Principal Leadership and Teacher Professional Development

​Higher education institutions play an important role in professional development of teachers and principals. Thus it is important to identify the contributing factors of professional development of teachers in order to design effective programs for it. This study aims to deepen the understanding of the relationship between principal leadership and teachers’ participation in PD activities across countries and cultures by analyzing teacher and school principal data collected by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The preliminary results indicate that bureaucratic rule-following leadership activities, framing and communicating the school’s goals and curricular development leadership activities had negative association with teachers’ participation of PD. Principals’ activities of promoting instructional improvements and professional development and taking accountability role had positive and significant association with teachers’ participation of PD. Principals’ supervision of the instruction in their schools had no significant effect on teachers’ PD participation.