual, conceptual,
procedural and meta-
cognitive knowledge as a
school leader.
1. Low commitment
2. Individual self-interest
3. No collaboration
1. No alignment on
goals and roles for
support.
2. Lack of support
3. Poor articulation
Learning and
Motivation
Theory
1. Lack of self-regulation
and not knowing how to
monitor and adjust their
learning.
1.Active choice,
2. Lack of persistent
effort and
3. Lack of mental effort
can be influence by
confidence, beliefs, work
environment and values.
1. Cultures are
dynamic rather than
static
2. Culture models
shape organization
values, practices,
policies and etc.
Background
and Review
of Literature
1. It is important for school
leaders to understand how
to lead change, turn around
low performing schools,
work productively with
teachers, and make time for
principals to focus on
instruction.
2. Ability to self-reflect
on cognitive and process
1. School leaders and
teachers can be motivated
by the support from
district administrative
officers.
2. Joint decision-making
between school leaders
and their staff would
develop trust within the
team. As a result such
action, which may lead to
the empowerment of
teachers to initiate
“quantum” initiatives for
improving student
achievement.
1. Ministry of
Education support is
essential in ensuring
the successful
implementation of SLP
intervention initiatives.
2. Interaction and
communication
between school leaders
and officers from the
Ministry of education
especially those from
the department of
School is critical

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Sample and Population
There are several stakeholders involved in this study; however, the main key stakeholder
is the public elementary school leader. For the purpose of forming the baseline data about the
impact of the School Leadership Programme on elementary school leader’s leadership, a self-
administered questionnaire were distributed to all 120 public elementary school leaders across
Negara Brunei Darussalam. From the total of 120 elementary school leaders, five school leaders
were randomly selected for further in-depth interviews.
Instrumentation
For the purpose of this study, a mixed quantitative and qualitative method was used.
Creswell (2009) defines qualitative research as an approach to examine and understand the
meaning individuals associate with social or human problems. Conversely, this data collection
enables the researcher to generalize the findings from a sample of responses from a population.
This allows inferences to be made about the phenomena observed. Creswell contends that the
strength of a mixed methods approach is greater than either the qualitative or quantitative
research by itself. As such, a mixed methods approach was utilized to measure and validate the
assumed causes for knowledge, motivation and organization identified in this study. Data from
this survey provided the quantitative data to validate the assumed causes and to inform the three
research questions for this study.
For this purpose, a survey with open and closed-ended questions was distributed to all
120 public elementary school heads in Negara Brunei Darussalam. The use of questionnaire was
selected based on its ability to reach all school leaders and allow the researcher to gather
information about how school leaders feel regarding, and describe their knowledge about, the
impact of SLP in helping them to improve student achievement (Fink, 2013). A Likert scale
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with 4-points was selected to provide a forced-choice response without the neutral response of
neither agree or disagree so that the investigator can determine a definite response (Fink, 2013).
In-depth interviews with selected school leaders were also conducted to validate the
knowledge, motivation and organizational assumed causes of this study so that potential
solutions to the problem can be clearly identified. The personal interview was chosen because it
may be necessary for the researcher to probe for deeper answers to the complex questions
(Merriam, 2009). The initial Gap Analysis Case Validation Method Worksheet was used to list
the instrumentation type for each of the assumed causes. A copy of this worksheet is shown in
Appendix A.
Data Collection
For the purpose of data collecting, a mixed methods approach involving qualitative and
quantitative was used. Qualitative data was collected in the form of interviews and document
analysis and quantitative data was collected using surveys. The distribution of survey forms and
interviews for this study was only conducted upon receiving approval from the Institutional
Review Board (IRB) at the University of Southern California. At the initial stage, the survey was
administered to all 120 public elementary school leaders across Negara Brunei Darussalam via e-
mail through Qualtrics (USC, 2012) software. Qualtrics was used in anticipation that data
collected will be secured and only be used for the study purposes while at the same time keeping
respondents’ identities confidential by storing the survey results within the web-based Qualtrics
system. However, due to the very poor responses received through this approach, an alternative
data collecting was used. Due to time constraints, the survey form was re-distributed through the
office of the Primary Section at the Department of Schools with the instructions that the
complete forms are to be returned to the same office.
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For the series of interviews with randomly selected school leaders, the researcher
arranged for appointments at least a week in advance of scheduled personal interviews. In order
to maximize the time appropriated for the interview, an interview protocol was formulated based
on the research questions of the study and was then categorized according to knowledge-,
motivation- and organization-related assumed causes. Six school leaders were randomly selected
from the group of 120 public elementary school leaders. With the consent of the interviewees, all
interviews were audio recorded, transcribed, and grouped according to theme for use in the
study. All participating interviewees were given a copy of the transcript for validation purposes.
In addition to the survey and interview data, an analysis of documents including school proposal
for SLP projects, SLP scorecard reports and the Institute for Leadership, Innovation and
Advancement’s report on SLP were also examined and summarized for triangulation purposes. A
copy of the Survey may be found in Appendix B, the complete interview protocol is shown in
Appendix C and document analysis question areas are shown in Appendix D respectively.
Data Analysis
Data collected from the surveys was analyzed using descriptive statistics. Frequencies
and common themes were analyzed. In addition, data was analyzed for correlations between
variables. Whenever the theme extracted from the knowledge data was made, efforts were made
to categorize the themes according to factual, procedural, conceptual, and/or metacognitive
knowledge. In assessing the lack of motivation, variables associated with motivation were also
sought accordingly. These are interests, self-efficacy, attributions and goal orientation. For
organization and culture barrier, policy procedures, resources, values and culture were analyzed.
The data analysis was used to guide the solutions presented.
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The qualitative data analysis in this study follows Merriam’s (2009) step-by-step process
of analysis. Each interview was digitally recorded and transcribed verbatim. All transcripts were
carefully reviewed to allow the researcher to obtain a general idea of the data and to reflect on its
overall meaning (Creswell, 2008). The coding strategy used calls for segmenting responses into
certain categories and labeling categories with a code or theme (Creswell, 2008; Merriam, 2009).
Codes were determined based on commonalities, themes, and patterns found in the responses.
Data collected in the form of interview transcripts were also coded and then analyzed for the
purposes of transforming the collected data into findings (Merriam, 2009).

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CHAPTER 4
RESULTS AND FINDINGS
The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of the School Leadership program
on Brunei public elementary school leadership and determine why only 30% of these leaders
were able to improve student learning and achievement after graduating from the School
Leadership Programme. The goal of the School Leadership Programme, as envisioned by the
Ministry of Education is for all graduates from this program to be 100% proficient in SLP
leadership knowledge and skills so that they will be able to enhance student achievement and
overall school performance. However, at this juncture, looking at the School Leadership
Programme’s current performance goal of 30% success and the goal it intends to achieve of
100% leadership proficiency, there is a very significant gap of 70% in terms of school leadership
proficiency. Thus, the purpose of this study was to identify the causes of School Leadership
Programme graduates’ current lack of leadership proficiency and strategies to increase their
proficiency using the gap analysis model (Clark & Estes, 2008). The focus of the study was on
elementary school leaders, and the gap analysis model served as a guide to identify whether the
problem is due to gaps in the areas of knowledge, motivation or culture. Thus, the questions that
guided this study were:
1. What are the knowledge, motivation and organizational causes that impede
elementary school leaders from applying SLP leadership skills in their leadership
practices?
2. What leadership strategies are successfully utilized by elementary school leaders to
improve student achievement?
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3. What are the recommended solutions to close the knowledge, motivation and
organizational gaps that impede elementary school leaders from applying SLP
leadership skills in their leadership practices?
In view of the research questions, this chapter presents the data collected using
quantitative and qualitative methods. Surveys, interviews and document analysis were used to
validate the knowledge, motivation and organizational assumed causes to clearly identify
potential solutions to the problem.
Participating Stakeholders
In this study, 82 public elementary school leaders across Brunei Darussalam participated
in a survey to help find out whether the root causes are due to the lack of knowledge, motivation
and/or organizational culture barriers. Of the survey respondents, 64% (52) were female and
36% (30) were male. The age groups vary, with 15% (12) under 40, 34% (28) in the 41-45 years
category and 51% (42) above 46 years. The years of respondents’ teaching experience varied
from six to above 30, and their school leadership experience ranged from two to 19 years. A total
of 66% (54) of them have been the school leader in their current school for five years or fewer. A
total of 98% (81) of these school leaders have undergone the School Leadership Programme.
Currently, only 20% (16) of these school leaders received other additional leadership training
from different institutions. This additional training involved PEAKS leadership training
conducted by the Department of ICT in the Ministry of Education as part of their on-going “e-
hijrah” or e-migration initiatives. PEAKS, which stands for Purpose, Energy, Affirmation,
Knowledge and Sustainability, is a global on-line psychometric technology developed by
Research Communication International (RCI) that measures and optimizes human potential at all
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66
levels of organizations and societies. Table 2 summarizes the demographic information of survey
respondents.

Table 2
Demographic Information of Survey Respondents
Gender Female (%) Male (%)
63% 37%
Qualification Degree Masters
77% 23%
Age 31-35 years 36-40 years 41-45 years >46 years
5 10 34 51
Teaching
Experience
≤10 years 11-15 years 16-20 years 21-25 years ≥25 years
6 13 18 21 24
Leadership
Experience
0-5 years 6-10 years 11-15 years 16-20 years
43 38 17 2
Leadership
@current school
0-5 years 6-10 years 11-15 years
54 18 10

Report of the Findings
Research Question: What are the knowledge, motivation and organizational causes that
impede elementary school leaders from applying SLP leadership skills in their leadership
practices?
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In order to investigate the root causes for SLP graduates’ current lack of leadership
proficiency, a total of 120 questionnaires were distributed to all public elementary school leaders
in Brunei Darussalam, and 82 were returned. The survey was designed using a four-point Likert
scale that asked respondents to indicate whether they strongly disagree, disagree, agree or
strongly agree with the statements presented. The coding of 4 was used to represent Strongly
Agree, 3 for Agree, 2 for Disagree and 1 for Strongly Disagree throughout the survey. In
addition, six school leaders were interviewed and asked questions to assess whether the root
cause for the lack of leadership proficiency to increase student achievement was lack of
knowledge, motivation and/or organizational culture. The following results pertain to each of the
possible root causes of knowledge, motivation and organization that might impede elementary
school leaders from applying SLP leadership skills in their practices.
Results and Findings for Knowledge Causes
In any organization, having the various types of knowledge and skills relevant to the job
description is necessary to help individuals achieve their performance goals. This situation is
similar for people working in an education organization. They need to acquire factual,
conceptual, procedural and meta-cognitive knowledge and skills that might help them handle
novel and unexpected challenges and problems (Anderson & Kratwohl, 2001).
Survey results. School leaders’ knowledge and skills were assessed in the survey using
the taxonomy framework. There were 28 item statements used in the survey to represent the four
types of knowledge in the context of Anderson and Krathwohl’s (2001) taxonomy of factual,
conceptual, procedural and metacognitive knowledge. Factual knowledge encompasses the basic
elements that an individual must know in order to be acquainted with the discipline or to solve
any problems in it. Factual knowledge was confirmed by asking school leaders basic questions
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68
about tools learned from the School Leadership Programme and support available to school
leaders. Conceptual knowledge statements in the survey allowed the researcher to ascertain
school leaders’ understanding of the interrelationship among basic elements within a category
that allow them to work together. This was assessed through statements about their
understanding of concepts used in SLP such as “quantum”, “transformational” and about their
understanding of how these concepts operate. Procedural knowledge describes the ability to use
skills, techniques, and methods and often takes the form of a series or sequences of steps to be
followed. In the survey, in order to assess whether school leaders knew the appropriate
procedures to implement initiatives, statements on knowing steps and actions to be taken were
included. Finally, metacognitive knowledge, which is the knowledge of one’s cognition, requires
school leaders to know and understand the general strategies that may be used for different tasks
and also allows them to reflect on the conditions under which these strategies may be used.
Metacognitive knowledge was assessed by asking school leaders about the SLP leadership
knowledge and skills which, they have applied in their leadership role’s such as reviewing areas
that need to be improved on and connecting new knowledge to solve problems. Table 3
summarizes the results of the statements corresponding to each knowledge type.

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Table 3
Statement Results Categorized by Type of Knowledge in Ascending Order from Highest to
Lowest Mean
Agree Statements with means between 3.44-3.1
Statements Types of Knowledge
Setting clear goal for teachers Procedural
Use data to inform areas for intervention Procedural
Understand what is meant by transformational leadership Conceptual
Ensure goal is clear, roles is understood and processes are articulated Conceptual
Understand that “quantum” means involving majority Conceptual
Apply leadership skills to improve student achievement Metacognitive
Know how to use RASI Procedural
Disagree Statements with means of 2.99-2.33
Know there is a financial aid given by MoE Factual
Difficult to decide areas for urgent intervention Metacognitive

Based on the data in Table 4, there are two statements with the highest mean that
corresponded to procedural knowledge. The means for the two statements are indicated to be at
3.4 and 3.38. School leaders scored high in both procedural knowledge and conceptual
knowledge, meaning that they understood the basic concept of being a transformational leaders
and the leadership process required in implementing intervention projects or initiatives. The
lowest statement, with a mean of 3.1 for procedural knowledge, was on respondents’ knowledge
of using RASI (Responsible, Approval, Supports and Informed) Chart, which is a tool that helps
leaders map out the activities, focal people and timeline for any projects implemented. For
conceptual knowledge, the highest mean was for understanding the concept of being a
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transformational leader and understanding how other component in the cascading category work
towards the successful implementation of the initiative.
The two statements with the lowest mean corresponded to factual knowledge and
metacognitive knowledge. These two statements had a mean below 3.0, which means school
leaders disagree with the statements. For the factual knowledge, school leaders disagree that they
knew of the financial aid made available to them by the Ministry of Education to assist them
with their improvement projects and initiatives. School leaders in this survey also disagreed with
the statement, which says that they find it difficult to decide which areas in the school need
urgent intervention. The following Table 4 shows the knowledge statements in relation to mean
and standard deviation.

Table 4
Knowledge Statements, Means and Standard Deviation (in descending order)
Statements
Types of
Knowledge Mean SD
Setting clear goal for teachers Procedural 3.4 .518
Use data to inform areas for intervention Procedural 3.38 .58
Understand what is meant by transformational leadership Conceptual 3.37 .658
Ensure goal is clear, roles is understood and processes are
articulated
Conceptual 3.35 .53
Understand that ‘quantum’ means involving majority Conceptual 3.23 .573
Apply leadership skills to improve student achievement Metacognitive 3.2 .597
Know how to use RASI Procedural 3.1 .58
Know there is a financial aid given by MoE Factual 2.99 .555
Difficult to decide areas for urgent intervention Metacognitive 2.33 .649

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Findings from interviews. Six school leaders were interviewed for this study. During the
interview, they were asked questions aimed at gaining a better understanding of the impact of
their School Leadership Programme training on their leadership in the school. Standardized
semi-structured interviews were conducted in this study for the purpose of time management and
response analysis comparison. The interview protocol consisted of 10 questions related to the
assumed causes is presented in Appendix C. The interviews were conducted immediately after
the administration of the survey as a form of methodological triangulation (Patton, 2002). The
pool of respondents consisted of six school leaders selected randomly; three were male and three
were female. Of the six respondents, two come from an urban school setting, two from the water
village setting in the capital and the final two were located in a rural setting. In each case, with
the consent of the respondents, the interviews were audio-recorded. The interviews typically
lasted between 30 and 90 minutes. Audio-recordings were transcribed and transcripts were
reviewed for emergent themes relevant to Clark and Estes’ (2008) KMO classification scheme.
The interview transcripts were reviewed for the four types of knowledge of factual,
conceptual, procedural and metacognitive. When school leaders were asked to explain their
understanding of being able to initiate transformative and quantum projects in school to enhance
student achievement, all six were able to describe their understanding of the conceptual
knowledge underpinning of transformative changes in their respective schools. All school leaders
stated that the term transformative, to them, meant “to change or making changes”.
However, only two out of six were able to describe what quantum meant, with one
respondent describing it as “where project is initiated to all school levels including pre-school”
and another describing it as “impact”. The other four school leaders responded by suggesting
either that they had forgotten what it meant or they admitted that they did not know. The
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72
responses suggest that out of the four types of knowledge, there are some conceptual knowledge
types in the leadership program which are not clear to the school leaders. The findings from the
interviews is illustrated in Figure 3, which shows that in comparison to the other types of
knowledge, school leaders' conceptual knowledge is much lower. School leaders' lack of
conceptual knowledge of the School Leadership Programme (SLP) might hinder them from
applying leadership skills learned in their daily practices.

Figure 3. Visual representation of interview findings

Synthesis of Results and Findings for Knowledge Causes
The results from the school leaders’ survey and interviews are contrary to the assumed
knowledge causes for the gap in school leaders’ leadership proficiency. The assumed causes for
knowledge gap stated that, despite the four months training received in the School Leadership
Programme, school leaders were still unable to apply the procedural and meta-cognitive
knowledge necessary for them to initiate projects and initiatives once they return to schools. In
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Factual
Conceptual
Procedural
Metacognitive
Types
of
Knowledge
No of school leaders
Types of
Knowledge:
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the survey, school leaders’ score for all seven of the knowledge items are above 3, and responses
for procedural knowledge have the highest mean. In terms of their conceptual understanding of
SLP in general and its concept, as indicated in the survey, they understood what the term
“transformational” meant, and this was explained at length in their interview. However, four of
the six school leaders interviewed were not able to explain the concept of “quantum”. In the
interviews, the school leaders were able to recall the factual knowledge relating to SLP. The
interviews also revealed that, in their respective setting, school leaders were able to carry out the
necessary processes and apply their learning from SLP in the appropriate situation. Both the
quantitative and qualitative data shows that Brunei elementary school leaders have the factual
knowledge, understand the concept of being a leader and how to be transformative even though
there is a need to reinforce their conceptual knowledge on being quantum. The survey and
interviews also indicated that the school leaders understood and know the procedure and
processes for each phase in transformational project implementation. They were also able to use
the various knowledge and skills appropriately.
Results and Findings for Motivation Causes
There were several motivational presumed causes for the current gap in elementary
school leadership effectiveness. According to Clark and Estes (2008), motivation is defined as
“the process whereby goal-directed activity is instigated and sustained” (p. 4), and they have
identified three common indicators related to motivational factors. These factors are active
choice, persistence and mental efforts. These three indices of motivation, active choice refers to
the deciding factor to choose one activity over another, persistence refers to commitment to
pursue an activity over time in face of distraction and efforts refers to the mental work needed to
generate new learning and knowledge.
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Survey results. The survey on motivation was assessed on three motivation indices,
which include active choice, persistence, and mental effort. The motivation survey items were
aimed to examine the motivational variable behind each of the indices by including statements
which reflect motivational variables that drive school leaders’ values, interest, self-efficacy and
attributions in applying their leadership skills. In this study, school leaders’ interests were
assessed by statements about choosing projects on which they can apply their leadership skills.
Interest was also measured by statements seeking to understand the motivation for conducting
the transformative project, such as resulting in student achievement. For self-efficacy, statements
were intended to assess whether school leaders will persist in their own leadership to lead school
projects that will enhance their students’ achievement if they face a challenge. Self-efficacy was
measured by statements to find out their confidence in achieving improvement target and
implementing knowledge and skills learned from SLP. Statements for assessing attribution were
measured by statements to find out what school leaders’ perceived as the rationale for and the
outcome of the SLP projects implementation. Table 5 summarizes the results for survey
statements measuring motivation.

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Table 5
Statement Results Categorized by Motivation Variable in Ascending Order from Highest to
Lowest Mean
Statements Types of Motivation
Agree Statements with means between 3.4 – 3.04
I believe transformative project bring student achievement Attribution
I feel it is necessary to continuously do regular follow-up Interest
I am confident that we can achieve the 20% target Self-efficacy
I believe that I will be able to implement skills learnt from SLP in other
leadership roles
Self-efficacy
I believe I am competent in applying leadership skills learnt in SLP Self-efficacy
I chose our on-going initiative as our SLP project Interest
Disagree Statements with means of 2.98
I chose to generate a simple initiative as our SLP project Interest
I do not see the value of quantum & transformational initiatives Value
Strongly Disagree Statements with means of 1.89
SLP projects is to fulfill requirement of MoE officers Attribution

The statement with the highest mean measures attribution, with a mean of 3.44, and the
statement with the second highest mean measures interest, with mean of 3.2. Statements for self-
efficacy had means ranging from 3.06 to 3.12. Another statement measuring school leaders’
interest had the mean of 3.04. The statement with the mean of 2.98 asked if school leaders
choose to implement a simple initiative for their SLP project, the result indicated that they do not
choose simple initiatives. The survey also indicated that school leaders understand the value of
implementing quantum and transformative initiatives as demonstrated by the mean of 2.73 in the
survey. Finally, it is also indicated that school leaders do not see that the SLP projects they
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introduced in school is for the purpose of fulfilling the requirement of officers from the Ministry
of Education as indicated by the score of 1.89 mean. The means and standard deviation for each
of the motivation indices is shown in Table 6.

Table 6
Motivation Statements, Means and Standard Deviation (in descending order)
Statements
Types of
Motivation Mean SD
I believe transformative project bring student achievement Attribution 3.44 .569
I feel it is necessary to continuously do regular follow-up Interest 3.2 .483
I am confident that we can achieve the 20% target Self-efficacy 3.12 .53
I believe that I will be able to implement skills learnt from
SLP in other leadership roles
Self-efficacy 3.11 .588
I believe I am competent in applying leadership skills learnt
in SLP
Self-efficacy 3.06 .529
I chose our on-going initiative as our SLP project Interest 3.04 .597
I chose to generate a simple initiative as our SLP project Interest 2.98 .6.47
SLP projects is to fulfil requirement of MoE officers Attribution 2.73 .721
I do not see the value of quantum & transformational
initiatives
Attribution 1.89 .588

Findings from interviews. All the school leaders interviewed indicated that, after
undergoing the four months training in SLP, they feel more confident in leading their respective
schools to improve their students’ learning. The interviews also revealed that, prior to the
program, only one of the respondents had the opportunity to undergo a short course training for
leadership whilst none of the others were exposed to any form of leadership training.
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When school leaders were asked about the challenges they faced when it comes to
sustaining the transformational initiatives after graduating from SLP, two out of the six
respondents expressed difficulty and cited absence of mentoring and guiding from ILIA as being
the main reason for the lack of motivation. One of them stated that “after the four months period,
most schools will abandoned their transformational activities because they no longer received
mentoring and guidance as because we still not comfortable to continue independently on our
own”. Another respondent observed that school’s SLP team energy would gradually decline once
communication with ILIA stopped upon graduating from the program. This motivation index of
self-efficacy might be the stumbling block for school leaders from implementing the leadership
knowledge and skills learned in SLP.
All six respondents responded favorably when asked about their interest in improving
students’ achievement. Two of the respondents were keen to prove that students from rural
schools are as capable as those in urban setting by stating, “anything is possible with hard work”.
The other four school leaders also responded favourably when asked about their understanding
about transformative projects by stating that, post-SLP, they are motivated to improve students’
achievement in either reading skills or numeracy. One respondent cited specifically that the
interest to improve student achievement is spurred by the influence of spiritual value, which
emphasized the need for adults to educate and guide children, as they are seen as being entrusted
to them.
Synthesis of Results and Findings for Motivation Causes
The data gathered from school leaders interviews corroborated and provide rationale for
the data findings from the survey. The data from the survey showed that school leaders’
attribution in terms of helping students improve their achievement has the highest mean score for
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motivation cause. In the interviews, this is also one of the motivator for school leaders to do well
in their leadership role. There are a few factors that influence this motivation, including their
self-efficacy, the goals and interest that they have set to achieve with their newfound leadership
knowledge and skills, and also the influence of their spiritual beliefs. Findings from both sets of
data show that, contrary to the assumed motivation cause for the gap in the leadership
proficiency of school leaders that they do not value the SLP program and its content, school
leaders in this study were very appreciative of the opportunity to undergo the training, and four
out of six recommended for the program to be sustained and even extended to teachers.
Both sets of data also show that school leaders are more confident in their role to initiate
changes and engage their respective teachers in generating ideas for transformational projects
and initiatives for the school after they completed the program. Nonetheless, the interview data
also highlighted a couple of areas for program providers to consider for future improvement.
This includes considering a longer period of mentoring to ensure that new skills and knowledge
are embedded in the school leaders’ practices. In the survey, the results showed that school
leaders disagreed with the statement stating that they prefer to do a simple initiative. However,
based on information gathered in the interviews, there were a number of factors that led to the
simplification of their SLP projects. These need to be addressed in order to help school leaders
implement successful changes that would improve student achievement.
Results and Findings for Organization Causes
Survey results. In order to assess school leaders’ perception of the organizational culture
they are working in, they were asked to respond to statements about the organizational work
process culture in their own school as well as that of the Ministry of Education in general.
Statements in the survey included school leaders’ assessment about guidance and supports
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79
received and the organizational value allocated by the Department of Schools within the Ministry
of Education on their leadership. In addition, there was also a statement to assess how accessible
are resources for them to assist them in implementing their SLP projects. Table 7 shows the data
for the organizational statement in the survey according to its mean score in descending order.

Table 7
Statement Results Categorized by Organizational Culture Variable in Ascending Order from
Highest to Lowest Mean
Statements
Types of
Organizational Culture
Agree Statement with means of 3.34
I engage content areas teachers in meetings Work Process
Disagree Statement with means between 2.96 to 2.54
PPKDs acknowledge school leaders’ effort to improve student
achievement
Value Stream
Limited resources for SLP due to various projects Resources
Financial application in MoE is very bureaucratic Work Process
PPKDs are clear about school leaders’ goal in SLP Work Process
PPKDs monitor school leaders on implementation of SLP project Work Process
PPKDs provide guidance for school leaders Work Process
Department of School provides guidelines regarding initiatives Work Process
Strongly Disagree Statement with means between 2.21 to 2.11
Conflicting instruction from Department of Schools regarding SLP
projects
Work Process
There will be repercussion taken by MoE Value Stream

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The statement with the highest mean is the school leaders’ assessment of their own
organization, with the mean of 3.34; they indicated that they “engage content areas teachers in
meetings”. The second highest mean is for the value stream statement, with the mean of 2.96;
school leaders indicated that school leaders’ efforts to improve student achievement are not
acknowledged by those in the Department of School. With a mean of 2.91, school leaders
indicated that they do not experience inadequacy of resources due to existence of other projects.
With a mean of 2.91, school leaders also disagree with the work process statement on “financial
application in the Ministry of education is bureaucratic”.
However for the four statements on work process regarding the role of Senior District
Education Supervisor or PPKD, were rated with means of 2.8 for statements on Senior District
Education Supervisors or PPKD are not clear about their goals for SLP, 2.78 for statement on not
monitor them, 2.68 on statement stating PPKD did not provide school leaders with guidance
regarding the initiatives or projects they implemented, and finally a mean of 2.54 for statement
on the Department of Schools did not provide them with any guidelines regarding which
intervention projects could be implemented in their schools.
The means and standard deviation for each of the statements is shown in Table 8. The last
two statements related to work process and value stream. School leaders indicated that they did
not receive conflicting instructions from MoE nor were they given any repercussion for not
meeting the set target.

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Table 8
Organizational Culture Statements, Means and Standard Deviation (in descending order)
Statements
Types of
Organizational
Culture Mean SD
I engage content areas teachers in meetings Work Process 3.34 .477
PPKDs acknowledge school leaders’ effort to
improve student achievement
Value Stream 2.96 .554
Limited resources for SLP due to various projects Resources 2.91 .757
Financial application in MoE is very bureaucratic Work Process 2.91 .706
PPKDs are clear about school leaders’ goal n SLP Work Process 2.8 .777
PPKDs monitor school leaders on implementation of
SLP project
Work Process 2.78 .703
PPKDs provide guidance for school leaders Work Process 2.68 .815
Department of School provides guidelines regarding
initiatives
Work Process 2.54 .804
Conflicting instruction from Department of Schools
regarding SLP projects
Work Process 2.21 .623
There will be repercussion taken by MoE Value Stream 2.11 .567

Findings from interviews. In the qualitative data on organizational culture for this study,
respondents were asked questions on the value allocated by their immediate organization to the
SLP projects and the culture of contextual organization in relation to their projects. For the
purpose of the study, the term “organizations” in the following section refers schools and the
Ministry of Education. All school leaders in the interviews indicated that, at the school
organization level and in their capacity as leaders, they were able to engage teachers, staff and
parents in the activities and programs that they initiated to improve student achievement either in
academic or non-academic areas.
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In response to questions on challenges faced in their leadership role, all school leaders
mentioned that their top challenge was dealing with the interruption of school programs by
various departments from the Ministry of Education. Interruption is defined as the imposition
made by the various departments from the Ministry of Education. Four respondents expressed
their concern over the number of programs introduced, in particular, by the Department of
Schools that need to be implemented in all elementary schools throughout the country. Often,
these programs are in the form intervention and remedial projects. The demand for schools to
implement these programs is onerous. Schools are required to send their selected teachers for
trainings or briefing. This takes time away from schools. This indicates that the Ministry of
Education, and the Department of Schools in particular, put a higher value on their own projects
in comparison to those initiated by school leaders.
In addition, this creates a spiral effect on the school working process. All school leaders
indicated that, when teachers are required to attend meetings, prepare and implement activities
for the Department of Schools and Ministry for Education’s other projects, they were overloaded
with work and the demand of these programs. As a result, teachers focus more on the tasks given
by the departments. Such interruptions affect school programs that were planned and initiated by
the school leaders and their team. Often, these in-house programs take back seat to programs
from the MoE. School leaders also highlighted that, often, these programs overlapped and focus
on the same subject area, but because each program has its own required activity and set of data
to be collected, school leaders and their teachers have to conduct them separately. This results in
reduction of teaching time for the particular subject to accommodate activities for the programs.
Apart from the interruption on schools’ curriculum, time, and human resources, school
leaders also commented on the lack of support they received from the Department of Schools,
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83
both in the form of expertise and of funding processes. For instance, in terms of providing
support to their transformational projects, with an exception of one respondent, the other five
mentioned that their PPKD involvement in supporting them is very minimal. One respondent
explained that this is mainly because “they have similar project of their own to monitor”.
Overall, the responses from school leaders suggest that education supervisors from the
Department of Schools should play a more active role in supporting school leaders to implement
transformational projects or programs.
In addition to providing support in terms of expertise on school leadership, the
Department of school is responsible for allocating and processing the funding for all elementary
schools in Brunei. Five of the six school leaders mentioned in the interviews that they need the
Ministry of Education to expedite their budget application and to increase the provision of their
school budget. One respondent mentioned that one of the top challenges for school leaders is “to
get financial supports, especially if we want to embark on changes for the school” and often the
work process for approval takes very long time.
Synthesis of Results and Findings for Organization Causes
The results from the survey and the interviews revealed the gap was caused by
organizational culture, which seems to occur more in school leaders’ contextual organization in
the form of the Department of Schools. Data from the survey suggests that school leaders
exercise their SLP knowledge and skills at the school level, and the statement with the highest
mean in the survey indicates they engaged their subject teachers in meetings. This is supported
by data from the interview in that all six school leaders stated that they practice “muzakarah,”
which is the engagement of teachers for the purposes of generating and exchanging ideas before
the school embark on projects, programs and initiatives for improving student achievement.
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School leaders’ responses in the survey regarding their perceptions of PPKDs were corroborated
by the interview data. Based on the information from the interviews, the PPKDs’ role is largely
seen as supervising projects and programs rolled out by the Department of Schools, hence they
have very little involvement with programs and projects initiated by the schools and have little or
minimal involvement and mentoring for the school leaders on their transformational project.
Nonetheless, the PPKDs are kept informed of the school leaders activities, albeit via text
messages and wattsapp (mobile phone application). From the organizational culture perspective,
school leaders perceived PPKDs’ lack of involvement as lack of support. In terms of the
organizational work processes between school leaders and the Department of School, the survey
showed that school leaders do not receive instructions, guidance, or repercussion in regards to
their SLP projects. According to the interview data, this is largely because the department has a
number of other national projects that it needs to implement, monitor and assess in the schools. It
seems like schools may implement their in-house projects as long as these do not affect the
national projects. In addition, in reference to interview data regarding resource allocation for
schools, the data indicated that there is an organizational gap caused by slow work processes and
mismatch of resources. Hence, based on both sets of data, there is no organizational gap at
school level, but there seems to be resources and work processes gaps between schools and the
Ministry of Education. There need to be a way for such a gap to be eliminated or, at least,
minimized to ensure effective implementation leadership proficiency.
Findings from document analysis. A document analysis was performed in an effort to
triangulate the data and provide additional objective information for this study. Therefore,
documents on SLP project proposal, SLP coaches report and final SLP project report were
analyzed to determine the implementation processes of SLP leadership knowledge and skills
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during the duration of the program. Analyses of SLP project proposal revealed that the first area
of concern for ILIA is to ensure that knowledge and skills taught in the program can be
transferred and implemented successfully by school leaders in their respective school settings.
Hence, during the interim period when school leaders go back to their respective schools
(immediately after their first in-person workshop) to integrate their newly acquired leadership
knowledge and skills through the implementation of an initiative to improve school performance,
the Institute monitored and assessed school leaders’ performance through weekly informal
interviews. These interviews lasted between 30mins and 1 hour. During this weekly interview,
each SLP coach recorded feedback and comments gathered onto a scorecard format that
eventually becomes a formal reference point for ILIA. The scorecard, assessed the processes
applied by school leaders at different phases of project implementation. For instance, at the
initial stages, school leaders were expected to cascade tools and skills required for successful
teamwork. These include sharing of RASI and discussion with teachers regarding project
initiatives and activities. In addition to cascading project implementation to the school
community, school leaders were also expected to engage parents’ involvement.
As part of the SLP coaching process, ILIA coaches also conducted at least one site visit
to each school. Such a visit allows ILIA to assess the rate of their initiative progress and to
observe how much the process of leadership skills and knowledge implementation has been
completed by school leaders and their team at this stage. The facilitative influence of school
leadership, though largely indirect, on student learning, cannot be ignored. Indeed, a case can be
made that school-level influences – such as motivated and engaged teaching staff, sound
pedagogic processes and a pro-learning school culture – are widely acknowledged to contribute
to student learning and are highly dependent on the quality of school leadership. Thus, in SLP,
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the successful implementation of leadership skills is also assessed on the alignment of school
SLP team and the improvement of student performance in a pre-identified area selected by
school leaders prior to undergoing the program in ILIA. Once all information has been gathered,
it is analyzed by each coach for the purpose of sharing at a weekly coaching conference in ILIA.
The SLP Program Leader, for the purpose of determining progress of each school leaders, his/her
team and school, chairs this session. This meeting also provides a platform for SLP coaches to
recommend support or intervention deemed necessary to move any particular school leader and
school team to better implement their newly acquired skills and knowledge to the next level.
Often, based on the analysis discussed at this meeting, the respective coach will relay the
outcome to their respective school leaders or schools. Based on the information gathered, ILIA
identified three levels of feedback processes, often referred to as the “Traffic Light” Process.
School leaders who meet all the criteria outlined in the assessment scorecard will fall onto
“Green” Category. A school leader who encountered teething problems and stumbled upon a
couple of roadblocks in implementing their new leadership skills and knowledge is categorized
as “Yellow”. For school leaders who show very little progress in implementing the leadership
skills and knowledge and showed no interest in progress is considered to be in the “Red”
Category. For the different categories, different support and interventions are provided.
In general, the assessment approach conducted by ILIA is continuously conducted for
each school only during their involvement in the SLP program. However, once school leaders
completed the required four-month program, due to inadequate number of staff members, ILIA is
not able to continue the regular assessment. Feedback received from school leaders indicated that
they still require regular assessment post-SLP to ensure they implement knowledge and skills
gained from the program. On reflection, assessment process conducted by ILIA were designed
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based on the need for it at the time and has many pitfalls. First of all, the assessment instruments
need to be reviewed to meet the criteria of the different stages of the implementation process.
ILIA also need to engage the support and expertise from the various departments within the
Ministry of Education to ensure unbiased assessment and sustainability of the process and the
policy.
Summary of Gaps Found
The following section summarizes the gaps found by triangulation of data that supports
that some of the findings are, indeed, accurate. School leaders’ survey, school leaders’ interviews
and document analysis were used to triangulate the data.
Knowledge and skills. In general, the school leaders’ responses for knowledge
statements in the survey and their discussion during the interviews indicated that, even though
the SLP is their first leadership training, because of the structured action learning process, they
were able to understand and embrace the concept partially and implement the knowledge and
skills learnt whenever they see fit and relevant in their role as school leader in their own setting.
However, the survey and interview findings indicated that there is a slight gap in school leaders’
conceptual knowledge on school leadership, in particular the concept of implementing
“quantum” projects in schools as a process of initiating urgency in a “business as usual” teaching
and learning activities.
Motivation. The interview results support the findings from the survey that school
leaders’ motivation to improve student achievement is attributed towards the students. They were
also able to set up goals for their respective schools. Nonetheless, findings from the interviews
further revealed that there is a gap in their motivation, especially in effort and persistency to
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continue and sustain the momentum of their SLP transformational projects after finishing the
program in ILIA.
Organizational culture. The survey and interviews support the gap that school leaders
face challenges in engaging active involvement and seeking guidance from their PPKDs. Issues
faced by school leaders, especially in implementing departmental programs and seeking
administrative support from the Department of Schools in terms of budget and quality teachers,
were only revealed by interview data. These contextual issues prevent school leaders from
successfully implementing and transforming their schools in accordance to their leadership
proficiency. Table 9, summarizes the assumed causes identified above.

Table 9
Summary of Assumed Causes for Knowledge, Motivation and Organizational Issues
Validated Causes
Knowledge Lack of conceptual knowledge on initiating a ‘quantum’ project
Motivation Lack of self-efficacy in sustaining transformational projects
Organization Culture Lack of mentoring and guidance from District Supervisors
Lack of commitment from Department of Schools on SLP projects
Ineffective financial support from the Ministry of Education

Research Question 2: What leadership strategies are successfully utilized by elementary
school leaders to improve student achievement?
Studies on school improvement and development have emphasised on the importance of
school leaders' role especially in the view of the continuous improvement process targeted at an
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individual school (Fullan, 1992; Huber, 2004; Leithwood and Louis, 2012 and Ylimaki and
Jacobson, 2012). In these studies, school leadership is viewed as playing an important role in
making a difference in terms of the operational effectiveness of a school, which can lead towards
the transformation of school and students' achievement. In relation to school leaders in this
study, results from the survey and interviews shows that there are a number of leadership
strategies learned from the School Leadership Programme, which have been implemented and
utilized successfully in their respective initiatives to improve student achievement. The following
section discusses these strategies in relation to the three areas of knowledge, motivation and
organization.
Results and Findings for Knowledge
Results from the survey conducted for school leaders revealed that the highest score for
knowledge items are for the procedural knowledge on setting clear goal for teachers with a Mean
of 3.4 and the procedural knowledge on using data to inform areas for intervention with a Mean
of 3.38. The results indicated that there is a couple of strategies that school leaders have
successfully utilize in improving their students' achievement. The strategies are validated and
further elaborated by comments given in the interviews. School leaders interviewed, emphasised
on the importance of setting clear goals especially in guiding their respective teachers towards
improving student achievement. Such goals are set for their respective initiatives and projects.
When school leaders were asked to explain how SLP helped to improve their leadership
skills, all six school leaders were able to identify leadership knowledge and tools in the program
that they found useful. They referred to some of the basic leadership tools taught in SLP, such as
GRPI, RASI, and 9-Cell Matrix, that helped them in their leadership role in school. GRPI is a
four-step project planning tool to help school leaders ensure productivity, effeciency and quality.
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GRPI is an acronym for Goals, Roles, Processes and Interpersonal relationship. The four steps
function as follows: 1) Goals – Leaders will clearly define the team's mission and establish
objectives that conform to the "SMART" approach (i.e., goals that are specific, measurable,
attainable, relevant, and timely); 2) Roles – A leader will use the "roles statement" to define
clearly each team member's function and the interrelationships between individual and team
roles, objectives, and processes; 3) Processes – This is where a leader identifies and defines
processes inherent in and essential to the project (e.g., problem-solving, decision-making, etc.);
and, finally, 4) Interpersonal – This reminds leaders to ensure open communication between
team members and encourage creative and diverse contributions from all members.
Another tool taught in SLP is RASI, which is used to prioritize initiatives or tasks.
Basically, this matrix is used to identify initiative key actors and roles according to R-
Responsible, A-Approval, S-Supports and I-Informed. For instance, in any given tasks, there
should be only one R, to ensure effective accountability. Nonetheless, the R could form a
committee or groups to help him/her to carry out the task, but the R shoulders the accountability.
For any of the tasks or initiatives developed, there must be one person who needs to approve it.
This person will be the A. It should be noted that there are times when it is not necessary to have
an A. S-stands for other key people who need to collaborate and work with R in areas such as
providing support. It should also be noted that not everyone need to be S. R should be able to
identify the strategic partnership or supports that would help him/her to expedite the tasks and
operate in effective way. Finally, there is I-Informed; this person only needs to be informed
about the progress and development of the tasks processes. For A, S and I, any one person can
have two roles at the same time, but only one person can be R at any one time. It is also
necessary to estimate the start and end date for each of the tasks.
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The 9-cell matrix is a strategic tool for school leaders to analyze each of their staff
members individually. The tool has two axes: the vertical axis represents the school values,
whilst the horizontal axis represents the staff member’s individual work performance. Both axes
are divided into three segments yielding 9-Cells. These 9 cells are grouped into three zones:
Low, Medium and High. Based on the strength of individuals, the school leader will be able to
place them in a different position in the matrix. As a result of a leader’s clear understanding of
all factors contributing to individuals’ placement on the matrix, a school leader can make better
decisions to develop effective strategies to develop individuals professionally.
All six school leaders conveyed in their responses that they have the basic level of
knowledge learned from the SLP. School leaders were also able to elobrate how they used the
tools in their leadership role. One respondent stated that the knowledge helpe in “setting
objectives, vision and values as well as on how to leverage on emotional energy to motivate my
teachers”. Another respondent described that the tools in the program helped “in designing and
organising programs and activities for the school, especially in identifying the right person to
handle the various tasks”. A similar sentiment was stated by a third school leader who explained
that “GRPI and RASI helped to allocate and distribute responsibility among teachers, and they
were able to carry out their tasks with commitment resulting in an efficient outcome”.
In responding to the questions on how they identify subject areas in which they planned
to introduce intervention initiatives, all school leaders explained the various procedural stages
they took to conduct such implementation, starting from the initial school team discussion, their
utilization of data to inform them on the status of students’ performance, and the cascading
phases of the project/initiative information to the school community as well as to parents. One
respondent explained that, for the school, they started the process by looking at data and
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describing that the school transformational project processes started when “the idea was initiated
from a survey to assess children attitude towards reading, data from this was used as the base line
data for the SLP project”. Another respondent also explained that, following the study of data,
they will engage teachers through workshop so that more ideas can be generated.
All six school leaders also described that, in their leadership capacity as school leader,
they would also engage parents and their village community. Leithwood, Harris and Hopkins
(2008) claimed that such leadership practices are basic practices for effective and successful
leadership. One responded described the procedure by stating “ villagers will be briefed
regarding projects conducted in the school by inviting them to school even though only a small
group will turned up”. The responses by school leaders regarding the procedures necessary in
implementing intervention or new projects in school indicated that they were able to apply the
procedures learnt from SLP.
With regards to school leaders’ metacognitive knowledge in applying the various skills
and knowledge learned from SLP training, all six-school leaders responded that they applied the
SLP knowledge and skills throughout their school leadership post-SLP depending on the tasks.
All respondents described specific examples to narrate how they use SLP knowledge and skills
in their leadership. The responses suggest they use these knowledge and skills in many different
ways. One respondent described the application of leadership tools in dealing with difficult staff.
Another respondent described how SLP processes were integrated in the implementation of all
school initiatives and programs, and another respondent summed up the application of leadership
knowledge and skills by describing that they used SLP leadership knowledge and skills in other
programs different from SLP because “it assists us in the planning, distribution of tasks through
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RASI and also the identification of areas for improvement”. These responses suggest that school
leaders could apply the knowledge and skills learned in SLP throughout their school leadership.
Results and Findings for Motivation
In response to the question on how SLP has improved their leadership, all of the school
leaders responded that with the SLP-acquired leadership knowledge and skills, they had set the
vision and mission for their respective schools and embarked on improving the school
environment and engaging their staff and communities in school projects. All six respondents
said that they are now more confident in dealing with their teachers and staff, building rapport,
making decisions and initiating changes. This suggests that they had the intrinsic motivation to
learn and implement their SLP knowledge and skills.
Results and Findings for Organization
A couple of successful strategies practices by school leaders to increase student
achievement in this study include engaging teachers, parents and the community in the initiative
processes. Findings from the interviews indicated that all six school leaders frequently involved
parents and community in their schools’ activities. These involvements vary from engaging
parents in parents' teaching clinic as part of the schools outreach program to seeking parents'
supports for the school initiatives. For instance, one school leader explained that by inviting
parents to attend and participate in parental teaching clinic is "to ensure that parent way of
teaching and helping their children at home is align to the technique used in school". According
to the school leader, "this is especially important for those children who have not acquired the
basic reading as parents’ participation can accelerate students’ reading skills". Another school
leader pointed out that even though, at times, there are only small number of parents are really
involved in supporting the school initiatives, school leaders will ensure that prior to conducting
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any initiatives or program, they will "call them to share with them what the intervention program
is all about and what are its activities, this is to ensure them that program is to assist their child
and not meant to isolate them."
In addition, within the school organization, school leaders seek supports and engagement
from their staffs and teachers. Ainley et al. (2005), noted that school leaders play a key role in
establishing cultures that are professionally stimulating for teachers which increase theirs sense
of efficacy and beliefs that have the capacity to make a difference to students’ learning. Findings
from the survey data indicated that in terms of establishing such culture school leaders has
ranked the item on engaging content area teachers in meetings as their top organizational item
with a Mean of 3.34.
Findings of the study revealed that the head teachers of successful schools empowered
teachers and gave responsibilities to others to move school forward. Their leadership practices
point towards an emerging model of leadership that was less concerned with individual
capabilities, skills and talents and more preoccupied with creating collective responsibility for
leadership action and activity. The focus was less upon the characteristics of the leader and more
upon creating shared contexts for learning and developing leadership capacity. A link was made
between distributed and democratic leadership practices and school improvement in the majority
of the schools. Their emphasis was upon the development and establishment of relationship
among teachers, students, parents and other personnel of school community.
Research Question: What are the recommended solutions to close the knowledge,
motivation and organizational gaps that impede elementary school leaders applying SLP
leadership skills in their leadership practices?
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Taking into account the gaps found in knowledge, motivation and culture, solutions were
researched using scholarly literature. The literature review guided the solutions proposed to
reduce the gaps found. The recommended solutions to close the knowledge, motivation and
organization gaps are discussed in further detail in Chapter 5.

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CHAPTER 5
SOLUTIONS AND IMPLEMENTATIONS
Purpose of the Study
The Clark and Estes (2008) Gap Analysis Process Model was used as a guide and
framework to help the Institute for Leadership, Innovation and Advancement (ILIA) improve the
leadership competency gap of public elementary school leaders graduating from its School
Leadership Programme (SLP) in improving student achievement. Following the gap analysis
model, ILIA identified SLP’s goal of narrowing the gap between the desired outcome and
current performance. Scanning interviews and observations helped identify potential causes of
the gaps and, along with previous research, literature guided the construction of a survey and a
set of questions to test potential causes of the gap. The gaps were identified through surveys of
and interviews with 82 public elementary school leaders (head teachers) in Brunei and through
document analysis. This chapter identifies potential solutions ILIA may adopt in order to reach
its goal of increasing school leaders’ leadership competency in enhancing student achievement.
This chapter offers suggestions to ILIA in the process of implementation of the solutions. The
following chapter discusses how to evaluate the solutions in order to ensure they are, indeed,
helping to close the identified gaps.
Validated Causes Selection and Rationale
All of the validated causes summarized in Table 9 of Chapter 4 mentioned under the
categories of knowledge, motivation and organization based on the Clark and Estes (2008) gap
analysis model were selected to provide solutions for the causes.
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All of the validated causes are interconnected and, hence, providing solutions for all of
them in an integrated manner will have a significant impact on achieving the goals of the
organization.
Solutions for Knowledge Causes
Improve School Leaders’ Conceptual Knowledge on Implementing “Quantum” and
Transformational Projects to Improve Student Achievement
The first validated cause for school leaders’ knowledge and skills gap is the lack of
conceptual knowledge on quantum project in transforming teaching and learning to enhance
student achievement. Anderson and Krathwohl (2001) described conceptual knowledge as
knowledge of the schemas, mental models or implicit/explicit theories that represent the
knowledge an individual has about how a particular subject matter is interconnected and
interrelated in a systematic manner. In other words, conceptual knowledge may also be described
as schemas and mental models, which represent the knowledge an individual has about a
particular subject and how it is organized. In SLP, school leaders were introduced to pertinent
concepts in leadership such as “quantum” and “transformative” initiative. Quantum initiative
refers to a major initiative implemented by school leaders that should involve all or the majority
of their students and teachers in order to generate significant impact at the end of the project
whereas transformational initiative refers to an implemented initiative which is capable of
fostering fundamental changes. In the study, it is found that there is a gap among school leaders
in terms of their understanding of what constitutes quantum knowledge. It is assumed that, as a
result of school leaders’ gap in such knowledge, they may not be able to recognize or distingusih
initiatives that are “quantum” or fit the category of “transformational.” This, in turn, hinders
them from implementing the right initiative necessary to enhance student achievement. The
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linkage of the leadership of the school leader with school improvement is asserted in much
research literature (Fullan 1992; Hargreaves 1994; Leithwood and Rheil 2003; Sammons et al.
1995) as unlikely if school leaders do not have the conceptual knowledge required to respond to
changes as they progress in their careers. This might be the underlying cause for the lack of
increase in student achievement by the SLP projects in Brunei elementary schools.
Solutions
Revised instructional strategies. According to Ambrose et. Al (2010), instructors can
overcome learner’s lack of conceptual knowledge by making learner’s learning more meaningful
through various strategies. SLP facilitators can enhance the conceptual knowledge of school
leaders on quantum and transformative projects/initiatives by providing a 1 to 2-hour session
whereby facilitators will provide repeated, but different, instructional approaches to teach the
concepts at different phases of the training program. The first approach will be for SLP
facilitators to introduce the basic definition of the concepts to school leaders during the pre-
workshop or orientation session by providing guidelines and criteria for each of the concepts. At
this stage, school leaders will be provided with existing examples of projects/initiatives that
encompassed the quantum and transformative criteria, so that they are clear regarding the two
concepts. This guided mastery approach will provide school leaders with instructive modeling so
that they will understand the concept better. School leaders will then exercise their newly
acquired knowledge on these concepts by applying their understanding in designing a proposal
for an SLP project/initiative for their school in preparation for the actual training workshop.
During this pre-workshop period, each school leader will also be supported by a coach who will
guide them in designing the proposal to ensure that school leaders’ conceptual knowledge and
development of self-efficacy is regularly supported and encouraged by the SLP team so that
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tasks assigned can be accomplished. During this period, school leaders and their school team
will also have the opportunity to engage in a group-activity and work together to design a
project/initiative which is quantum and transformative in order to enhance student achievement.
In addition, during the in-person workshop, SLP will also design a peer-discussion
session, which will allow school leaders to develop cognitive mastery modeling. As such, they
will learn by observing and listening to the decision rules and reasoning strategies used by other
school leaders who plan to implement a similar project/initiative regarding how they arrive at a
correct conclusion and decision on the quantum and transformative extent of their SLP
projects/initiatives. According to Zimmerman (2000), collectively, when people are engaged in
activities they believe will help them learn, they attend carefully to instruction, mentally organize
and rehearse the material to be learned, take notes to facilitate subsequent studying, always check
their level of understanding, and ask for help when they do not understand the material. Having
the different activities and learning approaches will help school leaders to enhance their
conceptual knowledge in developing quantum and transformative projects/initiatives, which, in
turn, will enhance student achievement.
Solutions for Motivation Causes
Increase School Leaders Self-efficacy to Sustain Transformational Projects
As described by Pajares (2009), self-efficacy beliefs can be defined as the judgments that
individuals hold about their capabilities to learn or to perform courses of action at designated
levels. In essence, self-efficacy beliefs are the self-perceptions that individuals hold about their
own capabilities. Typically, self-efficacy beliefs help foster the outcome one expects and,
according to social cognitive theory, self-efficacy beliefs provide the foundation for human
motivation, well-being and personal accomplishment. Tschannen-Moran and Gareis (2004), in
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analyzing the task of leadership, identified two relative factors that can make leading difficult;
one of these is school leader’s self-efficacy. This is because self-perceptions influence how well
they can motivate themselves and persevere in the face of adversities. School leaders who lack
confidence in their leadership knowledge and skills might envision that they will not be able to
sustain their SLP projects and initiatives once they graduated and received no guidance from
ILIA.
According to Lyons and Murphy (1994) as cited by Tschannen-Moran & Gareis (2004),
school leaders who have low self -efficacy are more likely to rely on external and institutional
bases of power. The perception of the environment as uncontrollable would have a debilitating
effect on individual goal setting and problem setting. Thus, enhancing leadership self-efficacy
should be an important objective for SLP and ILIA. There are a number of recommended
solutions provided by social cognitive theory such as mentoring, setting achievable goals,
establish self-regulatory and giving regular feedbacks in order to equip school leaders with the
capabilities and the resilient sense of -self-efficacy that will enable them to enhance their
leadership wellbeing and accomplishments. Bandura (2000) proposes three specific approaches
for developing self-efficacy in leaders: guided mastery, cognitive mastery and self-regulatory
competences. These approaches can be applied into the SLP training program to enhance school
leaders’ self-efficacy to sustain their SLP projects and initiatives.
Mentoring by SLP alumni. Guided mastery for school leaders can take the form of
mentoring whereby school leaders who are in the program have mentors who are former
graduates from SLP who implemented similar projects/initiatives or share similar attributes. In
Singapore, according to Lim (2007) the concept of mentoring provides a form of continuous
workplace learning in times of change and an expanding corpus of information. According to
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Low (2001), it was during the mentoring period that school leaders learnt how mentors worked
and tackled problems in innovative ways. Such vicarious learning, according to Bandura (1997),
can alter efficacy beliefs through the transmission of competencies and comparison with the
attainment of others. Bush and Coleman (1995) and Lim (2006) stated that effective mentoring
gives confidence to protégés in a period of change and uncertainty.
Setting achievable goals. In relation to the self-regulatory competences, there changes
that SLP can make; these include changing the rigid goal set previously for all school leaders to
achieve over the duration of the SLP training of achieving an increase of 20% in student
achievement within a period of four months. According to Rueda (2011), people sometimes give
up trying to achieve their goals simply because the goals are too vague for them and they do not
know how to make progress in achieving them. Hence, moving forward, SLP facilitators will
allow school leaders to set goals for their projects/initiatives which are feasible, realistic and
comfortable for them rather than goals that are overwhelming and can create a sense of
despondence for school leaders. By doing so, the training ambience will be more mastery goal
orientated whereby learning is perceived as an enjoyable activity rather than for its performance
oriented reasons. According to Clark & Estes (2008), persistence is greater when goals are
possible to achieve, impossible goals have the tendency to destroy commitment.
Self-regulatory. Schunk, Pintrich and Meece (2014) pointed out that, when learners
attain learning goals, it conveys to them that they possess the requisite capabilities for learning,
which, in turn, will motivate them to set new challenging goals. Hence, in relation to this SLP,
facilitators should design a check-list worksheet for school leaders to track their progress on
goals. This will ensure that they can achieve their goals progressively until they reach the
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ultimate goal by breaking down the goals into achievable components and allowing them to plan
their strategies in order to scale up the project achievement.
Frequent feedback. Another potential strategy that SLP can introduce is for its
facilitators to frequently provide feedback to school leaders as they are engaged with peers and
in collective activities in the workshops. According to Clark and Estes (2008) such feedback
serves as motivator if it is given when progress is made on a very challenging task and when
given in the form of corrective feedback to encourage people to consider effective ways to
achieve a performance goal. It is also important for SLP coaches to provide positive verbal
feedback during site visits to schools. According to Gist and Mitchell (1992), training program
structures, which include positive persuasive messages to enhance school leaders’ task-specific
efficacy perceptions.
Network Learning Group. School leaders undergoing the SLP will benefit from a
Network Learning Group to provide them with peer support during and after they have
completed the program in ILIA. This network-learning group can consist of alumni of SLP,
ILIA’s facilitators and District supervisors from Department of School.
Solutions for Organization Causes
Provide Guidance from District Supervisors
Research by Leithwood and Jantzi (2008), looking into the extent to which district
leadership and district organizational conditions influence school leader efficacy, found that the
efficacy of school leaders seems to arise from the aligned and supportive nature of their working
conditions, especially through the nurturing behaviors of their district administrators. They also
found that organizational conditions had much larger effects on school leaders’ collective rather
than individual efficacy. According to Daresh (2004), over the past 25 years, assisting school
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leaders came to be viewed as an important part of ensuring that schools can be made more
effective. Crow and Matthews (1998) stated that a strategy frequently proposed for supporting
school leaders is the initiation of mentoring and peer coaching programs. Hence, for school
leaders to successfully sustain the use of their SLP knowledge and skills in school projects and
initiatives, support from their District Supervisors is vital.
Clustering supervision. Bandura’s (1997) social cognitive theory (SCT) states the value
of mentoring lays in that it not only guides individuals in their assumption of new roles, new job
identities and organizational expectations but in that it is also an effective approach to acquiring
new knowledge, skills and behaviors. The solution of improving mentoring and coaching by
district supervisors is based on this aspect of SCT and the practices conducted in Singapore. In
Singapore (Dimmock & Tan, 2013), a group of 12 to 14 primary and secondary schools will
form a cluster, working together and sharing best practices under the supervision of the
superintendent. Cluster superintendent responsibilities include having to lead other school
leaders within the cluster. In so doing, they are expected to understand the composition needs
and goals of cluster schools and support other school leaders in their endeavors to achieve their
individual school goals. This will address the issue of minimal or no involvement from District
supervisors in supporting SLP school leaders in implementing and sustaining their
projects/initiatives. It is expected that the District supervisors involved in SLP will also assume
the role of mediator between school leaders and the MoE in ensuring practices conform to MoE
expectations. Further findings by Dimmock and Tan (2013) show that the cluster structure and
superintendents’ supervision exert a strong influence on sharing of resources across cluster
schools, which promotes scalability and sustainability of leadership practice and innovation.
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Hence, considering that there are 12 to 16 schools involved in each SLP cohort, one
solution to improve the mentoring and guidance from district supervisors for SLP schools is to
engage support from the Department of Schools to assign three or four district supervisor to be
mentors and coaches for each cohort. A group of three or four primary and secondary schools
will form a cluster assigned to a district supervisor. To support the school leaders’ SLP
knowledge and skills transfer, the district supervisors will require information in the form of job
aids and of the roles and responsibilities from them in supervising/coaching and mentoring the
SLP clusters.. District supervisors will play a more active role, especially after schools in their
cluster graduate from the SLP. These supervisors will continue to mentor and supervise the
school leaders to ensure sustainability.
Professional development training. There is clear evidence from both the survey and
interviews data that while school leaders understood the need to streamline and realign their SLP
projects/initiatives to the school’s vision and mission, their District Supervisors does not see the
how important this process is. Hence, in the end, only the school leaders were committed to drive
the SLP projects/initiatives as part of their leadership agenda to enhance student achievement at
their respective school level. Kotter (1996) refers to such impediments in the organizational
structure as a failure to recognize or provide the kind and amount of training that will be required
to help people learn new behaviors, skills, and attitudes necessary to undertake a major change
(Kotter, 1996). Thus as a recommended solution, it is important for ILIA and the Ministry of
Education to overcome such obstacle by providing necessary professional development training
for the District Supervisors. Kotter argued, “without the right skills and attitudes, people feel
disempowered” (1996, p. 115). According to Kotter, employees will need the right kind of
training to be able to change behaviors that have been built up for many years. In many cases, the
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training provided needs to go beyond technical aspects to address social and attitudinal skills as
well as to ensure they understood their new roles and responsibilities in the district. Hence, apart
from attending the SLP training alongside the school leaders, District supervisors might need
training on how to mentor and coach the school leaders.
Increase Guidance from Department of Schools
In reference to cultural model, lack of efficient and effective organizational work
processes, lack of value stream and lack of material resources can prevent the closing of a
performance gap (Clark & Estes, 2006). As per the data gathered from the survey and interviews
of school leaders, there is a lack of commitment from the Department of Schools in the Ministry
of Education in supporting school leaders in their SLP projects/initiativs to enhance student
achievement. The solutions for engaging more support and guidance from the Department of
Schools for school leaders are discuss below.
Involve top management. According to the American Institute for Research (2010), data
gathered from 25 schools in their School Turnaround Specialist Program indicated that schools
which need to build school-based capacity to permanently transform their learning culture and
working conditions require district support. The research also indicated that school level
leadership is most productive when there is consistent district-level leadership in tune with and
supportive of the needs of the schools. For this to happen, ILIA, through its SLP, need to engage
the top management of the Department of Schools at the Ministry of Education to be on board
and understand the goals and purposes of the SLP projects/initiatives. Through such
collaborative efforts, the department can have a discussion with school leaders about providing
adequate guidance and support needed in order to assist them in prioritizing and realigning the
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distribution of resources required to ensure that the projects/initiatives they implemented will
increase student achievement.
Increase SLP utility values. Based on the cultural model, one of the the assumed causes
for the organizational performance gaps in this study is inefficient value stream between
departments in the Ministry of Education and ILIA. Value streams are a form of analysis that
describes how an organization’s departments and divisions interact and what processes they
implement. The goal is to understand how the business as a whole works and the cost-
effectiveness of different work processes.Utility value is one dimension attached to attainment
value. Utility value refers to how useful one believes a task or activity is for achieving some
future goals. SLP can enhance Department of School commitment towards supporting SLP
school leaders in their projects/initiatives by tying the goal of SLP to that of the Department of
School’s mission to increase students’ literacy and numeracy achievement so that students in
Brunei can be among the top 50 in the TIMSS and PISA rankings by 2017. According to Rueda
(2011), despite having to pursue multiple goals simultaneously, the general assumption is that,
when multiple goals are aligned and not in conflict, they are likely to lead to more adaptive
behavior.
Table 10 shows the summary of the identified causes for knowledge, motivation and
organization and the proposed solutions and recommended implementation of the solutions to
mitigate each causes.

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Table 10
Summary of Causes, Solutions and Implementation of Solutions
Knowledge & Skills Motivation Organizational Culture
Causes - Lack of conceptual
knowledge on initiating
a ‘quantum’ project
- Lack of self-efficacy
in sustaining
transformational
projects
- Lack of mentoring
and guidance from
District Supervisors
- Lack of supports and
guidance from
Department of Schools
on SLP projects
Solutions - Increase school
leaders conceptual
knowledge on
transformational and
quantum project by
revising current
workshop instructional
strategies
- Increase school
leaders self-efficacy in
sustaining projects that
will enhance student
achievement
- Engage district
supervisors as mentors
and coaches in SLP
- Involve Department
of School’s top
management in SLP
- Increase utility value
of SLP projects with
school achievement
Implementation - Provide clear
guidelines on the
criteria and definition
for the concept
- Provide existing
examples of quantum
and transformative
projects
- Guidance by SLP
coach during designing
of projects
- Provide platform for
peer-discussion
- Provide mentoring to
ensure guided mastery
for SLP participants to
learn from other how to
overcome challenges
- Setting achievable
goal
- Establish checklist
- Provide frequent
feedbacks by SLP
coaches
- Establish network
learning group
- Establish clustering
supervision
- Provide Professional
Development for
District Supervisors
- Establish a common
goal for SLP and
Department of School

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Stakeholder Cascading and Performance Goals
According to Ng (2008), in order to improve or achieve success in educational goal, the
issue is not whether initiatives are implemented, but the challenge is whether the initiatives delve
deep beyond the surface level to change the basic philosophy and approach to education. An
organization’s goal is achievable by scaffolding steps, and Clark and Estes (2008) emphasized,
“effective performance goals cascade or follow from organizational goals” (p. 22). Table 11
below summarizes the hierarchical goals to minimize or eliminate the performance gap of this
study that begins with the overall organizational goal; subsequent goals are identified to scaffold
the achievement of the organizational goal.

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Table 11
Summary of Organizations Main Goal, Short Term Goals, Cascading Goals and Performance
Goals
Organizational Goal: All school leaders will be 100% proficient in leadership skills to
enhance student achievement by at least 20% in December 2016
Stakeholder 1 Goal: (SLP)
All school leaders initiate
transformative
projects/initiatives that can
enhance student achievement
(October 2014 – August
2016)
Stakeholder 2 Goal: (School
leaders)
Implement quantum and
transformational
projects/initiatives that can
improve students
achievement
Stakeholder 3 Goal:
(DS/PPKD)
Department of Schools and
District Supervisors will
provide organizational
support for school leaders to
implement SLP
projects/initiatives.
Stakeholder 1 Cascading
Goal:
SLP will apply variety of
instructional strategies to help
school leaders understand
what is meant by quantum
and transformative projects
and initiatives (October 2014
– August 2016)
Stakeholder 2 Cascading
Goal:
School leaders will set clear
criteria, goals and strategies
for their SLP
projects/initiatives (October
2014 – August 2016)
Stakeholder 3 Cascading
Goal:
District supervisors will
attend the SLP workshop
together with the selected
school leaders (Ongoing from
October 2014)
Stakeholder 1 Performance
Goal:
SLP will continuously review
and guide school leaders SLP
projects/initiatives to ensure it
meets the quantum and
transformative requirements
(Ongoing from October 2014-
August 2016).
Stakeholder 2 Performance
Goal:
School leaders will
implement the strategies and
action plan necessary to
achieve the goals that they
have agreed on (Ongoing
September 2014-Novemeber
2016).
Stakeholder 3 Performance
Goal:
District Supervisors will be
able to mentor, guide and
support school leaders with
their SLP projects/initiatives
(Ongoing September 2014-
December 2016).

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CHAPTER 6
EVALUATION AND DISCUSSION
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this study was to assist the Institute for Leadership, Innovation and
Advancement (ILIA) to investigate the reason school leaders graduating from its School
Leadership Programme (SLP) are not 100% proficient in leadership knowledge and skills to
allow them to enhance their student achievement by at least 20%. The primary stakeholders for
this study were the public elementary school leaders in Brunei Darussalam. Currently, the
analysis indicated that only 30% of school leaders are 100% proficient in SLP leadership
knowledge and skills. This indicates an existing 70% gap. In order to achieve its organizational
goal of 100% leadership proficiency to enhance student achievement by 20%, school leaders
graduating from SLP need to receive the adequate level of knowledge, motivational and
organizational support to enable them to do so. For this purpose, the study was guided using the
Clark and Estes (2008) gap analysis model and gaps in knowledge, motivation and organization
were identified.
As part of the outcome of this gap analysis study, a number of solutions were
recommended to address the knowledge and skills, motivation and organizational causes of the
school leaders’ competency gap. In this chapter, the final step in the gap analysis process is to
evaluate the outcomes of the solutions introduced to address the performance gap. This is to
determine whether the suggested solutions will, indeed, be successful in closing the gap.
According to Westat (2010), evaluation is important for two main reasons: evaluation can
document what has been achieved in terms of goals and desired outcomes achieved. In addition,
evaluation may also provide information on how to improve the project. Therefore, for this
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purpose, the performance evaluation system by Don Kirkpatrick cited in Clark and Estes (2008)
was the reference point. Kirkpatrick basic four-level model of reactions, impact during the
program, transfer and bottom line or results.
Synthesis of Results
The following are results were found in the knowledge and skills, motivation and
organization gap obtained from the school leaders’ survey, interviews and from document
analysis.
Knowledge and Skills
The results of the survey and interviews indicated that school leaders in this study lack
conceptual knowledge of quantum and transformative projects. Findings from the interviews
confirmed that school leaders are not clear on the expected criteria of the projects/initiative that
they need to initiate at school to around student achievement. The results of the survey and
interview also showed that school leaders have good understanding of the factual, procedural and
meta-cognitive knowledge of the SLP’s leadership knowledge and skills.
Motivation
The survey responses did not reflect any concern regarding school leaders’ level of
motivation in ensuring that they will apply leadership skills to motivate themselves to improve
student achievement. However, findings from the interviews highlighted their lack of self-
efficacy in sustaining the newly learned leadership skills and behaviour required to drive the
transformative changes for student achievement.
Organization
The survey responses combined with the interview feedback confirmed that school
leaders in this study have no problem in leading and garnering supports from their teachers and
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school’s community but findings from the survey and interviews do indicated that school leaders
do not receive adequate support and guidance from the Department of Schools and, especially,
from their District Supervisors.
Strengths and Weaknesses of the Approach
The Gap Analysis Model (Clark & Estes, 2008) approach used in this study is a
systematic problem-solving approach to improve performance and achieve organizational goals.
The strength of this approach is that the entire process is well structured, whereby the framework
allows the researcher to quantify the performance gap, which needs to be reduced or closed. This
framework takes into consideration that each organization has different goals, but having these
quantified allows the researcher to conceptualize the existing gap of actual performance
regarding the intended goal. The analysis gap approach also provides a clear and structured way
for researchers to investigate and validate assumed causes that may contribute to the gaps. This
gap analysis approach focuses on three main core areas corresponding to knowledge, motivation
and organizational barriers. All of these causes require researchers to validate them through data
collection and analysis. This evidence-based process will help rule out some of the assumed
causes, leaving a clearer picture on which specific factors are likely causing the performance
gap. Once the causes are identified, solutions can be targeted at these specific areas. This process
in the gap analysis model approach allows resources and solutions to be clearly targeted to
address the most important causes of the gaps. Integrating Kirkpatrick’s (1998) four levels of
evaluation framework helps the researcher assess and properly plan the implementation phases of
the recommended solutions.
The challenge for researcher in using the gap analysis model approach is time constraint.
In order to identify the actual causes to the performance gap, time needs to be taken to
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investigate each strands of the core areas, For instance, the researcher needs to look into the four
different threads of knowledge areas of factual, conceptual, procedural and metacognitive before
validating the root causes for the performance gap. The time required to investigate and validate
each of the core areas is demanding, as each of motivation and organization area has its own sub-
threads.
Recommendation and Implications
The implementation of the recommended solutions is intended to help ILIA close the
existing gap of its SLP graduates’ knowledge and skills, motivation and organization. In order to
achieve this, it is recommended for ILIA to review and start to implement the recommended
solutions into its School Leadership Programme for its forthcoming cohort of school leaders,
which starts in October 2014. These solutions include changing the way the training is conducted
to support school leaders’ conceptual learning and provision of varied support and guidance from
SLP and MoE staff to enhance school leaders’ motivation and organizational efficiency. The
implementation of these recommended solutions will be conducted in phases through October
2014 to January 2015.
Recommended Evaluation
The Institute for Leadership, Innovation and Advancement (ILIA) will use Kirkpatrick’s
(1998) Four-level Evaluation Model (Reaction; Impact; Transfer and Bottom Line) to evaluate
the solutions recommended in its School Leadership Programme. The first level of evaluation is
to evaluate the reactions of its SLP participants to the various changes made to their training
program. The second level of evaluation is to evaluate the extent to which school leaders
attending SLP learned what the program has intended. Level three focuses on the impact of the
SLP training on participants’ leadership skills. Level four is to evaluate whether the School
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Leadership Programme conducted by ILIA made any difference to public elementary school
leaders’ leadership effectiveness in improving student achievement.
Level 1: Reaction
At this level, SLP’s participant reaction towards the program is evaluated. This reaction
evaluation will be conducted at three different phases of the training program. This is because
changes will be made at each phase of the training in accordance to findings from the gap
analysis. The first reaction evaluation will be conducted at the end of the first in-person
workshop. The second reaction evaluation will be conducted during the interim period, which
entails the application of the different leadership knowledge and skills in school environment.
The final reaction evaluation will be conducted at the end of the final in-person workshop. This
evaluation will be of quantitative design using a mix of closed-ended and open-ended survey
questions.
The closed-ended questions will require school leaders to quantify their reactions towards
the way the training program is being conducted. An example of closed-ended question is, “Will
you be able to apply leadership knowledge and skills learned in this program in your school
leadership role?” The closed-ended questions will be rated using a four-point Likert scale of -“a
lot, somewhat, a little and none at all”, whereas the open-ended questions will require
participants to provide input on how the Institute for Leadership, Innovation and Advancement
(ILIA) can improve the training sessions. An example of the open-ended questions is “what
features of this program did you like most?” Due to the small number of participants for each
training cohort, this survey will be distributed to every participant. Data from this first level of
evaluation will be used to inform ILIA about the motivational impact of the program on school
leaders at the three different phases of training.
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Level 2: Learning
This level measures the impact of the program on school leaders while the solutions are
being implemented. At this stage, this evaluation will indicate whether learning is taking place
during the course of the program. For this purpose, this evaluation will be conducted during the
first in-person workshop and the interim period using survey, interview and observation
approaches. During the first in-person workshop, observations will be conducted on school
leaders’ performance during the “action-learning” activities that are designed for them to
demonstrate the new skills learned.
An example of this is an exercise, which requires school leaders to develop
strategies/activities for their SLP project/initiative. This action plan will demonstrate their ability
to identify areas of change and transformative initiative. This action plan will be discussed
within a focus group consisting of other school leaders to ensure its feasibility. One feature of
this evaluation is that it needs to be repeated over time. School leaders’ inability to demonstrate
the aforementioned leadership skills will indicate that they have not grasped the content taught.
Such information will provide feedback for ILIA to revise its teaching and learning strategies.
Another observation to evaluate school leaders’ learning will be conducted during the
interim period. This is the period where SLP participants will go back to their respective schools
and are required to apply the leadership knowledge and skills learned in the workshop in their
school initiatives. These observations will be conducted during ILIA coaches’ site visits to the
school leaders’ respective schools. These observations and checklist will be triangulated with
interviews with the school leaders and their teachers. Observations will be conducted of all
school leaders, but teacher interviews will be conducted randomly.
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An example of an interview questions is “How has the SLP helped to improve your
leadership skills (or approach)?” Data from observations and interviews will be analyzed by
grouping the responses and skills observed into categories and themes. Each time leadership
knowledge and skills is demonstrated, the achievement will be entered into the checklist. The
scores from observation, documentation and interview will be recorded, triangulated for validity
and used to diagnose any glitches in terms of their learning This checklist will serve as progress
indicator on a school leader’s ability to self-regulate and sustain self-efficacy over a period of
time. Such information will help ILIA to make in-progress adjustments to get the program on
track to achieving its goal.
Level 3: Transfer
According to Clark and Estes (2008), Level 3 evaluation checks to see whether gains
made during the program’s interim period persisted after the program’s completion. In order to
evaluate the competency of the public elementary school leaders’ leadership performance, a
survey will be distributed to all graduates, and some will be randomly interviewed. Analysis of
their leadership documentation will also be conducted. In order to ensure that sufficient time for
transfer of learning to really occur, this evaluation process will be conducted three months after
school leaders graduate from the School Leadership Programme.
The survey questions will be closed-end; one example of the survey items is “When I
introduce a new or intervention initiative, I set a clear goal for my teachers.” Responses to this
survey questions/items will be based on a four-point Likert scale of “Strongly Disagree,
Disagree, Agree and Strongly Agree”. Findings from the survey were triangulated with findings
from interviews. For richer data, interviews were conducted with school leaders and their District
Supervisors. Both groups will be randomly selected. District supervisors will be interviewed at
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this level because they will be involved in mentoring and coaching the school leaders and are
expected to be in a good position to understand the amount of knowledge and skills transferred.
Findings from the document analysis and interviews will be categorized according to
themes in order to identify any emerging patterns of leadership knowledge and skills application
after the completion of the program. Findings will also be used to identify the types of
knowledge and skills which are less favored or implemented by school leaders. Such information
will help ILIA to improve its leadership training program. For validity and reliability purposes,
the evaluation at this level will be repeated over time to ensure that the transfer stays in place.
Level 4: Impact
Finally, Level Four focuses on evaluating whether ILIA, through its SLP, has made any
difference in improving school leaders’ proficiency in improving student achievement. For this, a
bottom line evaluation will be conducted. This means the use of both quantitative and qualitative
approach. The instruments mentioned at the previous three levels may be used to measure the
impact of the program on the school leaders’ leadership. The results gained from the earlier three
levels may provide the information required to close the performance gap. As the solution is
presented at the each of the three levels of evaluation, it provides solid data on the extent of the
problem to be solved at each level. A further revision may be implemented based on the
information and data collected at each level.
In summary, the evaluation conducted for these solutions provides implementers with
reliable and valid information regarding the progress of the changes introduced. Having
conducted the evaluation will also inform implementers, the leaders at ILIA in this case, to
determine whether mid-interventions are necessary or not during the school leaders’ training or
whether the solutions recommended by the performance gap analysis study really targeted the
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problems identified. Table 12 summarizes the recommended evaluation processes as per
Kirkpatrick’s (1998) Four-level Evaluation Model that begin with the reaction, learning, transfer
and impact level of the SLP. Such evaluation processes are proposed to ensure that continuous
improvements can be made to reduce school leaders’ leadership proficiency performance gap
upon graduating from the program.

Table 12
Summary of Recommended Evaluation Processes for SLP
Levels of Evaluation Types of Evaluation SLP Phases for evaluation
LEVEL 1: Reactions Questionnaire
Observations
Interviews
- First workshop
- First interim period
- Second workshop
- Second Interim
- Third workshop
LEVEL 2: Learning Questionnaire
Observations
Interviews
- First workshop
- First interim period
- Second workshop
- Second Interim
- Third workshop
LEVEL 3: Transfer Questionnaire
Observations
Interviews
Document Analysis
- First interim period
- Second Interim
- Three months after graduating from SLP
LEVEL 4: Impact Questionnaire
Observations
Interviews
- End of first interim period
- Third workshop
- Three months after graduating from SLP

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Limitations
In addition to those presented in Chapter 1, several limitations are acknowledged for this
research that could jeopardize the validity of the study. Therefore, caution should be taken when
making generalizations based on the research findings. This research was a case study focusing
on a specific leadership program conducted by ILIA for Brunei’s Ministry of Education. Hence,
the performance gaps and solutions recommended cannot be generalized to other leadership
programs, as the context is unique only to Brunei and might not be found in a different setting.
The survey for school leaders was distributed through the Primary Section of the
Department of Schools where school leaders were made aware that their returned questionnaire
was tracked by the Primary Section office. In addition, school leaders were also aware of the
individual who conducted the study. This could affect their responses in the survey, which might
not reflect their actual feelings and opinions of the program.
The researcher in this study works at ILIA as one of the SLP facilitators and could bring
bias and impartiality to the findings in the study. Patton (1990) suggested that a researcher may
influence the data by his/her own opinions and judgments; hence, there is a possibility that the
author was not objective in analyzing the data and may interpret them for the purposes of either
confirming or rejecting his/her personal beliefs as to the causes of the performance gap.
The population of this study was limited to only one group of participant: public
elementary school leaders who underwent the SLP training in ILIA. Thus, their survey and
interview responses are not representative of the overall population of SLP graduates. Again,
caution need to be exercised when generalizing the findings from this study.
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Future Research
There is a large amount of literature available on the subject of the impact of school
leadership on student achievement. Many of these studies focus on the school leaders’
contribution in the area of school’s climate, culture, curriculum, staff and student achievement.
Based on the findings from this study, there is a need for follow-up research on the following:
1. Real Impact of SLP on Brunei Education
The School Leadership Programme was only introduced in 2010. Therefore, there is a
need for a follow-up research to investigate whether the implemented solutions recommended in
this study have been successful in closing the performance gap of the program. Ideally, it is
proposed that such study may be conducted at the end of the timeframe proposed in this study,
which is the year 2016.
2. Comparison Study of Leadership Impact at Elementary and Secondary Level
Participants undertaking the School Leadership Programme in ILIA are leaders in the
elementary and secondary schools. It would be beneficial to study whether there are similar or
different assumed causes, which contribute to a leadership performance gap at the elementary
and secondary level.
3. Leadership Preparation Programs for Private School Leaders
Considering that they are a number of studies on leadership preparation conducted in
developed countries such as the US and the UK, it would be interesting to investigate how the
preparation of school leaders in private international schools closed leadership proficiency gap if
any.
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Conclusion
Over the past three decades, a significant body of empirical research have indicates that
school leaders leadership have contributes significantly to school effectiveness and student
performance (Waters, Marzano, & McNulty, 2003). Research indicates that school leaders
leadership can affect student learning through their practices of developing teacher capacity and
creating positive organizational conditions The findings from such research and the realization
that school leader’s role as change agent can enhance student achievement and ultimately school
improvement saw the introduction of a leadership program for all public elementary school
leaders in Brunei in 2010. In this program, all school leaders underwent an intensive action-
learning leadership program in ILIA known as the School Leadership Programme (SLP). The
core component of the leadership program is for school leaders to learn transformational
leadership knowledge and skills, which will help them, lead their school and increase student
achievement by 20% in the process. Such an ambitious goal is driven by the Ministry of
Education’s vision for Brunei students to among the top 50 in the TIMSS and PISA ranking by
2017. The Ministry of Education has spent over US$4.6 million over a period of two years to
train about 120 public elementary school leaders in SLP. There is a major concern amongst the
nation’s major stakeholders that, despite the SLP training received, there is still a huge
performance gap amongst school leaders’ leadership proficiency to enhance student
achievement.
The Clark and Estes’s Gap Analysis Framework model (2008) was used in identifying
the gaps in knowledge, motivation and organization of SLP, and several findings were identified
as the contributing causes to the lack of leadership proficiency among these school leaders. In
addition, this study also identified several successful practices by school leaders, which assist
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them in their leadership proficiency. Such practices are similar to those identified by Leithwood
& Jantzi (2005, 2008) and Leithwood, et. al (2004) which include practices of establishing a
focus school’s vision and mission, developing the capacity of teachers through team discussion,
building a student-centered learning climate in their project/initiatives approaches and fostering
parent and community trusting relationships.
This study highlight a number of areas in the delivery of the SLP curriculum that need to
be reviewed to ensure that school leaders are well supported in their leadership expectation to
raise student achievement. These include the ability to conceptualize quantum and transformative
initiatives and projects, which can enhance student achievement. There is also a need for SLP to
collaborate with the Department of Schools, especially in stating the roles of its District
Supervisors to continuously support school leaders after graduating from the program so that the
effectiveness of their leadership is sustainable.
Key factors in proposing the solutions and recommendation to mitigate the leadership
proficiency gap are empowering school leaders to set up their own goals and regulate their own
action plan in addition to ILIA’s engaging other stakeholders within the Ministry of Education,
especially the Department of Schools. A two year timeframe has been proposed for the
implementation of the solution to improve the current leadership proficiency gap. Overall, the
processes taken into identifying and refining the problem for this study, designing the
instruments required to collect data, analyzing findings and proposing the solutions has been an
eye-opening experience for the researcher. In conclusion, the gap analysis is a useful tool, which
allows the researcher to have a tripartite insight into SLP flaws and strengths through the
knowledge and skills, motivation and organization lens.

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APPENDIX A
GAP ANALYSIS CASE VALIDATION METHOD WORKSHEET
Assumed Cause Survey/ Assessment Interview Observation
Document
Analysis
Knowledge
Listing leadership skills
learned in the School
Leadership Programme.
Open-ended survey question
requiring respondents to list
down leadership skills learned
in SLP.
In-person
interview
NA NA
Defining what is meant
by ‘quantum’
initiatives.
Close-ended question In-person
interview
NA Review school’s
proposal for SLP
project
Describing the process
of SLP.
Close-ended question In-person
interview
NA NA
Distinguishing areas in
their school requiring
urgent intervention.
Close ended survey questions
where respondents are required
to indicate using 4 Likert Scale
on statements pertaining to this
matter.
In-person
interview
NA Review school’s
proposal for SLP
project
Distinguishing between
transformative and non-
transformative
initiatives.
Close-ended survey questions
where respondents are required
to indicate using 4 Likert Scale
on statements pertaining to
these terms.
In-person
interview with
school
leaders&
teachers
NA Review school’s
proposal for SLP
project
Implementing
leadership skills from
SLP to introduce
quantum initiative.
Close-ended survey questions
where respondents are required
to indicate using 4 Likert Scale
on statements pertaining to
these terms.
In-person
interview with
school leaders
& teachers
NA NA
Using data in designing
their intervention
initiatives to improve
student achievement.
Close-ended survey questions
where respondents are required
to indicate using 4 Likert Scale
on statements pertaining to
these terms.
In-person
interview with
school
leaders&
teachers
NA Review school’s
proposal for SLP
project
Applying leadership
skills in implementing
intervention initiative to
improve student
achievement.
Close-ended survey questions
where respondents are required
to indicate using 4 Likert Scale
on statements pertaining to
these terms.
In-person
interview with
school
leaders&
teachers
NA Review SLP
score card report.

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Assumed Cause Survey/ Assessment Interview Observation
Document
Analysis
Motivation
Lack of confidence in
achieving the 20%
improvement target set.
Close ended survey questions where
respondents are required to indicate
using 4 Likert Scale on statements
pertaining to this matter.
In-person
interview
NA NA
Lack of competency in
executing skills learnt
in SLP.
Close ended survey questions where
respondents are required to indicate
using 4 Likert Scale on statements
pertaining to this matter.
In-person
interview
NA Review SLP
score card
report
Feeling that the SLP is
similar to other
Ministry of Education-
led program which they
have attended and that
they will not be able to
implement skills learnt.
Close ended survey questions where
respondents are required to indicate
using 4 Likert Scale on statements
pertaining to this matter.
In-person
interview with
school leaders&
teachers
NA NA
Attributes the
implementation of
projects in SLP as more
for the interest of senior
officers in the Ministry
of Education.
Close ended survey questions where
respondents are required to indicate
using 4 Likert Scale on statements
pertaining to this matter.
In-person
interview with
school leaders&
teachers
NA NA
Do not see the value of
implementing
‘quantum’ and
‘transformational’
intervention initiatives
in schools.
Close ended survey questions where
respondents are required to indicate
using 4 Likert Scale on statements
pertaining to this matter.
In-person
interview with
school leaders&
teachers
NA NA
Choose to implement
either an on-going or
simple initiative which
requires less workload.
Close ended survey questions where
respondents are required to indicate
using 4 Likert Scale on statements
pertaining to this matter.
In-person
interview with
school leaders&
teachers
Observe
during site
visits.
Review
school’s
proposal for
SLP project.
Lack persistence in
implementing
initiatives.
Close ended survey questions where
respondents are required to indicate
using 4 Likert Scale on statements
pertaining to this matter.
In-person
interview with
school leaders&
teachers
Observe
during site
visits.
NA
Do not feel their efforts
are recognized by
Middle officers in the
Ministry of Education
Close ended survey questions where
respondents are required to indicate
using 4 Likert Scale on statements
pertaining to this matter.
In-person
interview with
school leaders&
teachers
NA NA

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Assumed Cause Survey/ Assessment Interview Observation
Document
Analysis
Organization
School leaders are not given
autonomy by Department of
Schools to implement
project and initiatives of
choice.
Close ended survey questions
where respondents are required
to indicate using 4 Likert Scale
on statements pertaining to this
matter.
In-person
interview with
school leaders&
MoE officers
NA NA
Due to numerous projects
set by other MoE
departments, school
resources for SLP project
are limited.
Close ended survey questions
where respondents are required
to indicate using 4 Likert Scale
on statements pertaining to this
matter.
In-person
interview with
school leaders&
MoE officers
NA NA
Top management in MoE is
clear about the goals to be
achieved in SLP, however,
these goals are not well
articulated to the lower and
middle officers in MoE.
Close ended survey questions
where respondents are required
to indicate using 4 Likert Scale
on statements pertaining to this
matter.
In-person
interview with
school leaders&
MoE officers
NA NA
Application procedure for
finance and other supports
from MoE is very
bureaucratic and time
consuming.
Close ended survey questions
where respondents are required
to indicate using 4 Likert Scale
on statements pertaining to this
matter.
In-person
interview with
school leaders
& MoE officers
NA NA
Some School leaders do not
engage teachers across
content areas in interactive
meetings and forums to
share perspectives about
how to improve students’
learning.
Close ended survey questions
where respondents are required
to indicate using 4 Likert Scale
on statements pertaining to this
matter.
In-person
interview with
school leaders&
teachers
NA NA
MoE has no formal
monitoring and mentoring
mechanisms to support
school leaders in their
implementation of SLP
projects hence there is no
consequences for schools
which do not meet the target
percentage.
Close ended survey questions
where respondents are required
to indicate using 4 Likert Scale
on statements pertaining to this
matter.
In-person
interview with
school leaders&
MoE officers
NA NA

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Assumed Cause Survey/ Assessment Interview Observation
Document
Analysis
Organization
There is a conflicting
perception between senior
and middle leaders in MoE
on what SLP project could
and could not be
implemented in schools.
Close ended survey questions
where respondents are required
to indicate using 4 Likert Scale
on statements pertaining to this
matter.
In-person
interview with
school leaders
& MoE officers
NA NA
School leaders do not
receive supports from their
Senior District Education
officers.
Close ended survey questions
where respondents are required
to indicate using 4 Likert Scale
on statements pertaining to this
matter.
In-person
interview with
school leaders&
MoE officers
NA NA
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APPENDIX B
SCHOOL LEADER SURVEY
Demographic Questions:
Please provide the following information about yourself by ticking in the appropriate box
1. Gender
Female Male

2. Age
<30 years 31-35 years 36-40 years 41-45 years Above 46 years

3. Total No .of Years of Teaching: __________
4. Total No. of Years as a School Leader: __________
5. No. of Years in your current position: __________
6. Highest Level of Education Qualification Completed
Diploma First Degree Masters Others Please state:
___________________

7. Leadership Programme Completed
LEP SLP Others Please state:
____________________

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Part 1:

The following statements describe leadership skills in implementing new or intervention
initiatives in school. Please indicate your response to these statements by √the appropriate box
that describes your own leadership. The scale for each statement is indicated as follow:

1. Strongly Disagree SD
2. Disagree D
3. Agree A
4. Strongly Agree SA

SD
(1)
D
(2)
A
(3)
SA
(4)
1. When I introduce a new or intervention initiative, I set a clear
goal for my teachers.

2. I know how to use RASI with my team.
3. I understand that ‘quantum’ initiative means the initiative that I
introduced in my school must involve majority or all of my
students.

4. I understand what is meant by transformational leadership.
5. I ensure that the goal of the initiative is clear, roles of each
teacher are understood and the processes are articulated to
all.

6. I find it difficult to decide which areas in my school require
urgent intervention.

7. I used data from tests and exam to inform me on which
subject areas intervention initiatives need to be implemented
in my school.

8. I apply leadership skills learnt in SLP to implement
intervention initiative to improve student achievement.

9. I am confident that we can achieve the 20% improvement
target set for the project at the end of the program.

10. I believe I am competent in applying leadership skills learnt
in SLP.

11. I believe that I will be able to implement skills learnt from
SLP in my other leadership roles.

12. The implementation of projects in SLP is for the purpose of
fulfilling the requirement from senior officers in the Ministry
of Education.

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The scale for each statement is indicated as:

1. Strongly Disagree SD
2. Disagree D
3. Agree A
4. Strongly Agree SA

SD
(1)
D
(2)
A
(3)
SA
(4)
13. I do not see the value of implementing ‘quantum’ and
‘transformational’ intervention initiatives in my school.

14. In order to minimize workload, I chose to use our on-going
initiative as our SLP project.

15. In order to minimize workload, I chose to generate a simple
initiative as our SLP project.

16. I do feel it is necessary for me to continuously do a regular
follow-up on the different initiatives that we implemented.

17. Our efforts in introducing intervention initiatives to improve
student achievement are acknowledged by PPKDs.

18. The Department of Schools provides us with guidelines
regarding which intervention project or initiatives to be
implement in SLP.

19. Locating resources in terms of materials and staffs for SLP
project is limited due to the numerous projects that our
school has to conduct at the same time.

20. Our PPKDs are clear about the goal that school leaders need
to achieve in SLP.

21. Application procedure for finance and other supports from
MoE for our SLP project is very bureaucratic.

22. I engage teachers from content areas in meetings to share
their perspectives on improving student learning.

23. PPKDs do monitor school leaders on their implementation of
SLP project.

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139
The scale for each statement is indicated as:

1. Strongly Disagree SD
2. Disagree D
3. Agree A
4. Strongly Agree SA

SD
(1)
D
(2)
A
(3)
SA
(4)
24. There will be a repercussion taken by MoE on schools which
do not meet the target 20% improvement set in SLP.

25. In implementing our SLP project, we get conflicting
instructions from Department of Schools on which project
we can and cannot do.

26. PPKDs provide school leaders with guidance and advices
regarding SLP initiatives implementation.

27. I believe by implementing transformative project, we can
bring about changes and improvement in student
achievement.

28. As a school leader, I know there is a financial aid given by
MoE to assist schools to implement their SLP project and
initiatives.

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APPENDIX C
SCHOOL LEADER INTERVIEW PROTOCOL
1. Tell me about what are your approaches are to leadership?
i. Leadership style?
ii. Strengths in leadership?
2. How much of these qualities did you have before you joined the SLP?
3. How has the SLP helped to improve your leadership skills (or approach)?
4. What are some of the challenges that you are facing in your leadership role?
5. What supports do you need to help you in your leadership role?
6. In the SLP interim period, you and your team were asked to implement a
‘transformative’ project with ‘quantum’ initiatives to improve student achievement. In
your own words, can you explain what your understanding of:
i) ‘Transformative’ project, and
ii) ‘Quantum’ initiative is?
7. Could you tell how you and your team identify a subject area in which you’re going to
introduce these intervention initiatives?
8. Do you use any form of data to inform you on the type of intervention you need to
design to help improve your student achievement?
i) What are the types of data available for your use? and
ii) How would you use this data to inform your decision?
9. In implementing any intervention, could you tell me would how you involve (the
following group of people) in your transformative project?
i) Teachers
ii) PPKD (Pegawai Pelajaran Kanan Daerah or Senior Education District
officers)
iii) and Parents
10. In improving student achievement, do you conduct other initiative(s) beside SLP to
improve student achievement?
i) Could you share how you would go about implementing these other
initiatives?
• How are these similar or different from SLP project?
• Why the differences? (if any)

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APPENDIX D
QUESTIONS TO GUIDE DOCUMENT ANALYSIS
Type of Document Information to be Collected Data Collected
1. School SLP Project
Proposal
i. What project was
introduced?
ii. What initiatives were
introduced?

2. School Coach’s Report i. Which SLP leadership skills
were reported as exercised
during the interim period?
ii. Which SLP leadership skills
were not exercised during
the interim period?
iii. What are some of the issues
the school leaders
encountered in
implementing their project?

3. School Final SLP
Project Report
i) What are the outcomes of
the project?
ii) How did school the
achieved their target of 20%
increase?
iii) Why did the school do not
achieve its target of 20%
student achievement
increase?

Abstract (if available)

Abstract Brunei Ministry of Education reviewed its education system and implemented the new “Sistem Pendidikan Negara Abad ke-21 (SPN 21)” or “National Education System for the 21st Century” in 2009. The SPN 21 is aimed at improving schools and student achievement across Brunei’s schools. As a result, at the school level, teachers and students have been profoundly affected by these changes. School leader’s role is seen as critical in providing leadership for these changes to be implemented and adapted successfully to improve students’ achievement. The implications of their leadership will strengthen students’ foundation in literacy and numeracy, which, in turn, will serve as the basis for higher-level knowledge acquisition in the future. The purpose of this study was to identify the causes of School Leadership Programme graduates’ current lack of leadership proficiency using the gap analysis problem-solving framework (Clark & Estes, 2008. A mixed method approached was used to collect data, in which 82 public elementary school leaders completed a survey, six of these school leaders participated in a structured interview. In addition, relevant documents on the School Leadership Programme were also analyzed as part of a document review. Through the process of triangulation, the study’s findings indicate that there is a gap in school leaders’ conceptual knowledge, a gap in their motivation to continue and sustain the momentum of their SLP transformational projects after graduating from the programme and organizational gap in engaging active involvement, guidance and support from their District Supervising Officers. The study also found that school leaders have successfully implemented their procedural knowledge, increase their self-motivation and engage the school communities through the program. Through this study, solutions to close the validated causes were developed.

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University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

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Asset Metadata

Creator Tajuddin, Shamsiah Zuraini Kanchanawati (author)

Core Title The impact of elementary school leadership on student achievement: a gap analysis

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Education

Degree Program Global Executive

Publication Date 09/19/2014

Defense Date 09/19/2014

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag elementary school leadership,gap analysis,leadership program,OAI-PMH Harvest,student achievement

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Castruita, Rudy Max (committee chair), Filback, Robert (committee member), Krop, Cathy (committee member)

Creator Email shamsiah.tajuddin@ubd.edu.bn,tajuddin@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-482034

Unique identifier UC11287820

Identifier etd-TajuddinSh-2968.pdf (filename),usctheses-c3-482034 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-TajuddinSh-2968.pdf

Dmrecord 482034

Document Type Dissertation

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Tajuddin, Shamsiah Zuraini Kanchanawati

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA