SACM - United Kingdom
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://drepo.sdl.edu.sa/handle/20.500.14154/9667
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Item Restricted Exploring the Role of Instructional-Based Leadership in Professional Development in an International Context, a Systematic Literature Review(University of South Wales, 2024-09-23) Afandi, Einas; Multani, YasmeenThe professional development of teachers is a critical practice highly valued for improving the quality of education and student achievement. However, limited evidence demonstrates the relationship between school leadership and management models and their influence on teachers' professional growth and development. While there has been extensive research on instructional leadership, limited evidence demonstrates its direct link with teacher professional development. In particular, there are no significant indications of the direct role of instructional leadership in teacher professional development. The study focuses on the positive impact of instructional leadership on enhancing knowledge and skills, particularly in secondary schools. The research aimed to determine how school leadership contributes to improving the quality of instruction for secondary school staff. The study utilized a systematic review method, conducting electronic searches in Scopus, Education Resources Information Centre (ERIC), and Web of Science. The synthesis of the study outcomes was based on thematic analysis, reviewing six identified studies to demonstrate the role of instructional leadership in teacher professional development. The findings of the study are relevant in decision- and policymaking in terms of leadership and management of schools in the promotion of teacher professional growth and development. The outcomes of the study ascertain the reliability of instructional leadership in fostering professional growth while also offering insights into the numerous ways that professional development of teachers can be achieved. As a result, it demonstrates how school leaders can leverage the instructional leadership framework in promoting TPD and fostering positive student outcomes9 0Item Open Access Exploring Contextual and Individual Factors that Shape English Language Teachers’ Perceptions and Experiences around Professional Development Programmes in a Saudi Female University Context: The role of professional identity, agency, and emotions(University of Southampton, 2024-06-30) Eshgi, Hadeel; Baird, RobertUnderstanding teacher identity is an essential aspect of teacher development (Cross, 2006), and there is consensus that a teacher's professional identity is influenced by internal factors, such as tensions and emotions, and by external factors, such as context and experiences, placing teacher identity in a position of constant change (Nguyen, 2017; Pillen et al., 2013; Subryan, 2017). Emotions constitute an essential element of teachers’ work and identity, and have a significant effect on identity and its shaping (Hargreaves, 2001; Nias, 1996; Sutton & Wheatley, 2003). The concept of agency is also embedded in considerations of teacher identity and emotion (Vloet and van Swet, 2010), especially in contexts characterised by mandatory professional development practices and restrictive classroom policies, as is the case in this research context. Teacher education programmes play a crucial role in shaping teachers’ agency, and can be integrated into identity performances and constructions (Lai et al., 2016; Lasky, 2005; Priestley et al., 2012), and professional development is a prominent and institutionalised element of the context investigated in this study. Therefore, the aim of this study is to explore the role and impact of professional development in the environment in which these teachers operate, and this is explored in relation to teachers' professional identity, agency, and emotions. This study investigates Saudi teachers working in the English Language Institute at King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia, where professional development and educational policies play a distinctive role in student and educator experiences. It aims to provide a holistic, phenomenological account of the intersecting elements that are influential in this educational context. To supplement the phenomenological methodological framework, I drew on Bucholtz and Hall’s (2010) identity framework, Wenger’s (1998) conceptualisation of trajectory in communities of practice, and Lazarus’s (1991) emotion’s theory to provide a theoretical and analytical focus for the study. The method for this phenomenological qualitative study involved observation of professional development training, and narrative and semi-structured interviews of six female English language Saudi teachers. The findings provide valuable insights into how teacher identity is shaped and reshaped by teachers positioning themselves in relation to different elements within the context, indexed particularly through metaphors, and through processes of distinction from and adequation towards others. The findings demonstrate the influence of context, culture, and individual positioning on teacher identity, agency, and emotions, as well as the effect of agency and emotions on teacher identity. This effect is not a one-way process, and should instead be seen as an interrelationship between teachers’ identity, agency and emotions, and this interaction is what constructs and reconstructs teacher identity over time. Overall, this study contributes to our knowledge of how university English language teachers, operating in a context where professional development and policy play distinctive and dominant roles, operate with their own cultures, roles, and expectations, enabling them to engage with both restrictive and developmental practices in different and unexpected ways. Themes around relationality and roles show how teachers respond, often consciously, to different stimuli that require them to negotiate and align elements of their identities, emotions, and agency, which is not always easy and is characterised by change over time. This occurs in ways that require cultural awareness and qualitative insights to understand and interpret.25 0Item Restricted Exploring Teachers’ Teaching Practices when Engaging in Systematic Reflective Practice: Teacher Cognitions and Identity(University of Southampton, 2023-05-02) Alharkan, Abdulwahed Nasser; Baird, RobertCognition literature is as valuable as identity literature, but when combined in context, they provide a very rich understanding of how people think and interact with others. Thus, this study takes a view of cognition that is holistic and situated as part of analysing reflective practice. Cognition does not exist in isolation; it exists with a history, an environment, interaction with others, and in a specific role, which mean teacher identity and teacher cognition are interrelated areas that can help us understand teachers’ environments, behaviours, practices, and ideas. This research takes place in Saudi Arabia, a context in transition, in which teaching environments embody change in terms of what individuals carry with them from their past, such as education, training, and teaching experience, and what they experience in the classroom, with policies driving towards more communicative and open ways of teaching and learning. The method for this study involved observing, tracking, and interviewing four Saudi teachers of English, as they engaged with a CPD programme employing dialogical reflective practice, both through face-to-face interactions, and social media networks. The study’s findings showed the complexity of reflective practice, and that the often simplified term "reflection" encompasses a wide range of activity and practices, with different implications for teacher engagement. The influence of power relations on perceptions of reflective practice is one of the key findings in the current study, as participants reported that when they felt pushed to reflect as an abstract, mandated practice, it elicited unnatural and inauthentic reflection for them. It seems that, in their mind, authentic, useful reflection exists when they are in control of it, and often when it arises in what is perceived as authentic interactions. In other words, the authenticity and benefits of reflection, both individual and dialogical, are perceived more when thoughts and interactions are characterised by autonomy and choice, whereas the nature of ‘reflection’ is seen and experienced differently when a power structure is seen to be driving the activity. Participants reported engaging with genuine, active, sharing, and comfortable reflection (individual and dialogical) when power relations and communication were perceived as equal and natural, whereas marked power relations and forced communication was met with resistance and a sense of artifice. Overall, participants reported that engaging with contextualised and dialogical reflective practice allowed them to develop deeper understanding and awareness of themselves and their practices, accompanied by a sense of enhanced confidence and effectiveness. The study's findings contribute to literature on teacher cognition and identity, and they inform Saudi educational policy makers, teacher education programmes, and English language teachers.31 0