Instructional leadership among novice principals in Chile: Practices for classroom observation and feedback to teachers

Abstract

The role of school principals is key to mobilizing the improvement of schools. Through a qualitative-longitudinal approach, using the thin-slice technique, this paper examined the quality of practices associated with classroom observation and the feedback provided by 10 novice principals at the end of their first and second year in office. Results show that from year 1 to year 2, participants changed the focus of their observation from greater attention to content and teachers to more attention to the interactions between content and students. They also changed the type of feedback they would provide to teachers, decreasing the use of evaluative feedback and increasing the use of descriptive feedback. The results of this study show how with more experience principals strengthen their pedagogical leadership. Notwithstanding, the limitations observed in year 1 and the limited use of feedback that promotes teachers’ metacognitive and reflective engagement suggest that classroom observation and feedback to teachers are practices that need to be explicitly developed by principal preparation programs.