Leadership Effects on ICT Integration by Primary School Teachers

With the rising demand for digital literacy in the current society, schools are increasingly tasked with improving this literacy in their students. Teachers are expected to use ICT in their classrooms to cater to this need. This study examined the relationships of three different leadership styles with ICT integration in the classroom by primary teachers in the Netherlands. Investigating the relationship between three leadership styles (transformational, adaptive, and servant) and ICT integration through motivation and competency, a three-phase explanatory-sequential mixed methods study was conducted. First, surveys (N = 544) were used to test the hypotheses, and second, focus groups (N=9) were conducted to contextualize the survey outcomes. Finally, the results of the focus groups were used to conduct a post hoc analysis of the survey data. Results demonstrated that while motivation and competency had a substantial and significant relationship with ICT integration, no relationship was found between ICT integration and any of the three leadership styles. Nonetheless, the focus groups revealed that teachers did experience that their level of ICT integration was associated with their school leaders' leadership traits, especially through motivation. However, the quantitative exploratory post hoc analysis based on these outcomes did not uncover this same result and showed that future research is required on this topic.