Title: Leading for Innovation: A Visual Ethnography of Three Principals that Have Moved Their Schools

from Low to High Achievement as Viewed through Transformational Leadership Theory

Source:

Cline, C. (2018). "Leading for Innovation: A Visual Ethnography of Three Principals that Have Moved
Their Schools from Low to High Achievement as Viewed through Transformational Leadership Theory"
Doctor of Education (EdD). 105. https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/edd/105

Research problems:

1) What actions did school leaders take to create meaningful and lasting innovative change

in their schools?

2) To what extent and in what ways do the four elements of Transformational Leadership

Theory (TLT) describe the successful actions of principals in their efforts to improve the

performance of their schools?

3) Of the four elements of TLT, which stands out as the most significant approach to

improving schools?

4) What actions did school leaders take to create meaningful and lasting innovative change

in their schools that cannot be categorized by TLT?

Outline of the major research processes:

 The researcher began with an examination and analysis of each school’s school improvement
planning documents. Each document was viewed through the lens of transformational
leadership and was coded in such a way as to identify relevant actions.
 Focus schools are identified out of the same pool of Title 1 schools, but are ranked between the
lowest 5% and the lowest 15%.
 Three principals were selected as participants
 Using a method from visual ethnography, each principal was asked to take 8-12 photographs
that represented the changes that improved their school.
 Interviews were conducted with each principal using the photos as prompts for questioning. By
having the principals take the photographs with minimal instruction from the researcher, the
principals created surprising lines of inquiry. This technique is also called Visual Narrative Art
(VNA).
 All interview transcripts and collected documents were examined and coded in an effort to find
common themes of improvements.
  Most codes were derived from the four areas of transformational leadership theory, but some
additional codes were developed to describe action that were not described well by
transformational leadership theory.
 The specific cases were described and pattern matching was employed to develop meaning from
the collected data
 Schools and personnel were anonymous through the use of pseudonyms.

Outline of data analysis and interpretation

 All interview transcripts and documents were analyzed through thematic coding.
 The four distinct elements of transformational leadership theory guided the interview questions
and analysis of collected data.
 The four elements were further broken down into specific codes that helped categorize the
actions taken to improve the school.
 All interview transcripts and collected documents were examined and coded in an effort to find
common themes of improvements.
 The specific cases were described and pattern matching was employed to develop meaning from
the collected data

Outline of Conclusion:

 All three principals reviewed in this study overcame problematic aspects of professional
development by establishing systems that created a more scientific and collaborative model of
training. Deming insisted that training for company members must be job-embedded.
 Through this research process, the researcher has come to see that creating innovation in a
school isv about establishing clear goals, creating data systems to measure the progress on
achieving those goals, and developing a well-functioning team to focus their efforts on achieving
the goals.
 The researcher posed 18 questions that an administrator should consider as he or she plans to
build an innovative organization

Insights:

As a research technique, visual ethnography has considerable advantages. Using the photographs
allowed the researcher, to transcend time and place. The researcher was not bound to his direct
observations of events that happened in the moment, nor was the researcher left guessing about events
that happened behind closed doors. The photographs as artifacts made the interviews easy, productive,
and collaborative.

The technique is not without negative aspects. To validate the principals’ answers, the principal
interviews were triangulated with interviews of school improvement coaches that did not use visual
ethnography. The other challenge in this kind of approach is the busy schedules of the participants thus
the researcher is very dependent on their schedule.