The effectiveness of two e-learning modalities for school leader professional development in Rwanda

This study is based on a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) which is designed to evaluate the effectiveness of two e-learning modalities for improving the school leaders’ leadership skills in Rwandan secondary schools. Rwandan secondary education experiences a wide range of educational challenges including large repetition rate and low transition rates from primary. Professional leadership training programmes intents to improve leadership skills of the existing and aspiring school leaders and play a pivotal role in improving school quality.
In the RCT, we study a Continuous Professional Development (CPD) training programme for school leaders, delivered in an e-learning modality. Randomization into one of the two modalities took place at the sector level, in the first modality (the trainer-led group) trainees are guided by a trainer from the university of Rwanda - College of Education. In the other modality (the peer-led group) trainees were guided through different activities by their peers, with only occasional involvement of a trainer. The outcomes in the study measured before and after the training for school leaders include: (1) Barriers to e-learning (2) Job Satisfaction (3) Work tasks motivation (4) General self-efficacy (5) Motivation to learn (6) Instructional leadership (7) Transformational leadership (8) Leadership overall (9) Trust in school leaders (10) Distributed leadership. Additionally, teachers at these participating schools also received a questionnaire about their view on (6)-(10). Lastly, differences in performance in the examinations of the CPD program, differences in dropout and in participation in the e-learning modalities will be analysed as well.
Baseline findings suggested that on average background characteristics and pre-intervention outcomes are very similar between the two intervention groups, both at the school leader level and at the teacher level. In the presentation preliminary results with respect to all outcome measures, which are collected mostly in October 2021, will be shown.