Effective Principal Leadership Behaviors That Enhance Teacher Collective Efficacy

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for this interesting research study which explored an under researched area. The project was clearly designed and theorised using appropriate academic literature.

The findings are justified in relation to the research design and analysis with appropriate suggestions for future research.

One minor point is that the abbreviation PLC needs to be given in full for the first time of use in the paper.

I look forward to seeing the published version forthwith.

Author Response

Thank you for the positive feedback. We are excited about this article too. Thank you for catching this oversight on our part. We were sure to write out the name for PLCs the first time used. Thank you!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Consider including relevant details on the teachers as the study respondents- eg, teachers' ethnicity, years of teaching experience, seniority in school, relationship with principal, etc., and possibly the teachers' understandings of leadership as these would offer relevant background-contextual information.     

Author Response

Thank you for the positive feedback. We are excited about this article. Thank you for suggesting we consider including relevant details on the teachers as the study respondents. We added all demographic details we collected during the study. Thank you!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Can the definition of CTE be expanded a bit with more detail and perhaps a practical example for readers who are not well versed in the topic ?    

On line 35 the author mentions a definition of CTE but never completely defines it. The above comment will help. CTE needs to be clearly defined because the author/s also discuss teacher efficacy from an individual standpoint. CTE and individual efficacy are related but can include two very different pathways to efficacy.  Is the author using the Goddard & Skrla definition? What about other definitions to provide us with an overview of the thinking and the evolution of the thinking and then explaining why the authors chose their specific definition. This is critical to understanding the results. 

Can the authors provide some detail about how to best interpret Hattie, as he treats interventions in isolation, when in fact, most successful interventions are part of a larger ecosystem. The statement here makes it sound as if TCE, by itself, will produce a 0.40 effect on student achievement. Is that possible in the absence of a viable curriculum, effective classroom management, teacher content knowledge, engaging instruction, etc.? This is one of the limitations of Hattie and the common misinterpretations of his work. Interventions do not operate in isolation, yet, his ranking system makes it seem as if they do, and the author's presentation of Hattie's work here adds a bit to that confusion. 

In what culture was the study conducted and what were n sizes for qual and quant and what definition of transformational leadership was used e.g. Burns, Leithwood...?  This needs to be explained in greater depth. 

It would be important to bring in some of the potential issues with Transformative Leadership and Distributed - role confusion, lack of formal authority, lack of accountability, lack of formal power of teachers to manipulate the structure of their work... because these issues impact CTE.  Do the author/s know the specific aspects of Transformative or Distributed leadership used at the study site/s? Can that be described, because CTE is not an isolated factor, it is part of a larger ecosystem. 

Again, the article moves quickly from teacher self efficacy to collective efficacy without explaining the connection and the differences. The differences between individual efficacy and collective efficacy are significant and deserve more attention. A faculty can have high levels of individual self efficacy but relatively low levels of collective efficacy.... What are the implications of that for leadership as it relates to this study? 

What was the n size of the author's case study mentioned around line 128, where was it conducted, and what grade levels. What were the measures of student mastery and how was performance measured? 

What was the effect size of the Goddard and Qadach studies when controlling for student SES?

Also, for Moolenaar study:

How is acheivement being defined here? On a state or nationally mandated standardized test? If so, need to ensure that SES is taken into account in the studies being referenced.  For example, the Moolenaar study explicity states that "Findings suggest that subsequent analyses should control for school level SES, which was found to have a strong positive effect on student achievement... Results indicate that, above the strong positive effect of school level socioeconomic status (SES) on student achievement, none of the characteristics of advice networks were directly related to student achievement. While a positive correlation between the centralization of personal advice networks and language achievement was found earlier, a significant direct effect could not be evidenced. On average, SES proved to be the strongest predictor of student achievement, with explained variance ranging from35.6 % (mathematics) to 52.8 % (language)."

The results of Moolenaar suggest that SES was the driver of the achievement not the CTE. CTE was a by-product of the achievement and the personal advice networks noted in the study.

How many teachers were eligible to be recruited for this study? What were the criteria for inclusion in the study and why only 6 to actually participate? 

What were the basic characteristics of the final sample and how did those characteristics compare with the larger staff - gender, years of experience, subjects taught, grade levels.... ?

The conclusion focuses mainly on the findings of the quantitative study, not this study. 

The author should further caution readers of the small sample size (n=6) to temper any generalizations that might be made from this study. 

Again, A lot of weight is given to Hattie without acknowledging the weaknesses of his work, how student achievement is defined, and how teaching and learning is a system, not an set of isolated interventions. The findings represent the interdependent "system" of leadership well, but the primary support for the study, Hattie, does not represent the interdependent system of teaching and learning. Also, the term student achievement is used throughout the paper but never clearly defined. Perhaps clarifying those factors would help provide a bit more context to the findings 

The paper briefly brought in Transformative and Distributed leadership. What was the type of leadership at the site and how does that connect to TCE and findings here. It is important because again, TCE does not operate in a vacuum as an isolated variable. It is facilitated as part of a teaching and learning system via a specific leadership model and that needs to be tied in better throughout the paper.

The English is appropriate but APA 7th edition style needs revision in some places. 

Author Response

We appreciate your feedback, which helped us to strengthen our manuscript. We addressed the suggestions and comments in our cover letter and in the manuscript as appropriate. Because I am only able to upload one document here, I am uploading the manuscript. The cover letter will be included when I resubmit. Thank you so much for all of your comments and suggestions. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf