Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2020, Educational Studies

Researchers almost unequivocally agree that school leadership matters because school leaders occupy formal positions within highly bureaucratic systems and have a vast influence on the organization of schools. Because of the elusive and complex nature of leadership, however, it has been challenging to identify how principals become effective and through which mechanisms they impact teaching and learning. Since 1980, researchers have conceptualized 14 leadership models. One of those models is instructional leadership, which is generally defined as the school leader's ability to collectively and strategically utilize her or his influence to improve the core technology of schools—teaching and learning. There is an additional consensus among researchers that the effects of instructional leadership on student achievement are indirect and that various other mediating factors exist. Therefore, within educational research there remains a desire to develop and test theoretical frameworks to decipher the black box of instructional leadership. This study was designed to address this mission by developing a complex theoretical model to examine how instructional leadership influences instructional quality, which is directly associated with student achievement. More specifically, this study investigated the interrelations between instructional leadership, teachers' perception of school climate, teacher collaboration, and instructional support by using a large-scale, complex survey data known as the Teacher and Learning International Survey (TALIS) 2018. Multi-level structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze data from a nationally representative sample of 164 principals and 2548 teachers who instruct in grades seven through nine. The study results show that teachers' perception of school climate was a statistically significant predictor of school climate and that school climate was positively and significantly associated with instructional support. However, inst (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Noelle W Arnold (Advisor); Anika Anthony (Committee Member); Yvonne L Goddard (Committee Member) Subjects: Education; Educational Leadership