Teacher Professional Development and Instructional Leadership as Predictors of Classroom Practice in Urban Secondary Schools of Islamabad, Pakistan

Abstract

This paper has analyzed how professional development of teachers and their leadership of instruction can be used as predictors of classroom practice in urban secondary schools in Islamabad, Pakistan. This paper was framed to be a quantitative cross-sectional survey that was carried out in the public secondary schools under the Federal Directorate of Education. A questionnaire consisting of an organized questionnaire on data collection was used to gather 150 teachers who were sampled in 10 urban secondary schools and this survey aimed at measuring teacher professional development, instructional leadership and classroom practice. The tool showed good internal consistency, with Cronbach alpha of .906 in professional development,0.891 in instructional leadership, and.852 in classroom practice. Descriptive results showed moderately positive perceptions of professional development (M = 3.86, SD = 0.67), instructional leadership (M = 3.69, SD = 0.61), and classroom practice (M = 3.88, SD = 0.52). Correlation analysis showed that there were significant positive relationships between professional development and classroom practice (r =. 690, p <.001), between instructional leadership and classroom practice (r=. 651, p <.001), and between professional development and instructional leadership (r=. 603, p <.001). The regression analysis revealed that classroom practice was largely predicted by professional development, and the model was reinforced when instructional leadership was added as a parallel predictor. The two predictor model was able to explain the classroom practice variance at 56.3. The results indicate that the practice in Islamabad secondary schools is influenced by the involvement of teachers in professional development as well as the quality of instructional leadership in their schools. The paper reinforces the idea that teacher learning and school leadership must be built in a co-ordinated fashion to enhance the quality of instruction.