Educational leadership and teacher instructional practices: a meta-analytic comparison of leadership models

Purpose Against the growing number of studies over the past decade regarding the link between school leadership and teaching, the purpose of this meta-analysis was to investigate the strength of the relationship between different school leadership models and teacher instructional practices and to examine whether statistically significant differences exist among these leadership styles in terms of their impact on instructional practices. Design/methodology/approach Utilizing a random-effects meta-regression approach, the analysis integrates findings from 31 peer-reviewed articles. Findings The results indicate that while all examined leadership types are positively associated with teachers' instructional practices, the strength of these associations varies significantly. A general and more holistic school leadership framework demonstrates a stronger association with effective instructional practices, followed by teacher leadership and instructional leadership. In contrast, learning-centered and distributed leadership had relatively lower predictive strength. Subgroup analyses and pairwise comparisons further reveal statistically meaningful differences in effect magnitudes between several leadership models. Originality/value The study is the first of its kind to compare multiple leadership models in their association with teaching practices. The results suggested that integrating multiple leadership practices is necessary for improving teaching.