Describing the potential and detailing the failures of using technology-based methodologies to study school leader time use

Abstract

Decades of research have demonstrated the critical contribution of school leaders to both school performance and student outcomes. Although researchers have identified the importance of school leaders, they have not specified malleable factors that reliably account for their performance (Reynolds et al., 2014). One of the more promising areas of study has examined the activities and behaviors of school leaders (Grissom, Loeb, & Master, 2013). For more than a century, scholars have examined how school leaders allot their time to address the demands of their schools (McMurry, 1913; Sebastian, Camburn, & Spillane, 2018). Despite substantial technological advancements since the first study of school leader time use (SLTU), the means of data collection have remained largely unchanged (Hochbein et al., 2018). To study SLTU, researchers have relied on observation and self-report data collection techniques (Horng, Klasik, & Loeb, 2010). Although researchers have implemented a variety of research designs to address validity threats stemming from data collection limitations (e.g., May, Huff, & Goldring, 2012), they have not exploited technological advancements to substantially improve or change the study of SLTU.