SEBASTIAN JAMES, ALLENSWORTH ELAINE, STEVENS DAVID

Abstract：Background: In this paper we call for studying school leadership and its relationship to instruction and learning through approaches that highlight the role of configurations of multiple organizational supports. A configuration-focused approach to studying leadership and other essential supports provides a valuable addition to existing tools in school organizational analysis and is particularly useful in examining equifinality and causal asymmetry. Equifinality is the idea that more than one pathway can result in a desired outcome whereas causal asymmetry suggests that the set of conditions that lead to the presence of an outcome need not be the same as the conditions that lead to its absence. Focus of Study: This study uses a configurational approach to examine how school leadership and other organizational supports are related to an important aspect of instruction--students' classroom participation. Research Design: We apply fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) to administrative and survey data of high schools from a large urban school district to examine combinations of organizational supports that are associated with classroom participation. Conclusions: The study draws attention to the utility of applying configurational approaches to investigate the influence of complex combinations of organizational supports on school outcomes. We compare this approach to more traditional methods that focus on the effects of isolated factors, controlling for each other. Our results show that leadership is associated with students' classroom participation via multiple configurations of organizational supports. These configurations are different from the set of organizational supports that are related to an absence of classroom participation.

Keywords：educational leadership; high school principals; student participation

总结：

1、研究重点：本研究使用构型的方法来探讨学校领导和其他组织的支持是如何与学生的课堂参与这一重要方面相关的。

2、研究设计：本文应用模糊集定性比较分析（简称QCA）对一所大城市学区内的高中的管理和调查数据进行分析，探讨了组织支持与课堂参与的相关性。

3、研究结论：本研究通过运用效用构型的方法，对复杂的组织支持对学校的影响进行了探讨。我们将这种方法与更传统的那些将效能集中在单个因素上的方法作比较，结果表明，领导与学生的课堂参与以及多种组织支持的配置相关联。这些配置与与课堂参与相关的组合的组织支持有所不同。

来源:Teachers College Record. Aug2014, Vol. 116 Issue 8, p1-36. 36p.