Technology Leadership: Exploring Professional Development, School Leaders and Student Learning in Malaysia

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has tremendous potential to have a significant and positive impact on students’ educational processes and outcomes. However, research indicates that successful technology integration in teaching and learning is unlikely to happen without the support and guidance of school leaders. Leadership plays an important role -both directly and indirectly- in implementing and integrating instructional technology in schools. Increasingly, school leaders are expected to have the necessary knowledge, skills, and dispositions to leverage technology in a manner that promotes and improves students’ learning. One of the approaches is through quality professional development, as it is able to influence both school leaders’ expertise and their practices. That said, while there is widespread recognition that technology leadership is important, little is known about how it influences student learning and in what ways ICT professional development contributes to the development of effective technology leaders. This initial doctoral research aimed at addressing this gap in the literature by investigating technology leadership in three distinct phases: 1. The design and delivery of ICT professional development programmes for school leaders; 2. The knowledge, skills and dispositions of school leaders with respect to technology leadership, and; 3. The way that school leaders influence the teaching and learning processes in schools by establishing, monitoring and sustaining technology integration. Ultimately, the goal of the study is to (a) develop a conceptual framework that will deepen our understanding of these various aspects of technology leadership and (b) provide practitioners, scholars and professional development providers with actionable recommendations for improved practice. The study is conducted in Malaysia, using a comparative mixed-method case study approach grounded in a constructivist paradigm. In order to better understand scarce and abundant technological resources, the study will include four secondary schools, two rural and two urban.