Knowing "How" Is More Than Knowing "That": A Study of Educational Leadership Expertise
Huff, Jason Taylor
:
2009-04-02
Abstract
While there is ample criticism of principal certification and professional
development programs to equip individuals with the expertise they need, we as
a field possess few methodologies to measure leadership expertise. There is thus
little evidence to inform us of the effectiveness of these programs to train
participants. This study explored the content, construct, and criterion validity of
a series of open-ended scenarios to measure leadership expertise. I first review
recent efforts in the literature to define this construct before I present the findings
from three validation studies. Overall the descriptive analyses showed that the
scenarios tapped varying levels of expertise, and examinations of respondents’
scenario scores revealed complex relationships between different areas of
expertise. Finally, analyses of the scenario scores’ relationships to principal and
teacher survey measures showed mixed yet promising results for their criterion
validity and suggested multiple directions for future improvements and uses of
these measures.