A proposed profile of the roles, functions, and contextual factors of the instructional supervisor as perceived by teachers, instructional supervisors, and principals in private schools

النوع : Mémoire

Instructional supervision is widely recognized as a critical component of school governance (Sergiovanni & Starratt, 2002; Zepeda & Kruskamp, 2007). By nature of their job, the instructional supervisor occupies a key role within a school where she “is the liaison between programs and between people” (Lipscomb, 1997, p.1). Supervision has various definitions, and each context might have a different definition and functions for the instructional supervisor. Researchers and practitioners still face the challenge of determining the specific functions of this role and of locating it on the school organizational chart. This steered researchers towards defining the role of the instructional supervisor by first defining its functions. Further, there are many factors that either hinder (Kruskamp, 2003; Zepeda & Kruskamp, 2007; Martin, 1997, Gentry, 2002) or enhance (Kramer, 2007) the effectiveness of the role of the instructional supervisor. Various studies in international literature explored the role of the instructional supervisor from the perspectives of those directly linked to this position; the teachers, instructional supervisors and the principals. However, very few considered the concomitant perspectives of all three in addition to the contextual factors (facilitators and obstacles) impacting that role. Moreover, the research in the Lebanese context pertaining to educational supervision is scarce and has a different focus. This study explores the role and functions of the instructional supervisor as perceived by teachers, instructional supervisors, and principals in private Lebanese schools. Its purpose is two folds: (1) Build a proposed profile of the Lebanese instructional supervisor grounded in the three sets of perspectives as well as in the documented theoretical and empirical literature on effective supervision. (2) Identify the factors that enhance or hinder the achievement of this profile. This study followed the qualitative research paradigm and in specific it used a multiple-case design. Typical purposeful sampling was used to select two private schools from greater Beirut area. At each school, the selection of both teachers and instructional supervisors was random but stratified; the stratification is the school cycle; nine teachers were selected and four instructional supervisors. In addition, the school principal was selected and one head of division (principal of a cycle) was randomly selected. At each school, data collection procedures included individual interviews with the school principal, with three instructional supervisors, and with the head of division that aimed at member checking. One focus group interview was conducted with the group of nine teachers. The fourth instructional supervisor was observed for a full-day. Data collection also included researcher’s journal as well as the analysis of the formal job description of the instructional supervisor. Data analysis involved two stages. In the first stage, each of the schools, cases, were analyzed individually to build individual profiles for the role of the instructional supervisor at each of the schools along with their contextual factors. In the second stage, the two schools were cross-analyzed to develop the actual profile for the role of the instructional supervisor along with the contextual factors impacting that role. The actual profile is based on the findings of school A and school B. The common themes across the two schools were incorporated into the actual profile. The contextual factors across the two schools were cumulatively considered as those directly impacting the role of the instructional supervisor. The conclusion of this study is a proposed profile for the role of the instructional supervisor. This proposed profile was developed using the actual profile and the theoretical profile developed from literature. The proposed profile is founded on the assumptions of the contemporary international views on supervision, thus challenging the actual profile practiced in the Lebanese context. However, it takes into consideration the unique needs dictated by the organizational and cultural conditions in the Lebanese context that were revealed in the course of this study and captured by the actual profile. There are six broad responsibilities in the proposed profile and these are (a) curriculum and instruction specialist, (b) professional development specialist, (c) human resources specialist, (d) inquirer/problem solver, (e) agent for renewal, and (f) community builder. Enacting the proposed profile will require taking into consideration the contextual factors that were found to impact the role. These factors are (a) professional development, (b) formal job description, (c) perception of the role, (d) trust, (e) collegiality, (f) time resource, (g) school structure, and (h) support of the administration for the instructional supervisor. The proposed profile of the study can help policy makers at the national level and school administrators to improve instructional supervision practices by redefining the role and making it more contemporary. This profile also helps in minimizing role ambiguity. The proposed profile can be used as a basis to develop the criteria for recruiting qualified instructional supervisors and also for diagnosing the training needs to bridge the gap between the current qualifications of the candidates and the new role requirements. Moreover, this study adds to the Lebanese literature and to the literature on educational administration in general and provides a base line of information that can perhaps guide future research in this area.