Educational Leaders and Autonomy: Technical report – CLASS survey Norway

Rapport

Purpose and data
The purpose of the research project CLASS-’Comparisons of leadership autonomy in school districts and schools’ – is to gain more knowledge about school leadership autonomy. The project studies the autonomy of school leaders in Sweden, Norway, and Germany through a comparative mixed-method design. This report presents the results of the Norwegian survey.

The survey aimed to investigate school leaders’ attitudes, understandings, and reflections about their autonomy in general, as well as in relation to the high-stakes policy issues of assessment, inclusion, and Covid-19. In the project, educational leaders are defined as leaders in local educational authorities (LEAs, municipal, and county levels in Norway) and schools at all levels (primary education and lower and upper secondary schools, encompassing grade levels 1–13).

The web-based survey was administered in collaboration with the Norwegian School Leader Association and received 641 responses, which corresponds to a response rate of 21%. Forty-four percent of respondents are principals, while the rest work as middle-level leaders in schools. The school leaders are divided: about a third (34%) of respondents work in an upper secondary school, while the rest work in compulsory education. More than half of the middle leaders work in upper secondary schools. Only a few respondents (24 individuals) work as leaders at the municipality or county level. The respondents were asked a range of questions. In this summary, some of the most central results are highlighted.

Shared responsibility for decisions and school development
The school leaders were asked who had substantial responsibility for decision-making in school, related to 11 different types of decisions: on hiring staff, establishing salary scales and determining increase of salary, decision on budget allocations, school disciplinary policies, admission and assessment policies, learning materials, course content, course offerings, and quality work at the school. The leaders were also asked questions about their experiences with school development work.

Our findings show that principals have wide decision-making responsibilities, which often involve other actors. The data show that each respondent, on average, assigns three different actors as substantial for decision-making on each type of decision. Thus, the data show a high degree of shared responsibility for decisions. The pattern of shared decision-making is found across most types of decisions, while the structure of responsibility varies in terms of which actors are involved.

– The principal has substantial responsibility in several areas, particularly in typical leadership roles, such as hiring staff, deciding on budget priorities, and leading systematic quality work. However, the leadership teams in schools share substantial responsibility with the principal in several such areas, particularly in hiring staff and providing systematic quality work. The school leadership teams (middle leaders) particularly have substantial decision-making responsibilities in upper secondary schools.

– Teachers, together with school leaders, play a substantial role as decision-makers in pedagogical decisions, such as choosing pedagogical learning material, the content of courses, and student assessment policies.

– LEAs are involved in several types of decisions and substantially in decisions about school disciplinary policies. In decisions pertaining to salaries and courses offered, LEAs also have much responsibility, together with national authorities. In terms of salaries, the principal has more responsibility in upper secondary schools and comparatively less responsibility in compulsory schools.

– Most school leaders report that their work on school development is steered by the ambitions of the LEA. More than half also report that national school development campaigns impact their work, but here, the respondents are more divided, as about a third disagree with this statement. Most school leaders experience extended local autonomy in school development work, but about a fifth disagree with this statement, showing a variation in the autonomy experienced here.

– The national authorities are seen as substantial agents in making decisions in several respects, particularly when it comes to deciding course content and which courses are offered. These results must be considered in relation to the status of the national curriculum and the Norwegian governance system for education. Similarly, the results regarding how the national authorities are also seen as substantial actors in decisions regarding salaries and student assessment policies must be interpreted with reference to the governing of education in Norway.

School leaders’ use of time and stress factors
School leaders’ time use was measured using seven items with specified tasks. Our findings show that school leaders spend time on a range of tasks, demonstrating their wide responsibilities. Administrative tasks are reported as the most time consuming, particularly among leaders in upper secondary schools, but leaders also spend much time on pedagogical leadership tasks and related meetings. School leaders in compulsory schools spend more time on interactions with parents or guardians than those in upper secondary schools.

We notice that principals and middle leaders spend a lot of time on similar tasks, which aligns with our findings on shared responsibility. For example, there were no significant differences between principals and middle leaders in time use related to “pedagogic tasks and meetings” or “leadership tasks regarding student performance and assessment”. Middle leaders spend some more time on teaching-related tasks and interaction/counseling with students, while principals spend some more time on administrative tasks, inclusion, and interactions with parents/guardians.

Sources of stress for school leaders was another theme addressed in the survey study by confronting school leaders with ten different statements on different sources of stress. What causes the most stress among educational leaders is administrative work, duties related to absent school staff, and accommodating students with special needs. In all of these stress factors, school leaders in compulsory schools report some more stress than those in upper secondary schools. Principals and middle leaders share patterns of stress but with some differences. Principals, on average, report slightly higher levels of stress in most areas, while middle leaders report the most stress from tasks related to staff absence.

School leaders in the pandemic
Those who worked as leaders during Covid-19 were asked questions concerning their experiences of being school leaders in this situation. The majority of school leaders (over 60%) experienced that they had extended autonomy in implementing national Covid-19 restrictions, but the experiences differed, as a significant minority disagree with this. At the same time, most of the leaders experienced that their leadership autonomy was restricted due to infection prevention measures. The school leaders differ in their answers regarding whether they would have wanted more leadership support, with the majority not wanting more steering.

Dialogue between steering levels
A battery of nine items was used to investigate the extent to which different topics were part of the dialogue between school leaders and the LEA. Our findings show that a range of topics, from economy to school development, are on the agenda in the dialogue between the schools and LEAs. These results contribute to the overall findings from the survey: there is a high degree of involvement and dialogue between the schools and LEAs. School economy and school development are the most frequent topics of dialogue, but there is much variation between respondents, with local variations in how the dialogues are structured. We notice that student performance is more often a part of the steering dialogue in upper secondary schools, and more leaders in upper secondary schools also report the inclusion of staff to be a topic of dialogue.

Final reflections
This survey aimed to contribute to knowledge on school leadership autonomy from a multidimensional perspective. The data from the survey contain information on different dimensions of leadership autonomy, contrasting experiences from school leaders across leadership groups, and school types. The findings show a high degree of shared responsibilities for decision-making, where principals are the main decision-making agents in several areas, in collaboration with different actors. Where national and local educational authorities are involved in decision-making, their responsibility often co-exists with their experience of autonomy and involvement at the local school level. Particularly, we notice that LEAs are involved in dialogue on many topics but that there is much local variation in the material, which could be further explored in studies. Thus, the report may be used for further studies to investigate the patterns of shared responsibility and collaboration in different LEAs and schools. In particular, the study shows the importance of recognizing the wide range of responsibility of school leaders and how an experience of autonomy is framed by leadership tasks being distinctly relational.