Teachers as Strategic Classroom Leaders: The Relationship of Their Cognitive and Behavioral Agility to Student Outcomes and Performance Evaluations

The purpose of this non-experimental study was to determine whether teacher
cognitive and behavioral agility relates to student achievement as measured by their
value-added model (VAM) score and their performance evaluation measured through the
Marzano instructional practice (IP) framework, and whether that relationship is
moderated by contextual variables. Cognitive agility, measured through the Strategic
Thinking Questionnaire for Teachers (STQ T TM), refers to the leader’s ability to use their
repertoire of thinking skills. Behavioral agility, measured with the Strategic Leadership
Questionnaire for Teachers (SLQ T TM), relates to the leader’s ability to use a wide array of
leader influencing actions. Teacher VAM score is the percent of the teacher’s students
that met or exceeded a statistically predicted score on the end of year assessment.
Teacher IP scores were also collected and were based on classroom walkthroughs, and
other factors, conducted by their respective school-based administrator(s). The study included 75 teacher participants at the middle and high school levels
and used correlational, linear regression, moderator, and mediation statistical analyses.
The research findings indicate that cognitive agility continues to be a significant predictor
of behavioral agility and that both cognitive and behavioral agility were significantly
related to VAM or IP in teachers over the age of 50. Additionally, VAM scores
significantly increased through the use of reframing and IP scores increased when
utilizing bridging leader actions. However, it was also found that VAM scores were
negatively correlated to the managing leader actions in the total population.