School leadership research literature has a large number of widely used constructs. Could fewer constructs bring more clarity? This study evaluates construct content validity, defined as the extent to which a measure's items reflect a theoretical content domain, in school leadership literature. To do so, we reviewed 29 articles that used Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) as data sources to study school leadership, and developed a construct co-occurrence network in which nodes represented constructs in the 29 reviewed articles and ties connected a pair of constructs that used the same TALIS survey items. Among the 82 constructs, 43 constructs had overlapping measures with one another in the TALIS literature on school leadership. Results of network analysis suggest three problematic issues with constructs of TALIS literature on school leadership: (1) same measures for different constructs, (2) different measures for the same constructs, and (3) missing alignment between theoretical and operational definitions. To strive for construct clarity, we provide four recommendations for future research: (1) efforts to prevent construct proliferation, (2) alignment of theoretical and operational definitions, (3) rigorous evaluation of construct validity, and (4) following a fundamental principle of parsimony.
AinleyJCarstensR (2018) Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) 2018 conceptual framework. Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
2.
AntonakisJBastardozNJacquartShamirB (2016) Charisma: An ill-defined and ill-measured gift. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior3: 293–319.
3.
BacharachSB (1989) Organizational theories: Some criteria for evaluation. Academy of Management Review14(4): 496–515.
4.
BadriMAlnuaimiAYangG, etal (2017) A structural equation model of determinants of the perceived impact of teachers’ professional development—The Abu Dhabi application. SAGE Open7(2): 1–18.
5.
BanksGCGootyJRossRLWilliamsCEHarringtonNT (2018) Construct redundancy in leader behaviors: A review and agenda for the future. The Leadership Quarterly29(1): 236–251.
6.
BellibasMSLiuY (2018) The effects of principals’ perceived instructional and distributed leadership practices on their perceptions of school climate. International Journal of Leadership in Education21(2): 226–244.
7.
BlumerAEhrenfeuchtAHausslerDWarmuthMK (1987) Occam’s razor. Information Processing Letters24(6): 377–380.
8.
BorgattiSPEverettMGFreemanLC (2002) UCINET 6 for Windows. Software for Social Network Analysis. Analytical Technologies.
9.
BorgattiSPEverettMGJohnsonJC (2018) Analyzing Social Networks. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
10.
BrezichaKFIkomaSParkHLeTendreGK (2020) The ownership perception gap: Exploring teacher job satisfaction and its relationship to teachers’ and principals’ perception of decision-making opportunities. International Journal of Leadership in Education23(4): 428–456.
11.
CarlsonKDHerdmanAO (2012) Understanding the impact of convergent validity on research results. Organizational Research Methods15(1): 17–32.
12.
ColquittJABaerMDLongDMHalvorsen-GanepolaMD (2014) Scale indicators of social exchange relationships: A comparison of relative content validity. Journal of Applied Psychology99(4): 599–618.
13.
CoocN (2019) Teaching students with special needs: International trends in school capacity and the need for teacher professional development. Teaching and Teacher Education83: 27–41.
14.
CooperSLundCKakumaR (2012) The measurement of poverty in psychiatric epidemiology in LMICs: Critical review and recommendations. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology47: 1499–1516.
15.
CronbachLJMeehlE (1955) Construct validity in psychological tests. Psychological Bulletin52(4): 281–302.
16.
DayDV (2014) The future of leadership: Challenges and prospects. In: DayDV (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Leadership and Organizations. London: Oxford University Press, 859–867.
17.
FischerTTianAWLeeAHughesDJ (2021) Abusive supervision: A systematic review and fundamental rethink. The Leadership Quarterly32(6): 101–140.
18.
FordTGUrickAWilsonAS (2018) Exploring the effect of supportive teacher evaluation experiences on US teachers’ job satisfaction. Education Policy Analysis Archives26(59): n59.
19.
FreemanLCRoederDMulhollandRR (1979) Centrality in social networks: II. Experimental results. Social Networks2(2): 119–141.
20.
García-CarmonaMFernández-de-ÁlavaMQuesada PallaresC (2016) Leadership in Brazilian, Singaporean and Spanish secondary schools: An in-depth analysis based on the 2013 TALIS. In MillerP (ed) Cultures of Leadership: Exploring Educational Leadership Practice Across Cultures. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 121–148.
21.
GioiaDACorleyKGHamiltonAL (2013) Seeking qualitative rigor in inductive research: Notes on the Gioia methodology. Organizational Research Methods16(1): 15–31.
GriffithsDE (1959) Administrative theory. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
24.
GümüşS (2013) The effects of teacher-and school-level factors on teachers participation in professional development activities: The role of principal leadership. Journal of International Education Research (JIER)9(4): 371–380.
25.
GümüşSArarKOplatkaI (2021) Review of international research on school leadership for social justice, equity and diversity. Journal of Educational Administration and History53(1): 81–99.
26.
GümüşSBulutOBellibasMS (2013) The relationship between principal leadership and teacher collaboration in Turkish primary schools: A multilevel analysis. Education Research and Perspectives40(2013): 1–29.
27.
HamSHDuyarIGumusS (2015) Agreement of self-other perceptions matters: Analyzing the effectiveness of principal leadership through multi-source assessment. Australian Journal of Education59(3): 225–246.
28.
HanIByunSYShinWS (2018) A comparative study of factors associated with technology-enabled learning between the United States and South Korea. Educational Technology Research and Development66(5): 1303–1320.
29.
HarterJKSchmidtFL (2008) Conceptual versus empirical distinctions among constructs: Implications for discriminant validity. Industrial and Organizational Psychology1: 36–39.
30.
HochJEBommerWHDulebohnJHWuD (2018) Do ethical, authentic and servant leadership explain variance above and beyond transformational leadership? A meta-analysis. Journal of Management44(2): 501–529.
31.
HuangJTangYHeWLiQ (2019) Singapore’s school excellence model and student learning: Evidence from PISA 2012 and TALIS 2013. Asia Pacific Journal of Education39(1): 96–112.
32.
KelleyTL (1927) Interpretation of educational measurements. Chicago, IL: World Book Company.
33.
KerberRC (2008) As simple as possible, but not simpler—the case of dehydroascorbic acid. Journal of Chemical Education85(9): 1237–1242.
34.
KhalifaMAGoodenMADavisJE (2016) Culturally responsive school leadership: A synthesis of the literature. Review of Educational Research86(4): 1272–1311.
35.
KlineRB (2016) Principles and practice of structural equation modeling. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.
36.
LandyFJ (1986) Stamp collecting versus science: Validation as hypothesis testing. American Psychologist41(11): 1183.
37.
LeHSchmidtFLHarterJKLauverKJ (2010) The problem of empirical redundancy of constructs in organizational research: An empirical investigation. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes112: 112–125.
LiuYWerblowJ (2019) The operation of distributed leadership and the relationship with organizational commitment and job satisfaction of principals and teachers: A multi-level model and meta-analysis using the 2013 TALIS data. International Journal of Educational Research96: 41–55.
MessickS (1995) Validity of psychological assessment: Validation of inferences from persons’ responses and performances as scientific inquiry into score meaning. American Psychologist50(9): 741–749.
42.
NewmanMEJ (2018) Networks: An introduction. Cary, NC: Oxford University Press.
43.
OECD (2014) TALIS 2013 results: An international perspective on teaching and learning. Paris: OECD Publishing.
OplatkaI (2009) The field of educational administration: An historical overview of scholarly attempts to recognise epistemological identities, meanings and boundaries from 1960s onwards. Journal of Educational Administration47(1): 8–35.
46.
PageMJMcKenzieJEBossuytPM, et al. (2021) The PRISMA 2020 statement: An updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews. BMJ (Online)372: 1–9.
47.
ParkJHHamSH (2016) Whose perception of principal instructional leadership? Principal-teacher perceptual (dis) agreement and its influence on teacher collaboration. Asia Pacific Journal of Education36(3): 450–469.
48.
SchafferJ (2015) What not to multiply without necessity. Australasian Journal of Philosophy93(4): 644–664.
49.
ShafferJADeGeestDLiA (2016) Tackling the problem of construct proliferation: A guide to assessing the discriminant validity of conceptually related constructs. Organizational Research Methods19(1): 80–110.
50.
SimsS (2019) Modelling the relationships between teacher working conditions, job satisfaction and workplace mobility. British Educational Research Journal46(2): 301–320.
51.
SnowCC (2015) Organizing in the age of competition, cooperation, and collaboration. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies22(4): 433–442.
52.
StogdillRM (1948) Personal factors associated with leadership: A survey of the literature. The Journal of Psychology25(1): 35–71.
53.
SunAXiaJ (2018) Teacher-perceived distributed leadership, teacher self-efficacy and job satisfaction: A multilevel SEM approach using the 2013 TALIS data. International Journal of Educational Research92: 86–97.
54.
TepperBJ (2000) Consequences of abusive supervision. Academy of Management Journal43(2): 178–190.
55.
TorresDG (2019) Distributed leadership, professional collaboration, and teachers’ job satisfaction in US schools. Teaching and Teacher Education79: 111–123.
56.
VoorheesCBradyMCalantoneRRamirezE (2016) Discriminant validity testing in marketing: An analysis, causes for concern, and proposed remedies. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science44(1): 119–134.
57.
WangKLiYLuoWZhangS (2019) Selected factors contributing to teacher job satisfaction: A quantitative investigation using 2013 TALIS data. Leadership and Policy in Schools19(3): 512–532.
58.
WangY (2018) The panorama of theoretical groundings of educational leadership research 2005-2014: A concept co-occurrence network analysis. Educational Administration Quarterly54(3): 327–365.
59.
WangY (2021) Demystify theories: A workbook for developing theoretical framework of educational leadership research. Atlanta, GA: Mental Scheme.
60.
WangY (2023)Future research on educational leadership: Theoretical groundings of educational leadership research. In: TierneyRJRizviFErkican K (eds) International Encyclopedia of Education. 4th ed.Amsterdam, Netherlands: Elsevier Science, 34–43.
61.
WhettenDA (1989) What constitutes a theoretical contribution?Academy of Management Review14(4): 490–495.
62.
YanivE (2011) Construct clarity in theories of management and organization. Academy of Management Review36(3): 590–592.
63.
York-BarrJDukeK (2004) What do we know about teacher leadership? Findings from two decades of scholarship. Review of Educational Research74(3): 255–316.
64.
ZhouY (2014) The relationship between school organizational characteristics and reliance on out-of-field teachers in mathematics and science: Cross-national evidence from TALIS 2008. The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher23(3): 483–497.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
