JREPT: Vol 4 No 2

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https://bspace.buid.ac.ae/handle/1234/1925

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The Attributes of School Leaders in a Time of Crisis: An Exploratory Case Study of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Saudi Arabia
(The British University in Dubai (BUiD), 2021-11) Alomair, Latifah; Fernandes, Venesser
The Coronavirus pandemic is a crisis that has fundamentally changed the fabric of school leadership globally. School leaders are required to work to mitigate the effects of this crisis through their demonstration of effective leadership attributes. Currently, a few western studies highlight the attributes of school leader’s desirable in a time of disruption, but their findings have little relevance to middle-eastern contexts. This study addresses such gap by focusing on the exploration of leadership attributes of Saudi Arabian school leaders demonstrated during the COVID-19 pandemic. It focuses on the importance of human leadership as a part of school crisis leadership. Using an exploratory case study approach, a qualitative open-ended questionnaire was administered to a sample of Saudi Arabian school principals to explore their school leadership attributes exercised during the crisis. It was found that the circumstances imposed by the pandemic had a strong influence on their leadership attributes and their responses to the crisis. Nine leadership attributes found that leaders have: become more eager for development, learnt to remain calm, endured stress and difficulties, become more compassionate, supportive, strategic, emotionally intelligent, intuitive and better communicators. They found that these attributes helped them succeed in managing the crisis by better understanding micro and macro aspects of their schools. The findings highlight leadership qualities required for stronger school leadership within Saudi Arabian schools during periods of rapid change, and may benefit those involved in school leadership development and principal preparation in Middle-eastern contexts.
Can Leadership-coaching Mind-set Substitute that of Crisis Management in Higher Education?
(The British University in Dubai (BUiD), 2021-11) Chaika, Oksana
The purpose of this research lies with exploration of the contrast between management (crisis management) and leadership styles in senior to junior levels of communication in higher education across Ukraine. The term ‘crisis management’ includes the three stages, i.e. pre-crisis, crisis per se, and post-crisis management in higher education. The hypotheses are to examine the extent to which crisis management style prevails over leadership or vice versa in current educational settings and implementation feasibility of coaching educational culture along with leadership. This study mainly used a qualitative approach to reach the set objectives under the research aim. The evidence obtained in the course of initial stage of the experiment and study demonstrates a huge gap between best practices in theory and practical innovations in and around the country. Identified decrease in performance excellence in the times of pandemic in higher education proves a burning need for changing styles in leading an educational institution, teaching and learning modes. Conclusion suggests moving from the known pre-crisis, crisis, and post-crisis management to the tactical leadership coaching, situational and strategic leadership coaching styles, respectively.
Editorials: Leading Education in Times of Crisis: Perils or Opportunities?
(The British University in Dubai (BUiD), 2021-11) Abukari, Abdulai; David, Solomon Arulraj
Implications on Educational Management During the COVID-19 Pandemic
(The British University in Dubai (BUiD), 2021-11) Alfalasi, Khulood; David, Solomon Arulraj; Tamim, Rana M.
Education sector faced a significant transition recently, shifting from face-to-face classes to online classes due to the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic's consequences affected teaching and learning and negatively influenced students' psychological well-being. This study aimed to explore the pandemic's impact on undergraduate students' academic stress, especially as related to their academic performance. Furthermore, the students' coping strategies during the pandemic, if any, were investigated. The researcher used a mixed-method approach, and surveyed 191 participants from the College of Education (COE) and students from other colleges enrolled in elective courses in the COE in one selected university in the UAE. The qualitative data was collected through a focus group discussion with seven COE undergraduate students doing their internship. The key findings showed that the xenophobia factor (the fear of strangers) causes the highest stress levels, and students reported that workload and time constraint factors were top stressors. Also, A-range students (students with a GPA of 3.7 and above) were significantly less stressed than B-range students (GPA of 2.7–3.3). First-year students were significantly more stressed than second-year, third-year, and fourth-year students. It was found that internship students expressed their stress and anxiety due to the change to online education caused by the pandemic. Single site focus was a key limitation of the study and it was recommended to increase the number of sites and samples. In conclusion, this study helped educational leadership and psychologists to better understand students' needs and create innovative educational platforms.
The Integration of AI and ICT in the Learning Environment: Education Leaders’ Perception
(The British University in Dubai (BUiD), 2021-11) Khansaheb, Khulood Shebib Hussain A
This research paper investigates the perspectives of education leaders regarding the introduction and integration of technology in the learning environment. The COVID-19 pandemic’s ramifications to the traditional, in-person learning environment was considered as key impetus for the study. The research used an exploratory approach to survey education leaders (n = 70) in Dubai drawn from 8 private schools from secondary down to elementary school. The total student population of these schools was approximately 29,000. Through an author-designed self-administered 61-item, 5-point Likert scale survey instrument, the research collected primary evidence of the perspectives of education leaders regarding the impact of introduction and integration of AI and ICT in the learning environment. The research found that, integration of AI and ICT in the learning environment had a positive impact on learning and teaching. The availability of AI and ICT capabilities played a significant role in transforming the learning paradigm from teacher-centered to student-centered. Generally, education leaders were persuaded that AI and ICT would help in shaping future learning directions and bring about a new generation of students identifiable as ‘digital natives’ with horizontal classroom participation using ICT and AI tools as opposed to the traditional learning approach. The current paper therefore, proposes the need for integration of AI and ICT into the learning environment at the current backdrop of a global pandemic to shape the forthcoming horizontal, teaching and learning paradigm that will prepare students for a competitive and increasingly pluralistic world.
Leadership-style and Personality-attributes Relationship among Leaders of two American Curriculum Private Schools in Dubai
(The British University in Dubai (BUiD), 2021-11) Khreibi, Rima Abou
School leaders’ interaction with stakeholders is a dynamic process with interdependent factors, where leaders provide guidance to achieve best outcomes. Studying leadership-style and personality-attributes association is the focus of this study, guided by three research questions. The first question investigated the leadership-styles of leaders within the two American curricula private school in Dubai. The second and third questions examined and explored the degree of laissez-faire, transactional and transformational leadership-styles relationship with the Big Five personality-attributes within the schools. A mixed method approach consisted of a quantitative phase, involved the use of the Multi-Factor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ:6S- Self) to measure the leadership-styles, and the use of the Ten Item Personality Inventory (TIPI) to look at personality-attributes, while qualitative phase triangulated the data collected by exploring how the personality-attributes contribute to leadership-style through semi-structured interviews. The findings indicated that transactional and transformational leadership-styles had high positive correlation and were moderately and highly represented among two school leaders, while laissez-faire was low and moderately represented. The relationship between degree of leadership-styles and the magnitude of the personality-attributes varied, transformational leadership was positively correlated to openness, conscientiousness, and agreeableness, while no significant correlation existed with transformational leadership, extroversion, and emotional-stability. Transactional leadership-style had no significant association with all attributes. Laissez-faire was negatively associated with transactional, transformational leadership and personality-attributes similar. The interviews confirmed and triangulated the strength of the magnitude of transformational leadership-style exhibited in both schools and the related personality-attributes.
A Strategic Perspective to Leadership Implications by Process Paradigm: An Empirical Study
(The British University in Dubai (BUiD), 2021-11) Parameswaran, Hima
Increasingly, organizations have realized that to bring about effective change, they need to emphasize leadership strategies. While leadership theories focus on key characteristics of the leadership experience, the leadership development interventions are not related to structural contingencies, and rarely connected to a particular leadership theory. The present study provides an integrated framework for linking leadership theories with specific developmental interventions. Accordingly, it was conducted in randomly selected companies in the UAE with the help of a closed-ended questionnaire. A stratified proportional sampling from 300 observations offers outlooks of employees in their organizational leadership styles. Also, a descriptive analysis using SPSS 24.0 maintains the significance level of the latent variables such as process paradigm and strategic human resource development to the independent variable, leadership interventions. The findings confirm the alignment of models extracted from the theories to the variables discussed in the questionnaire. Thus, the study proves that while responding to internationalization and rapid changes in the external environment, adopting a strategic-management approach to the provision of leadership is crucial. However, it also enlightens that the selected companies should restructure the traditional HRM function into strategic, operational, and functional levels. To operationalize the process, the existing HR strategies need to redesign with company strategies, right from HR practices, policies, and productivity goals. Future studies can be rendered by developing new strategies by leadership implications with optimal workforce utilization.

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