Principal instructional leadership for teacher participation in professional development: evidence from Japan, Singapore, and South Korea

We investigated the relationship between principal instructional leadership and teacher participation in multiple types of professional development in Japan, Singapore, and South Korea. Using the Teaching and Learning International Survey dataset of 2013, we employed two-level logistic regression models to estimate the rigorous effects of principal instructional leadership that were separated out from teacher-level effects. We found that the influence of principal instructional leadership on teachers’ participation in professional development varied across types of learning activities and countries. Our analysis suggests that principal instructional leadership can influence teachers’ participation in mentoring, mentoring, peer observation, and coaching compared to the other types of professional development. Our study builds on and extends research on cross-national characteristics of teacher learning by adding evidence about the relations between principal leadership and teacher professional development in the three Asian countries.