Principals’ Instructional Leadership Practices and Their Relationship to Teachers’ Instructional Practices in Sharjah Schools.

Instructional leadership has become one of the most widely researched topics. This type of leadership has been connected to teacher growth and development, teacher job satisfaction, student achievement, and improving school climate in general. This study focuses on instructional leadership in schools of Sharjah Education Zone. Specifically, the study aims to describe the principal instructional leadership practices, to identify the most and least important teachers’ instructional practices, and to investigate whether there is a relationship between the principals’ instructional practices and teachers’ teaching practices. This study is quantitative in nature and therefore a questionnaire was used to collect data from teachers in 24 schools in Sharjah. The sample was 111 male and 269 female teachers with a total of 380 teachers. The study found that principals in Sharjah schools practice certain tasks of instructional leadership more than others. For example, they care more for framing the school goals, providing incentives for learning, and evaluating instruction than maintaining high visibility, protecting instructional time, and providing incentives for teachers. With regards to teachers’ instructional practices, it was found that teachers focus on certain practices more than others. They provide attention to students working in groups, stating the lesson goals, checking students’ exercise books than, for example, asking students to write essays to demonstrate their creative ideas, giving them projects that last for some time, and holding debates in the classrooms. Finally, the study found a positive relationship between principals’ instructional leadership practices and teachers’ teaching practices. In other words, when the principal attends to certain leadership practices, the teacher gives more attention to certain instructional practices. This relationship was stronger in areas of monitoring students’ progress, providing incentives for teachers and protecting teachers’ instructional time