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Version 1.3 – Updated November 2024

Principals / school leaders

Overview

  • Influence: Principals / school leaders
  • Domain: School
  • Sub-Domain: Leadership
  • Potential to Accelerate Student Achievement: Potential to accelerate
  • Influence Definition: Principals and other school leaders who provide leadership, management, and vision for schools. The focus of these studies can be management perspective (e.g., transformational, instructional, distributive), overseeing and involvement in professional learning, focus and mission, and the indirect and direct effects of leaders on students learning.

Evidence

  • Number of meta-analyses: 28
  • Number of studies: 1,198
  • Number of students: 1,353,612
  • Number of effects: 2,993
  • Weighted mean effect size: 0.37
  • Robustness index: 5

Meta-Analyses

Meta-Analyses
Journal Title Author First Author's Country Article Name Year Published Variable Number of Studies Number of Students Number of Effects Effect Size
Dissertation Gasper USA Transformational leadership: an integrative review of the literature 1992 Transformational leadership 22 0 25 0.81
Conference paper Bosker & Witziers USA School effects: Problems, solutions, and a meta-analysis 1995 Principals on student achievement 21 0 65 0.04
Dissertation Brown USA A meta-analysis of research on the influence of leadership on student outcomes 2001 Leadership on student achievement 38 0 339 0.57
Conference paper Wiseman USA Principals' Instructional Management Activity and Student Achievement: A Meta-Analysis 2002 Instructional management on achievement 59 16,326 59 -0.26
Educational Administration Quarterly Witziers, Bosker, & Kruger Germany Educational Leadership and Student Achievement: The Elusive Search for an Association 2003 Principals on student achievement 61 0 377 0.02
Report Waters, Marzano, & McNulty USA School District Leadership That Works: The Effect of Superintendent Leadership on Student Achievement 2003 District superintendents on student achievement 70 1,100,000 70 0.25
Conference paper Waters & Marzano USA School District Leadership that Works: The Effect of Superintendent Leadership on Student Achievement 2006 District superintendents on achievement 27 0 27 0.49
Asia Pacific Education Review Chin Taiwan Meta-analysis of transformational school leadership effects on school outcomes in Taiwan and the USA 2007 Transformational leadership 21 6,558 11 1.12
Educational Administration Quarterly Robinson, Lloyd, & Rowe New Zealand The Impact of Leadership on Student Outcomes: An Analysis of the Differential Effects of Leadership Types 2008 Principals on student achievement 14 0 14 0.39
Book Hendriks & Steen USA Results from School Leadership Effectiveness Studies (2005–2010) 2012 Leadership on outcomes 15 0 15 0.03
Conference paper Pantili, Williams, & Fortune USA Principal assessment: Effective or not? A meta-analytic model 1991 Assessment ratings of principals and job performance 32 10,773 32 0.41
Book Creemers & Kyriakides Netherlands The Dynamics of Educational Effectiveness 2008 School leadership 29 0 29 0.07
Book Scheerens & Steen Netherlands Earlier meta-analyses. In School Leadership Effects Revisited 2012 Instructional leadership on achievement 53 0 170 0.05
Dissertation Renlund USA Authentic Leadership in Teams: A Review and Meta-Analysis 2017 Authentic Leadership teams 23 1,269 39 0.82
Journal of Education and Literature Tsai Netherlands A preliminary meta-analysis of teacher leadership 2015 Teacher leadership on achievement 12 12,931 3 0.31
Book Karadag, Bektas, Cogaltay, & Yalcin Korea The effect of educational leadership on students' achievement 2015 Instructional leadership on achievement 57 28,964 57 0.72
Educational Administration Quarterly Leithwood & Sun USA The nature and effects of transformational school leadership a meta-analytic review of unpublished research 2012 Transformational leadership 24 2,185 20 0.18
Education Academic Monthly Wang China Thirty-year study on the relationship between US Principal's leadership and student achievement 2010 School leadership 108 0 108 0.22
Educational Research Review Shen, Wu, Reeves, Zheng, Ryan, & Anderson USA The association between teacher leadership and student achievement: A meta-analysis 2020 School leadership 21 0 22 0.39
Cypriot Journal of Educational Sciences Uysal & Sarier Turkey Meta-analysis of school leadership effects on student achievement in USA and Turkey 2018 School leadership 39 0 68 0.05
Review of Educational Research Liebowitz & Porter USA The effect of principal behaviors on student, teacher, and school outcomes: A systematic review and meta-analysis of the empirical literature 2019 Principal behaviors 51 0 655 0.11
Educational Management Administration and Leadership Tan, Gao, & Shi Hong Kong Second-order meta-analysis synthesizing the evidence on associations between school leadership and different school outcomes. 2020 School leaders on student achievement 16 0 16 0.49
Educational Management Administration and Leadership Tan, Dimmock, & Walker UK How school leadership practices relate to student outcomes: Insights from a three-level meta-analysis. 17411432211061445. 2021 School leaders on student achievement 108 0 493 0.28
International Journal of Cross Cultural Management Sertel, Karadag, & Ergin-Kocaturk Turkey Effects of leadership on performance: A cross-cultural meta-analysis.  2022 Leadership across cultures 49 30,351 49 1.01
Conference paper Wu & Shen USA A multivariate meta-analysis of the relationship between principal leadership and student achievement. 2022 School leaders on student achievement 42 0 42 0.21
International Journal of Education and Practice Almarshad Saudi Arabia The Effects of Instructional, Transformation and Distributed Leadership on Students' Academic Outcomes: A Meta -Analysis 2017 Leadership on achievement 14 12,757 16 0.56
Asia Pacific Education Review Karadag Turkey The effect of educational leadership on students' achievement: A cross-cultural meta-analysis research on studies between 2008 and 2018 2020 School leadership 151 131,498 151 0.68
International Education Studies Ertem Turkey Relationship of School Leadership with School Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis Study. 2021 School leadership 21 0 21 0.93
TOTAL/AVERAGE 1,198 1,353,612 2,993 0.39
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