Leadership in large-scale international assessments—diminishing returns?

In this chapter we look at the role of leadership in Large-Scale International Assessment studies, such as PISA, TIMSS/PIRLS and TALIS. The most common aspects studied are instructional and distributed leadership, though in the PISA and TIMSS/PIRLS studies the emphasis on leadership has decreased in recent administrations to make place for newer concerns, but may also reflect difficulties in achieving cross-national invariance. It is also the case that studies into the relationship between the leadership variables in PISA/TIMSS/PIRLS and pupil attainment show mixed and unclear results, this in. contrast to most non-LISA studies. Implications of this are discussed.