Exploring relationships among macro contexts, principals’ time use for interaction with individual students and academic achievement

This study has two goals. First, it aims to examine the impact of macro contexts on elementary school principals’ time allocation for interaction with individual students when key organizational contexts are controlled for. Second, it further explores the impact of macro contexts and principals’ time allocation on academic achievement. Specifically, the study focuses on analyzing how economic, socio-cultural and institutional features of societies influence the amount of time principals spend interacting with individual students which, in turn, is assumed to impact academic achievement. The study employed multilevel path modeling to analyze data on 5,927 principals in 34 societies, drawn from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2006. Results indicate that interacting with individual students as part of the principal role appears to be conceived and enacted differently across the 34 societies. The variation in principals’ time usage was influenced by macro societal culture and the institutional arrangement of educational systems, when organizational contexts were held constant. Furthermore, the status of economic development as a key macro contextual factor was significantly linked to academic achievement, whereas the proposed test of principals’ direct effects on student learning was not supported. The study contributes to a growing body of research on principals’ time use that seeks to understand how the practice of school leadership is influenced by macro contexts as well as organizational conditions. By further linking principals’ time use for interaction with individual students to academic achievement, the study contributes to building a solid foundation for a future research agenda aimed at investigating principals’ direct effect on student learning internationally. Copyright © 2013 IEA.