Does Distributed Leadership Influence the Decision Making of Teachers in the Classroom: Examining Content and Pedagogy

Abstract

Distributed leadership is currently a frequently researched area of study. However, few studies examine the influence of distributed leadership on teachers' decisions in the classroom. The true essence of distributed leadership is to empower teachers to become involved in the decision making process within the school. Yet, research does not examine how distributed leadership influences the most important decisions teachers make, which are instructional decisions specifically relating to content and pedagogy. The purpose of this study is to begin to fill the gap in research by examining the influence of building level distributed leadership on teachers' sense of autonomy at the classroom level relating to content and pedagogy. This is accomplished by focusing on the question, "Does distributed leadership influence the decision making of teachers?" The data used for this study came from two districts in Missouri. Certified staff members from elementary, middle, and high schools were surveyed. The survey incorporated a measure of distributed leadership at the building level, which focused on questions relating to various responsibilities often distributed to staff members including collaborative decisions, school governance and academic development. The survey also included the amount of influence teachers have, their colleagues have, and their administrators have over both curricular content and pedagogically related classroom decisions. This made it possible to determine if there is a correlation between distributed leadership and teachers' classroom decisions. Findings suggest that distributed leadership is positively correlated with teachers' instructional decisions. Specifically, distributed leadership is positively related to both content and pedagogical decisions. It was also found that distributed leadership and pedagogical decisions have a stronger relationship than distributed leadership and content decisions.