English Literacy in Primary Schools and Instructional Leadership

Recently, a couple of researchers, Lih & Ismail, have introduced a study, which addresses the connection between the level of English literacy in primary schools and instructional leadership. According to them, in the context of present-day developments, literacy in the English language plays a crucial role in establishing a competitive workforce in Malaysia (Lih & Ismail, 2019). Highlighting the importance of this aspect, Lih & Ismail (2019) mention: “the Malaysian Ministry of Education (MoE) introduced screening for it in 2013, as part of the Literacy and Numeracy Screening (LINUS2.0) program” (p. 22). Some previously conducted researches provide evidence for the beneficial influence of instructional leadership. However, there is a lack of knowledge, as only a few studies in this regard address primary school students within Malaysia. Therefore, the authors were driven to provide an in-depth insight into this issue by the necessity to fulfill this research gap.

In order to pursue this aim, 694 teachers, who work in primary schools, were involved in the experiment. For evaluating the results in advance, the binary logistic regression method was used. In order to receive feedback from the participants, questionaries were applied. The answers were presented in a table, which made the analysis of data as easy as it was possible. Lih & Ismail (2019) concluded: “the schools were more than 17 times more likely to achieve 100% literacy rate when the headmasters supervised and evaluated instruction” (p. 31). Although this experiment seemed to be informative for revealing and analyzing the results, the authors encountered some problems. First of all, they report: “out of the 733, 38 cases were dropped” (Lih & Ismail, 2019, p. 27). Another difficulty implied the fact that the respondents did not fill all the questions in the asking form, which comprised approximately 10 percent of participants.

Therefore, it could be an advantageous solution to add an interview with particular respondents, whose answers were uncertain or unusual. Such a measure would allow to overcome the hardships faced by the researchers. In addition, it would be beneficial to provide a more in-depth insight into the topic of the impact of instructional leadership on student’s achievements. Thus, the analysis of the results would be as precise and valid as it is possible.

For this reason, there is the necessity to conduct another experiment in order to confirm the results of this test. In addition, the study supported the positive impact of instructional leadership on learning outcomes. The dimension, which was used, implied “supervising and evaluating instruction emerged as a strong predictor for 100% literacy rate in primary schools” (Lih & Ismail, 2019, p. 31). Consequently, further explorations should address the question of applying this approach in teaching practice (Lih & Ismail, 2019. It is essential to elaborate measures, which will benefit students and will not restrict them and teachers to a large extent. Moreover, other dimensions of instructional leadership and methods of implementing them in teaching practice may be investigated in further explorations. Therefore, the results of Binary Logistic Regression Analysis of Instructional Leadership Factors Affecting English Language Literacy in Primary Schools do not stand alone. They can be analyzed and used for improving the teaching approach in order to benefit the student’s achievements in the long run. However, in order to use them this way, it is essential to conduct further researches.

Reference

Lih, J. S. J., & Ismail, R. B. (2019). Binary logistic regression analysis of instructional leadership factors affecting English language literacy in primary schools. 3L: Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies, 25(2), 22–37.