From “School Leadership” To “Principal Continuing Professional Development”

Since the 21 st century,with the implementation and promotion of a series of international education investigation projects,the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development(OECD)has gradually turned its “education” function from the edge to the center and implemented the global governance of education.Following the Programme for International Student Assessment(PISA),OECD has carried out another transnational survey in the field of basic education——International Teaching and Learning Survey(TALIS),which is the first time that OECD has taken teachers and principals as research objects.In this TALIS survey,the principals of primary and secondary schools are selected as the research object,mainly focusing on the two themes of principal’s “School Leadership” and “Principal Continuing Professional Development”.Based on the basic overview of the connotation,theory and mode construction of the research on the principals of primary and secondary schools in TALIS,the rise and development of the research on the principals of primary and secondary schools in TALIS,this paper combs the survey design and result analysis of TALIS2008,TALIS2013 and TALIS2018 from the survey implementation process,survey dimensions and indicators,survey influencing factors and result analysis system respectively,highlighting that the research logic of primary school principals in TALIS has been changing from “School Management” in TALIS2008 to “School Leadership” in TALIS2013,and then to“Principal Continuing Professional Development” in TALIS2018.Based on the above systematic exposition,this paper analyzes and summarizes the overall characteristics of the research on principals for primary and secondary schools in TALIS,including from“leadership” to “continuing professional development”;From “student achievement only” to “benefit to multiple subjects”;from “policy review” to “ask for principals’ opinion”.At the same time,it reveals the problems existing in the research of principals for primary and secondary schools in TALIS,such as “fragmentation” of school leaders research;the research direction falls into “strange circle effect”;the research method unilaterally advocates “indexation”.Finally,based on the above analysis,it is pointed out that in the future,China can improve the research and training of principals from three aspects: building the top-level design of continuing professional development of principals,leading the development of principals in an all-round way by virtue of "Shanghai confidence",and combining quantitative research with qualitative research.