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Abstract

Research on the effect of COVID-19 and its aftermath on education is gaining momentum. Nevertheless, this expanding contemporary literature only scarcely addresses principals’ digital instructional leadership and has not investigated how principals’ regular instructional leadership aligns with it. Moreover, the emerging writing on the aftermath of COVID-19 notes the phenomenon of teacher shortages in schools as a result of a growing tendency of teachers to leave the profession, but the possible connection with various forms of principals’ instructional leadership remains unexplored. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of combinations of different levels of principals’ regular instructional leadership and digital instructional leadership on teachers’ intention to leave. Cluster analysis of data of 267 school teachers in Israel was conducted. The results indicate an association between differences in teachers’ intention to leave the profession and mixtures of regular and digital instructional leadership. The results and their implications are discussed.

Keywords

COVID-19 digital instructional leadership intent to leave principals teachers

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic and its implications created enormous difficulties at work and at home. For example, schools were closed and many education systems had to switch to remote schooling and online instruction (OECD, 2021; Weiner et al., 2021). The COVID-19 pandemic period created severe turbulence for workers in most professions, but also offered opportunities for people to reflect on their work. When the pandemic eased, it became apparent that in many professions (e.g. nurses, teachers), workers intended not to return to their previous positions or were mentally invested in looking for new careers in different fields (Johnston, 2021; Linzer et al., 2022). This massive leaving of jobs was labelled ‘the Great Resignation’ (Linzer et al., 2022).

Some scholars have suggested that principals’ behaviours can be a key factor affecting teachers’ intention to leave both during pandemics (Johnston, 2021) and at other times (Shapira-Lischshinsky, 2009; Shapira-Lishchinsky and Rosenblatt, 2009). The present study focused on one repertoire of principals’ behaviours, known as instructional leadership (IL) (Hallinger et al., 2020; Hallinger and Wang, 2015; Shaked et al., 2021). IL is defined as ‘strategies and actions carried out by the principal and other school leaders that support and strengthen and bring coherence to teaching and learning within schools’ (Harris et al., 2019: 78). In addition to the regular face-to-face IL, the current research also investigated digital IL. As noted, the pandemic period demanded that principals champion new forms of leadership, such as digital instructional leadership (Berkovich and Hassan, 2022; Pollock, 2020), better suited for online schooling. During the pandemic, online schooling became a mainstream approach (Diliberti and Schwartz, 2021), either as a standalone online or as a hybrid online and face-to-face schooling model (Vincent-Lancrin et al., 2022).

This research investigated the effect of mixtures of regular and digital IL during COVID on teachers’ intention to leave the profession. First, using clustering analysis, the study mapped the different mixtures of regular IL and digital IL that teachers experienced. Second, it explored how these combinations (also known as profiles) of regular IL and digital IL during COVID were connected with teachers’ intention to leave the profession.

Theoretical background

Principals’ regular and digital instructional leadership

In the last two decades, a considerable body of literature accumulated on the effect of principals’ regular IL on school effectiveness (Bellibaş et al., 2020; Boyce and Bowers, 2018; Gümüş et al., 2021). Principals’ IL has been suggested to incorporate behaviours such as (Hallinger and Wang, 2015): (a) setting school instructional objectives and communicating them; (b) managing the quality of instruction and the progress of curriculum; and (c) promoting an instruction-oriented school climate for both teachers and students. Alongside principals’ regular IL, some educational leadership and management researchers identified also a digital IL form (Arar et al., 2022; McLeod, 2015; Pollock, 2020; Sorenson et al., 2016).

Being a digital school leader requires skills and motivations that are not necessarily part of regular IL, such as mastering information technology, promoting a vision of technology integration in school, and more (Jones and Dexter, 2018; Richardson and Sterrett, 2018). Digital IL can be defined as school leaders’ information technology-supported strategies that promote and create coherence for teaching and learning in hybrid or remote schooling model (Berkovich and Hassan, 2022). In the past, writing about IL was mainly theoretical and non-empirical (McLeod, 2015; Pollock, 2020; Sorenson et al., 2016). In recent years, however, some studies have offered both a self-report measure for principals in which they reported on their digital IL behaviours (Sanchez Corona, 2019; Shepherd and Taylor, 2019) and an other-report measure in which teachers reported on their principals (Author, in press).

Research based on the other-report measure indicates that teachers experience digital IL as efforts to create a learning-centred climate and coherence in online schooling, to guide online schooling toward narrow objectives, and to promote a broad inclusive online community at home and, remotely, in school (Author, in press). The pandemic caused many school systems and schools to adopt remote or hybrid models (Diliberti and Schwartz, 2021; OECD, 2021; Weiner et al., 2021). As a result, many principals began to use digital IL, and the need to explore its effectiveness has become pressing (Author, in press; Pollock, 2020).

Previous works in educational administration have stressed the value of an integrative approach to studying combinations of leadership models. Many of these studies explored the joint effects of various levels of transitional school leadership and instructional leadership on teachers and students (Bellibaş et al., 2021; Printy et al., 2009; Urick and Bowers, 2014). Existing theory and evidence support the notion that regular and digital IL are close but also distinct in many ways (Author, in press; McLeod, 2015; Pollock, 2020; Shepherd and Taylor, 2019), making the investigation of profiles of regular and digital IL possible.

Research question 1

How common are various types of regular and digital IL profiles?

Revealing different combinations of principals’ regular and digital IL can be instrumental in understanding variations in principals’ effectiveness. Leadership practices are considered a key predictor of subordinates’ intent to leave (Cowden et al., 2011). It is possible, therefore, that diverse sets of principals’ leadership practices affect teachers’ intent to leave differently.

Teachers’ intent to leave

Intent to leave is defined as a degree to which workers plan to abandon their present jobs for another one in a different workplace (Halbesleben and Wheeler, 2008; Hanisch and Hulin, 1991). Intent to leave captures both the workers’ thoughts and motivation to leave and the probability of leaving their job (Chan et al., 2013; Shapira-Lishchinsky and Benoliel, 2019). Understanding workers’ intentions to leave is vital because employees with strong intentions of this kind, even if they are not realised, are more likely to work at minimum capacity and reduce organisational productivity, and can have a negative effect on their peers’ motivation and determination (Shapira-Lishchinsky and Rosenblatt, 2009). Intent to leave is a close indicator of turnover, therefore it can be viewed as an instrumental indicator of organisational stability and effectiveness (Chan et al., 2013; Shapira-Lishchinsky and Benoliel, 2019). Prior educational studies have empirically supported the idea that workers’ intention to leave predicts turnover. For example, Johnsrud and Rosser's (2002) study of higher education faculty indicated a correlation of .38 between intent to leave and turnover. Workers’ inclination to leave their jobs is often viewed as related to low wages, stress, negative work experiences, job dissatisfaction, bad personal treatment, bad group atmosphere, unfavourable management style and leadership, problems with clients and families, and more (Chan et al., 2013; Shapira-Lishchinsky and Benoliel, 2019; Shapira-Lishchinsky and Rosenblatt, 2009). The literature suggests that those with a higher capability of developing new careers frequently leave (Shapira-Lishchinsky and Rosenblatt, 2009). In education, scholars have suggested a negative link between regular IL and teachers’ intent to leave (Qadach et al., 2020). Yet, our knowledge of how regular and digital IL and their combinations are related to intent to leave is scarce.

Research question 2

How are types of regular and digital IL profiles associated with teachers’ intent to leave?

Method

Context, sample and procedure

The study was conducted in Israel, where there was a documented lack of experience and training with synchronous remote digital instruction before the pandemic (Israeli State Comptroller, 2021). In Israel, during the pandemic, schools were physically closed and schooling was conducted online remotely for 40% of the school year (in comparison to a 14% OECD average) (Bank of Israel, 2021) – increasing the likelihood of identifying a variety in digital IL in Israel. The study was approved by an Institutional Review Board (IRB).

The present study is based on an online survey of public school teachers. Teachers reported both on principals’ IL practices and on their own intent to leave the profession. The study did not include school leaders because self-report of leadership evaluation is problematic owing to self-enhancement bias (Leising et al. 2016). Inclusion criteria of participation were being an employed public school teacher with a minimum seniority of 4 years in the job (i.e. at least two years of teaching experience before the outbreak of COVID-19) and fully responding to survey questions. Participants were 267 teachers (78.3% female). The average age of the participants was 43.9 years (SD = 8.4). Fifteen percent of the participants had 4–6 years of teaching experience, 15% 7–9 years, 26% 10–14 years, 16% 15–19 years, 19% 20–29 years, and 9% over 30 years. Most teachers had MA/MEd (40%) or BA/BEd degrees (35%); the rest held a teaching certificate. Most teachers (65.5%) had a working relationship with their current principal of 1–6 years (1–3 years: 36%, 4–6 years: 29.5%), some of them (28.3%) of between 7–14 years, and the rest of over 15 years.

Measures

Regular instructional leadership was assessed using the TALIS 2013 measure of IL. This measure is frequently used in the research of IL in education (e.g. Gumus and Bellibaş, 2016; Huang et al., 2019; Xia and O'Shea, in press) and was found to be valid in numerous countries including Israel (OECD, 2014). The TALIS measure consists of 3 items asking whether the principal performs the following activities: (a) ‘actions to support cooperation between teachers to develop new teaching practices’, (b) ‘actions to ensure that teachers take responsibility for improving their teaching skills’, and (c) ‘actions to ensure that teachers feel responsible for their learning outcomes’. Participants were asked to indicate their agreement with the items on a Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree). Cronbach's α for the scale was .89.

Principals’ digital instructional leadership scale was used to assess digital IL (Authors, in press). The new measure evaluates principals’ digital instructional strategies to promote learning by remote schooling, paying particular attention to the COVID pandemic situation. The measure is composed of 10 items describing principals’ digital strategies in the areas of instructional goals of the school, supervising and assessing instruction, professional development, incentives for teaching and learning, addressing the digital divide, home conditions for remote learning, and motivating staff. No existing measures of IL overlap with the new digital IL measure because new IL strategies that are digitally relevant were added and other common IL strategies that are less relevant to remote schooling and to the pandemic situation were not included in the scale (Berkovich and Hassan, 2022). Sample items: ‘My principal made efforts to ensure that all teachers and students have the technological resources (computers, Wi-Fi, etc.) needed to participate in online learning and use remote school services’ and ‘My principal used digital communication and collaboration tools (e.g. WhatsApp, Zoom, Skype, Slack, etc.) to communicate the instructional objectives of the school and the responsibilities of the staff for achieving these objectives’. Participants were asked to indicate the level of frequency with which they encountered these strategies on a Likert scale (1 = never, 5 = always). A previous study in Bahrain indicated that the measure presents three factors: general digital instructional leadership, goal-setting digital instructional leadership, and community-oriented digital instructional leadership (Authors, in press). The exploratory factor analysis of the current data, using varimax rotation, after omitting 3 items because of loadings issues, yielded two factors (general digital instructional leadership and goal-setting digital instructional leadership) with eigenvalues greater than 1.00, explaining 76% of the total variance. Cronbach's α for the two factors was .89 and .84, respectively. The correlation between the two factors was .617, therefore a unified score for digital IL was calculated based on the items of the two factors.

The Intent to leave scale was used to assess teachers’ intention to leave. The 5-item scale was taken from Shapira-Lishchinsky (2009), who adopted it from Walsh et al. (1985). Sample item: ‘I often think about quitting my school’. Participants were asked to indicate their agreement with the items on a Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree). Cronbach's α for the scale was .94.

Analytic strategy

To investigate the two research questions, a cluster analysis was used. Cluster analysis helps define the profiles based on multiple key aspects, in this case, regular and digital IL. Cluster analysis makes it possible to reflect multifaceted phenomena, as it takes into account the co-occurrence and interaction of all their aspects (Tsoumbris and Xenikou, 2010). As the study was interested in the intersection of different levels (high/low) of the two IL types, the number of profiles was set to four. A k-means clustering approach was used, which is the most common one (Hung et al., 2005). In k-means clustering, subgroups of participants are created to both maximise between-subgroups variance and minimise within-subgroup variance (Everitt, 1993). To further validate the differences between the subgroups, one-way analyses of variance (ANOVA) with Bonferroni post hoc tests were performed. Last, to test the influence of the different combinations of principals’ regular and digital IL on teachers’ intent to leave, ANOVA and post hoc tests were used, in which profile membership was set as the independent criterion.

Results

First, a descriptive analysis was conducted to explore means, standard deviations, and inter-correlations of the study variables. Table 1 shows that principals’ regular and digital IL were positively associated (r = .459). None of the control variables (work duration with the principal, teacher's gender, teacher's education, and teaching experience) were associated with principals’ regular IL, digital IL, and teacher's intent to leave. Therefore, the control variables were omitted from subsequent analyses.

Table 1.

Means, standard deviations, and correlations (n = 267).

	Mean	SD	1	2	3	4	5	6
1. Regular IL	3.614	.977	1
2. Digital IL	3.448	.967	.459**	1
3. Teacher's intention to leave	2.858	1.225	−.318**	−.098	1
4. Work duration with the principal (years category)^a	2.270	1.319	.050	.072	−.036	1
5. Gender^b	1.783	.413	.111	.119	.055	−.030	1
6. Education^c	2.207	.772	.045	−.027	.096	.089	.052	1
7. Teaching experience (years category)^a	4.341	1.527	−.068	−.067	−.044	.277**	.052	.208**

IL = instructional leadership.

**p < .01.

^a4–6 years = 1, 7–9 years = 2, 10–14 years = 3, 15–19 years = 4, 20–29 years = 5, 30 years = 6; ^b male = 1, female = 2; ^c certificate = 1; BA/BEd = 2; MA/MEd = 3.

Research Question 1

How common are various types of regular and digital IL profiles?

To address this research question, a k-mean analysis was used (Table 2). The four profiles revealed in the analysis were focused, as the distance from the cluster centre of each profile emerged as narrow and the interquartile range was tight.

Table 2.

Means, standard deviations, and interquartile ranges of instructional leadership types for each group.

	Profile 1 (n = 53)	Profile 2 (n = 30)	Profile 3 (n = 116)	Profile 4 (n = 68)
Regular IL	2.80 (.50) [2.67–3.00]	1.90 (.68) [1.00–2.33]	4.32 (.50) [4.00–5.00]	3.81 (.49) [3.67–4.00]
Digital IL	3.62 (.60) [3.17–4.00]	2.02 (.74) [1.33–2.76]	4.17 (.50) [3.80–4.61]	2.70 (.59) [2.33–3.17]
Average distance of cases from cluster center	.67	.93	.64	.68

IL = instructional leadership.

Numbers in parentheses represent standard deviation.

Numbers in square brackets represent interquartile range (Q₁–Q₃).

The validating ANOVAs showed a substantial influence of membership on the two forms of IL. The four profiles significantly diverged in regular IL, F(3, 263) = 164.54, p < .001 and digital IL, F(3, 263) = 227.42, p < .001. Post hoc tests showed that both means (i.e. regular and digital IL) of every profile were significantly dissimilar from the means of the other profiles.

Figure 1 shows a visualisation of profile membership. Figure 2 illustrates the standardised scores of regular and digital IL of each profile.

Figure 1.

Plotted profile membership.

Figure 2.

Standardised means of the profiles.

The leading profile was the one with high regular IL and high digital IL (Profile 3: Mixed high regular IL and high digital IL, N = 116), followed by the profile with high regular IL and low digital IL (Profile 4: High regular IL, N = 68) and the profile with high digital IL and low regular IL (Profile 1: High digital IL, N = 53). The last profile combined low regular IL with low digital IL (Profile 2: Non-IL, N = 30).

Research Question 2

How are types of regular and digital IL profiles associated with teachers’ intent to leave?

To explore Research Question 2, variance analysis was performed. The analysis indicated significant differences between the profiles with regard to teachers’ intent to leave (F(3, 263) = 4.55, p < .01). Post hoc tests (Table 3) revealed that IL profiles were associated with teachers’ intent to leave in the following manners: Non-IL > Mixed high regular IL and high digital IL; High digital IL > Mixed high regular IL and high digital IL.

Table 3.

Means associated with instructional leadership profiles.

Profile	n	Teacher's intention to leave
1. High digital IL	53	3.08
2. Non-IL	30	3.47
3. Mixed high regular IL and high digital IL	116	2.64
4. High regular IL	68	2.77
Post hoc comparisons		2 > 3,4 1 > 3

IL = instructional leadership.

Post hoc comparisons (LSD method) indicate which profile means differ significantly at p < .05.

Discussion

The current research studied the mixtures of regular and digital IL and their effect on teachers’ intention to leave. The COVID-19 pandemic greatly changed and complicated our lives. On one hand, the pandemic promoted the move of many schools across the world to remote schooling and online instruction (OECD, 2021; Weiner et al., 2021) and reframed school leadership into digital forms (Author, in press; Pollock, 2020); on the other hand, it caused many employees to reflect on the place and meaning their work had in their lives (Johnston, 2021; Linzer et al., 2022), setting off ‘The Great Resignation’ (Linzer et al., 2022). This timely study is the first to explore both the possible matchings of principals’ regular and digital IL styles and the effect of these matchings on teachers’ inclination to leave the profession.

The research findings make several key contributions to our knowledge of IL in general, and of IL during and after the pandemic. First, the findings partially support the universal assumption about the effectiveness (Antonakis et al., 2003; Berkovich, 2018) of IL at least in the online-offline spheres. The fact that 54.7% of participants reported that their principals were high in both regular and digital forms of IL (43.4%) or low in both forms (11.3%) suggests that for many the basic attributes and behaviours of these two forms of IL are shared. In this regard, IL strategies are not context-contingent but merely assume slightly different manifestations in online-offline spheres. This is consistent with existing mainstream claims about successful (and as we saw, also some unsuccessful) school leaders. A claim in this spirit can be found in Leithwood et al. (2008), arguing that ‘successful leaders are sensitive to context, but this does not mean they use qualitatively different practices in every different context. It means, rather, that they apply contextually sensitive combinations of the basic leadership practices’ (p. 31). It is worth noting that in Israel, where the survey was conducted, a lack of experience and training in the use of synchronous remote digital instruction was documented (Israeli State Comptroller, 2021). This situation was also witnessed in other education systems, such as the US (Diliberti and Schwartz, 2021). Thus, as IL seems to follow a universal leadership model in the move online, it is a factor that can promise stability and resilience for the school systems undergoing dramatic change to online instruction. But this is only part of the picture.

Second, the findings indicate the scope of unskilled principals in domains relevant to various forms of IL. About half of the participants (45.3%) reported that their principals’ levels of regular and digital IL did not match (e.g. high regular IL and low digital IL, or vice versa). This indicates two main issues. One is that digital literacy (ability to use information and communication technologies) was a serious barrier for some principals (25.4%) who were unable to make the change and bring their high IL abilities to the online sphere. This is understandable given that many principals did not use digital technology in their work before the COVID pandemic (Karakose et al., 2021). The other issue concerns the opposite group in which some principals (19.9%) who displayed high digital IL did not managed to achieve it in face-to-face settings. This suggests that either regular IL contains some interpersonal social skills (e.g. emotional intelligence) (Kaplan et al., 2014) that serve as the basis for IL strategies in face-to-face settings that these principals did not possess; or that they were not motivated to achieve regular IL but that the move to remote schooling stressed the importance of this leadership model. For example, previous research suggests that many principals sidestepped regular IL because they had other leadership goals or because of social-cultural constrains (e.g. low power distance, clan culture, etc.) (Shaked, 2018; Shaked et al., 2021). Thus, the move to remote schooling made these principals reprioritise their leadership goals, and the social-cultural aspects received less emphasis.

Third, the findings indicate that the Great Resignation in teaching has been largely influenced by successful school leadership. Teachers working under principals who were low in both regular and digital IL were those with the highest intention to leave the profession. Existing research suggests that regular IL affects teachers’ intent to leave through collective efficiency and shared vision (Qadach et al., 2020). Similar mechanisms likely play a role in digital IL. School leaders who failed persistently to promote group efficacy and vision, and did so also under the chaotic and demanding circumstances of the pandemic, might have caused the loss of teachers’ mental resources (see the Conservation of Resources theory on the importance of obtaining and protecting resources: Hobfoll et al., 2018). Another key finding is that teachers working under principals who were high only in digital IL showed higher intent to leave than did teachers working under principals successful in both online and face-to-face IL. One possible explanation for this finding is that teachers may perceive principals who are high only in digital leadership as being less supportive or effective in other areas of leadership, such as interpersonal communication and relationship-building. This may lead to feelings of frustration or dissatisfaction among teachers, which could contribute to a higher intent to leave. Moreover, given the proposition presented above that regular IL has several relational skills (Kaplan et al., 2014) which are the foundation for IL strategies in a regular school context, principals’ lack of interpersonal skills may have taken its toll on teachers’ commitment. This is not surprising, as the literature suggests that face-to-face interactions lower depression and increase both empathy and psychological wellbeing (Lee et al., 2019). Moreover, as regular schooling is considered the default work condition and the more influential one in the long term, regular IL may be more dominant than digital IL from the teachers’ perspective.

The research has several applicative insights. First, as the move to online schooling of many capable regular instructional leaders was unsuccessful, there is a need to cultivate the digital literacy of principals in leadership preparation programs (Brown and Jacobsen, 2016) and in self-development efforts. Such abilities are needed not only for times of crisis but also because the use of digital instruction is likely to be more common than before (Authors, in press). For example, a survey of 888 American district leaders, principals, and teachers indicated that “even though districts are largely back to offering classes primarily in person, most are making online learning an option for students” (Klein, 2022). Moreover, 85% of surveyed higher education leadership and staff from the United States and Europe agreed that their institutions need to expand online delivery (Cox, 2021), and 71% of surveyed principals and teachers from the United States expressed an interest in online professional development for teachers (Kuykendall, 2022). Second, the study stresses the importance of social skills for effective IL strategies in face-to-face settings. Including simulations in school leadership programmes can help principals better understand their social demeanour, experience the effects of their peers’ social demeanour, and conduct an open and critical discussion with them. Third, the findings of the study can help officials better predict at which schools a staffing problem might develop, and take measures (e.g. offer incentives) to address the problem in the making.

The study has several limitations. First, it is based on a cross-sectional survey, which warrants caution in inferring causality between IL and teachers’ intent to leave. Future research should consider applying a longitudinal design that is better suited for causal exploration. Second, the study was performed in Israel, where the public system is tight in resources and the number of children relative to population size is large. This makes not only for crowded classrooms but also reduces the ability of the school to personally support its students. Moreover, the use of digital technologies in public schools is rare (Israeli State Comptroller, 2021). Therefore, the teachers’ difficulties and digital IL strategies revealed in the study may be a product of context. For example, previous work in Bahrain, a country with much higher resources and lower teacher/student ratio, revealed a stable factor of community-oriented digital instructional leadership (Author, in press). Therefore, research in additional cultural contexts is needed.

To conclude, this is the first study that explores combinations of regular and digital IL and their effect on teachers’ inclination to leave. The findings and insights of the study expand knowledge about IL during COVID and about changes in education in the aftermath of the pandemic. The insights of the study are highly relevant to many countries (e.g. the United States, UK, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Austria, France) coping with teachers leaving their jobs at higher rates than before (Jack and Cocco, 2022; Nguyen, 2022; Staton and Foster, 2022). The results show that ambidextrous principals, effective in both regular and digital IL, significantly affected ‘the Great Resignation’ in teaching. The study indicates that for many principals mastery of regular and digital forms of IL goes hand in hand, meaning that the fundamental characteristics of these two forms of IL are shared. At the same time, the research shows that many principals lack digital literacy and have difficulty adapting their strong IL skills to the online world, and that many other principals who have high digital IL skills are unable to apply IL in face-to-face interactions, possibly because of inadequate interpersonal social skills or lack of motivation.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research,authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research,authorship,and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by The Open University of Israel's Research Fund.

ORCID iD

Izhak Berkovich

Author biography

Izhak Berkovich,PhD,is a faculty member in the Department of Education and Psychology at the Open University of Israel. His research interests include educational leadership,ethics and social justice in school management,emotions in schools,politics and policy making in education,and educational reforms.

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The great resignation: Exploring the effect of regular and digital instructional leadership on teachers’ intention to leave

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Theoretical background

Principals’ regular and digital instructional leadership

Teachers’ intent to leave

Method

Context, sample and procedure

Measures

Analytic strategy

Results

Discussion

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

Funding

ORCID iD

Author biography

References