Essential Practices for Instructional Leadership in the Implementation of Elementary Science and Technology Education from Preservice Teachers' Perspective

摘要

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the essential practices for instructional leadership in the implementation of elementary science and technology (S&T) education from pre-service teachers' perspective. Three dimensions of instructional leadership practices; first, defining the school goals, second, managing the instructional program and third, promoting a positive school learning climate were explored. This study involved 141 pre-service teachers who are studying undergraduate studies at one of the educational institutions in Malaysia. This study used a questionnaire which was designed and adapted for instructional leadership management in science and technology education as a data collection tool. Cronbach's alpha for the scale was calculated to be 0.81. The data analyses were made by t-test. The results show that the practice of instructional leadership was highly rated on the three dimensions studied with an overall mean of 4.201±0.379. The highest rated dimension was promoting a positive school learning climate, whereas the lowest rated dimension was managing the instructional program. However, the results were significant differences only between races towards all the dimensions. Overall, the top five highly rated of essential practices for instructional leadership based on sub dimension was maintains highly visibility, communicates the schools goals, provides incentive for learning, promotes professional development and monitors students progress. These findings have implications for instructional leadership management and other responsible agencies to develop personal and professional development among teachers particularly empowering instructional leadership in the elementary science and technology education.