Influence of principal’s instructional leadership on teacher performance in secondary schools of Thimphu district, Bhutan

The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of instructional leadership on level of teacher performance and to find out whether there was a statistically significant positive relationship between instructional leadership and teacher performance in the Lower secondary schools of Thimphu district in Bhutan. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used; a quantitative approach was conducted by using PIMRS questionnaires adopted from Hallinger, (1983) for instructional leadership and the researcher developed questionnaires for the teacher performance to collect data. There were 185 respondents from 6 Lower secondfor delivering quality lessons aligning the appropriate curriculum where teaching learning takesinterview with the principal and one most senior teacher from each school. The data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics consisting of frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation while content analysis was employed to analyze the interview data. The findings showed that the level of teacher performance was at the highest level and the instructional Leadership by the principal was a high level. The data indicated there was statistically significant positive relationship between Principals’ instructional leadership and teacher performance. Further, the results from the interviews supported statistical findings that teacher performance strongly correlated to instructional lprincipals' action to delegate teachers to improve chools/ Bhutan


Introduction
Principal, generally, is the instructional leader in school the responsible to set school goals, and communicate the goals to teacher for effective implementation and better teacher performance. Day, Gu, & Sammons (2016) posits that, an instructional leader supervises and evaluate instruction, monitor and support for high standard student performance, coach quality instruction, and enhance the professional development of the teachers to infuse the value of GNH in their daily lesson plan. Student performance depends on teachers' performance since they are the main actors in the classroom.
Teachers are responsible to deliver quality lessons aligning the appropriate curriculum where teaching learning take place with multiple us of teaching strategies and instructional skills to make students understand the lesson. Besides, teachers need support and cooperation from the principal and colleagues as well to enhance the subject knowledge. The mutual relationship of the instructional leadership by the principal towards teacher would help the teacher to perform well in the classroom where students academically achieve better (Lim, Bishen & Gurcharan, 2020). Therefore, principal's instructional leadership is imperative for the teacher performance in the classroom to achieve the school goals which has indirect effect to students learning.
Instructional leadership refers to teacher perception toward the action of principals to delegate teachers for improvement of students' learning. Instructional leadership has been known to effect educational achievement by improving the quality of classroom instructional hours. Hallinger (1990) studied ten functions of instructional leadership. The current study selected six functions relevant in the lower secondary schools in Bhutan.
Teacher performance refers to a teacher academic achievement in his/her related field (Lineburg, 2010). Teacher performance consisted of Classroom Management practices, Instructional Skills, Examination and Students Assessment, and Professional development as current practices in the lower secondary schools in Bhutan.
The Bhutanese Education System mandated Annual Education Conference to review educational policies for development of better system of education in Bhutan.

In 2003 the Department of Education decentralized Education Monitoring and Support
Services system to the district and school to enhance the quality provision of Education. It is through regular monitoring that the success of any programmed activities is ensured (EMSS, 2011). Furthur, as part of a education transformation within the teacher performance system, the Bhutan Professional Standards for Teachers (BPST) mandate principals and Head of Departments to conduct lesson observation of teachers through specific observation form (MoE, 2021). The principal's role as instructional leader has been strategized through requirements for teachers to fulfill specific performance indicators. Ministry of Education is committed to supporting schools and teachers to build their capacity and resources, and the schools instructional Leaders are expected to institutionalize the monitoring and support services as an integral part of school function. In recent times, importance of instructional leadership is placed on academic standards met by teacher performance.
More recently, Lyons (2010) wrote that instructional leadership on teacher performance has been extended to include deeper participation in the core business of schooling, which is teaching and learning.
While school performance was at forefront of discussion among educationists, there was no study on the perceptions to validate principal's performance and teachers' outcomes. Ministry of Education set various measurement indicators through Performance rating mechanism, Individual Work Plan and Monitoring System in the last few years. The current 'BPST' aims to rate and measure instructional leaders' performance and teacher's performance in the school as a response to public concerns on quality of education.
Therefore, the study of the influence of principal's instructional leadership roles on teacher performance attempts to compare relationship between the two with focus on two general questions: 1. What is the influence level of Principals' instructional Leadership on teacher performance in Thimphu District? 2. Is there relationship between instructional leadership and teacher performance in Thimphu District?

Literature review
According to Hallinger and Murphy (1986), types of leadership behaviors are categorized into transformational leadership, shared leadership, teacher leadership, instructional leadership and distributed leadership. Among these, instructional leadership is direct and focused on school goals, instruction and curriculum; but these are some of the theories behind principal leadership. Researchers underlie school performance on the leadership effectiveness as foundation for the growth of school institutions as a whole, indicating that learning gains vary significantly across the principal profiles (Bafadal, Ibrahim, Ahmad Nurabadi and Imam Gunawan, 2018;James Sebastian et al, 2019) Leading towards change is always uncomfortable for most people as it challenges their ideals, beliefs, habits, and present practices and methodologies. Fullan (2001) ascribes change as a necessity for moral purpose, for creating coherence, understanding the change process, creating knowledge and sharing, and relationships as being the framework for leadership to enhance teamwork, continuous improvement, trust building, and eradication of short term goals. Weber (1996) explained that establishing high expectation for performance by instructional leaders increase teachers' performance towards the school. The leaders, who provide the necessary supervision and evaluate instruction in managing the teachers' performance, have large impact on the work environment in the organization. Smith & Andrews (1989, as cited in Lyons, 2010 mentioned that teachers see principals as instructional leaders when they communicate school goals in the course of: (a) interacting with them on their classroom performance, (b) being accessible to discuss instructional strategies by letting them know that it is okay to take risks, and (d) clearly communicating a vision for the school". Further, Sheppard, (1996) reiterates that "Communicating school goals was found to positively affect the type of instruction teachers delivered" It is most vital for the principal to communicate the goals of the schools to teacher and to the whole members of the school to bring the achievements. James Sebastian et al (2019) highlight the principal's supervision of teacher performance as incremental to effective classroom instruction. Supervision includes observing the teacher's lesson or teaching in the classroom, conducting an instructional conference, and using professional development for classroom improvement.
Instructional leadership are responsible to understand varying concepts of curriculum, educational philosophies and beliefs, curricular sources and conflicts, and curriculum evaluation and improvement areas for teacher performance. Hallinger (2011) concludes that coordination and control of the academic programmes of school are also key leadership responsibilities of the principal. Sim, (2011) showed the existence of concordance between the level of instructional leadership and the level of students' academic achievement of school. It is essentially crucial for leaders to increase competencies and skills in their practice of instructional leadership at the school (Lim, Bishen & Gurcharan, 2020).
Principals who practice instructional leadership have been active in leading and directing teachers to carry out professional development and produced statistical effects on teachers' professional learning competence. Therefore, Herawati & Tjahjono (2020) concludes that effective school principals are the ones who act as instructional leadership: understanding the curriculum, managing teachers and active learning, conducting clinical supervision, and making an effort in the development and assessment of teaching and education personnel.

Research methodology
The research methods adopted were quantitative and qualitative approaches. The quantitative study was conducted using PIMRS questionnaires adopted from Hallinger (1983) for instructional leadership. The qualitative study was conducted by in-depth interview with the principals and purposively nominated teachers from each school.

Population.
The sample of the study included 185 teachers who responded to the questionnaires via paper and online survey. The qualitative questionnaire consisted of four functions totalling 25 items as detailed in the table1 below. The respondents were asked to rate each statement in terms of their opinion/observation of the teacher performance over the past school year. The questionnaires for instructional leadership practices were adopted from PIMRS tools developed by Hallinger (1983) to fit to Bhutanese Education system. It consisted of six functions of instructional leadership with five items in each function that describes the principal job practices in the school (refer table 2). The mean score rated the level of performance for principals that was compared to teacher performance (refer table 3). Table 3 The meaning of score, (Best, 1977).

Data collection
The focus group, principals and teachers, were interviewed by the researcher in a 15 minutes meeting session to enable correct and specific gathering of themes.

Data Analysis
The data was analysed to study the general information of the respondents by using descriptive statistics like frequency, mean and standard deviation. It explored the relationship between Principal's instructional leadership and teacher performance by 104 | bjrd using Pearson's correlation. The researcher interpreted the qualitative study data by using content analysis for the result of the in-depth interview conducted to the six principals and six teachers.

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were eight items in this function and all items had the level of highest score in the mean as precisely shown in the table above with mean and standard deviation against each items.

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showed highest level with mean scores of 4.70 where as "Teacher uses ICT for teaching purposes" showed the lowest mean score of 4.08.

Level of instructional leadership with functions and items.
It was found that the overall level of Principal's instructional leadership with an average means of 4.13 which was high level (refer  Table 9 showed that the total average of the instructional leadership to frame the school goals was highest with the mean score of 4.28. Out of five items, four items showed highest level and only one item showed high. "Frame the school's goals in terms of staff responsibilities for meeting them" has the highest score with a mean of 4.36 and "Use needs assessment or other formal and informal methods to secure staff input on goal development" has the lowest score with the mean of 4.16  The following Table 10 showed the dimension to communicate the school goals and the total average is highest level with the mean score of 4.26. There were total of five items in this function. "Discuss the school's academic goals with teachers at faculty meetings" Showed the highest level mean score of 4.45 and "Refer to the school's mission in forums with students (e.g., in assemblies or discussion)" showed the lowest with a mean score of 4.11.

Tables 11 showed the function of supervise and Evaluate Instruction in
Instructional Leadership and the total average of the practices based on five items were high level with a mean score of 3.95. There were five items and all the items level of mean scores were high level with the mean scores of 4.19, 4.14, 3.85, 3.79, and 3.80 respectively. "Ensure that the classroom priorities of teachers are consistent with the goals and direction of the school" has the highest score with a mean of 4.19 and "Point out specific strength in teacher's instructional practices in postobservation feedback (e.g., in conferences or written evaluations)" lowest score with the mean of 3.79.  Table 12 showed to coordinate the curriculum in Instructional Leadership and the total average of the practices is with the mean scores of 4.09 which is high level.
There were five items "Make clear who is responding for coordinating the curriculum across grade levels (e.g., the principal, Vice principal, or teacher-leaders)" showed the highest level with a mean of 4.25 whereas "Assess the overlap between the school's curricular objectives and the school's achievement test" showed lowest level with a mean score of 3.98. Table12 showed that the total average of the instructional leadership practices to monitor student's progress with a mean score of 4.07 which indicates that the level was high. There were five items in this dimension and "Inform students of school's academic progress" showed the highest level with a mean sore of 4.26 where as "The Principal use tests and other performance measurement to assess progress toward school goals" showed the lowest among the five items with a mean score of 3.84.  Table 13 showed the total average mean score of instructional leadership to promote professional development with an average mean of 4.14 and the overall level was high. There were five items in this function and two items showed highest level 113 | bjrd and three items showed high level as shown in the above table. Among five items "Obtain the participation of the whole staff in important in-service activities" showed the highest level with a mean score of 4.25 and "Lead or attend teacher in-service activities concerned with instruction" showed the lowest level with a mean score of 4.06. Teacher performance 0.66** (P=00) 1.00 **Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed)

Content Analysis from the Interview.
Principal's role as an instructional leader was seen to important when teachers are involved to establish school goals.
A Principal said, "School goals are set through a series of staff forum like collaborative discussion and planning, analyzing the pros and cons of the set goals.
This provided clarity of direction and purpose that aligned to their classroom teaching." To make teacher' role effective, the leader has to be dynamic, a good listener, collaborative decision maker, forward learning and patient. The report concluded that "Providing moral support, acknowledging good work and giving encouragement, complements performance by teachers." Principals are the main source of inspiration for both the teachers and students.
An instructional leader influences teacher input through his leadership qualities. A teacher noted: "My principal creates a healthy and conducive environment by giving proper guidance and direction, passing unbiased judgment and applying the rules indiscriminately. An interactive leader influences how teacher perform in a self-directed way. " The consistency in report proved that principals' instructional leadership improve teacher performance in the Lower Secondary schools of Thimphu district in Bhutan.

Overall Level of teacher performance in the lower secondary schools in
Thimphu district in Bhutan.
From the findings, the overall teacher performance in the lower secondary schools of Thimphu district in Bhutan was at highest level with a total mean of 4.39. Within the four functions, the teachers' perception toward the examination and students assessment was at a highest level with the highest mean of 4.67, followed by classroom management practices which were at highest level with the mean of 4.47. The teachers perceived that professional growth and development has the lowest level among the four functions with a mean of 4.07.The findings were similar to the concept by the researchers like Smith, (2003), the ability of teachers to organize classroom and manage the behavior of their students is critical to achieving positive outcomes for the student's achievements and the teacher success in performing his/her lesson.
In effect, the current research finding shows that there is a positive relation between influence of an Instructional leadership and teacher performance.The overall perception of the teachers on principal's instructional leadership in the lower secondary schools of Thimphu district in Bhutan was at a high level with a total mean of 4.13.
Within the six functions of principal's instructional leadership practices, framing school goals was at high level with a mean of 4.28, followed by teachers' perception towards communicating the school goals at a high level withmean of 4.26.The need for educational reform raised worldwide through enhanced recognition of school effectiveness, and standard-based accountability systems in the twenty-first century highlights importance of principals' instructional leadership (Hou., Cui., & Zhang, 2019) in the modern education systems.
This finding support Blase, & Blase (2000) (2011); the result indicated that instructional leadership statistically has a significant influence upon all the factors of the school culture and significant relationship on teacher performance to achieve student learning.
From the findings of the principals and teachers interview, it was found that there was a strong positive relationship between the instructional leadership functions of frame the school goals and communicate the school goals to the teachers. Monitor students progress has the least relationship and in teacher performance function classroom management practices, examination and students assessment has more positive relationship whereas instructional skills and professional development has less relationship. Cheryl, Joel & Deborah (2009) however found that professional development programme has been a strong predictor in instructional leadership processes. Therefore, in the current study, principals' instructional leadership functions are more focus on the teacher performance related to student's achievement, and less focus on the curriculum and professional development which are not so much related to student achievement.

Conclusions
This study was designed to study the influence of instructional leadership and teacher performance in the lower secondary schools of Thimphu district in Bhutan The data collection instrument for the instructional leadership was conducted using PIMRS questionnaire, adopted from Hallinger, (1983) based on six instructional leadership functions and with slide modification by the researcher to fit in the situation and the researcher developed questionnaires for teacher performance based on the four functions in accordance with its use in actual situation in Bhutan.
The teachers' perception towards the level of teacher performance was measured by four functions consisting of Classroom management practices, Instructional skills, examination and student's assessment and professional growth development.
From the findings, the overall level of teacher performance was at highest level with an average mean score of 4.39 indicating correlation between principal's instructional leadership in teacher performance. In the measure of teachers' perception towards principal's instructional leadership as influential factor, the findings of study showed high level with a total mean score of 4.13.
The principal's instructional leadership and teacher performance significantly correlated at the level of p= .01 and r=.66. There was statistically positive relationship between principal's instructional leadership and teacher performance in the Lower Secondary Schools of Thimphu district in Bhutan.