The Roles of Instructional Leadership and Teacher Leadership in Support of Teaching and Student Learning

While such connection between an instructional leader and a vigorous teacher-leader team seems natural in the school with instructional effectiveness, the research evidence is surprisingly limited. To fill the gap, these factors are linked such that principals' effort on instruction will lead them to change the school's leadership structure by involving teacher leaders for collective instructional improvement, which will help improve teacher's instructional efficacy and ultimately boost student learning. Using data collected by a Chinese policy center, this study found that instructional leadership and teacher leadership are positively related to teacher efficacy and student performance, while the effect size between both leadership styles and teacher efficacy is more significant than that between school leadership and student test score.