Exploring instructional leadership practices in selected centers of excellence – Colleges of nursing in the Philippines: A multicase study design

• Main Author: Roa, Mary Nellie T.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2022
• Subjects: Educational leadership—Philippines; Effective teaching—Philippines; Nursing—Study and teaching—Philippines; Educational Leadership
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etdd_elmd/21; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1018&context=etdd_elmd
• Institution: De La Salle University

One primary emphasis in the educational arena in the early 21st century has been the continuing demand for greater accountability to increase student performance. National and state expectations require schools to ensure that all students achieve mastery of curriculum objectives, and local schools focus on implementing those requirements to the best of their ability (Stronge et al., 2016). In the Philippines, one of the performance indicators is the high results in the board examination. To achieve this, schools enforce academic standards and reinforce these internal standards which come from the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) that details the exemplary academic practices for the stakeholders to adapt, if not adopt towards holistic academic operations. Another regulatory body that administers the licensure examination of graduates is the Professional Regulatory Commission (PRC) which determines the performance of school offerings, for instance, the Bachelor of Science in Nursing through the Nurse Licensure Examination (NLE). At present, there are 366 Higher Education Institutions (HEI) offering the Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) in the country. Among the 366 HEI, four PHEIs (Private Higher Education Institutions) and two SUCs (State Universities and Colleges) are recognized by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) as Centers of Excellence (COE) in Nursing. These CEOs in Nursing have been consistently recognized as top-performing schools in the last ten years. However, in the last ten years, the nursing licensure examination averages only to 35% national passing rate. The Philippine Board of Nursing begins to speculate why the nurse licensure performance is relatively low in the previous years. They questioned the leadership and management of school administrators of HEIs and, more importantly, the kind of instructional leadership the school administrators and instructors have practiced and applied to the nursing students. The study has allowed the deans and clinical coordinators of the College of Nursing to assess themselves and how they have provided quality instruction to the students through the three dimensions of instructional leadership. The pursuit of this ultimate goal will likely direct the students to achieve outstanding academic performance in the board examination through the sufficient leadership skill of the Dean and clinical coordinators. Hence, the researcher is inspired to explore the instructional leadership of COE-CONs and to develop a framework rooted in the COE-CONs. This framework will serve as a guide to improve the instructional leadership of the nursing deans and clinical instructors. This study sought to explore the instructional leadership practices from the lens of nursing deans and clinical coordinators in selected Center of Excellence – Colleges of Nursing in the Philippines (COE-CON). This study utilized the multi-case study to explore the meaning and essence of instructional leadership along with the comprehensive model of instructional leadership developed by Hallinger and Murphy in 2015, proposes three broad dimensions of the instructional leadership construct: defining the school’s mission, managing the instructional program, and promoting a positive school learning climate that would serve as the basis for a rich, exploratory study. The instructional leadership of the Dean, has a significant effect on how she/he touch the hearts and mind of the entire people in the nursing program. Overall, each case presented the instructional leadership dimensions and its fundamental elements encompasses the philosophy of the universities. With all these dimensions in perspective and acculturated, the dimensions are indoctrinated in the educative system, becomes part of the core values, and the culture of the university. The instructional leadership of the Nursing Deans and coordinators evolved to a new dimension, and emerged three themes which are: realizing the university culture in the realms of Nursing; personifying the core beliefs of the university; and duty to pursue the university culture of quality. These shift of instructional leadership dimensions positioned the Deans and coordinators from trained leaders to leaders who ultimately, illuminate the virtue of caring leadership and excellence as the core of instructional leadership practices of centers of excellence colleges of Nursing in the Philippines. The three instructional leadership dimensions were embedded into the culture making it engage in the level of the nursing faculty. As a nurse leader of a learning homage, it is the goal of an educational leader to provide caring, competent and competitive professionals in the global market, and with the current circumstances in the education arena, education leaders must illuminate a powerful charisma to take the lead and move the academe towards the direction of the institution, amidst global challenges and changes in the education realm. With all these in perspective, the instructional leadership of the nursing leaders is a symbol of illuminating the core of nursing, which is caring. Keywords: Instructional Leadership, Center of Excellence, College of Nursing, Translating, Realizing, Personifying, Duty and Illuminating Caring